Debellation

**Debellation** is the removal of one nation or state's ability to make war in any recoverable capacity. It is fundamentally different from **conquest** or **victory** in that after a nation or state has been debellated, it will cease to exist.

Debellation is a very serious security, legal, legislative, ecological, and cultural process that is not undertaken lightly. Only in cases where a nation has proven itself rogue, rebellious, or militant will even the quietest hint of a discussion about anyone even *thinking* about debellation will occur.

## What it is

There are several key steps to debellation.

* **Demilitarisation.** Weapons and the right to own, produce, or maintain weapons or weapon systems will be removed from both the nation and/or the state, and citizens or denizens of that nation or state will also lose these rights. *The nation's people will have no way to fight in the name of that nation.*
* **Deprivation.** After an area has been subjected to the debellatio, it will not have any economic power left in it. Factories will be decommisioned, machinery will be made inoperable, and all places which are in any way capable of production will be rendered inert, usually through their wholesale destruction. *The nation's people will have no way to rebuild that nation.*
* **Depopulation.** All intelligent life that is citizen to the geographic territory of the designated state will be exiled from that geographic territory. This includes persons whose citizenship has lapsed, or who no longer associate with the nation or state. *The nation's people will have nowhere to call home.*
* **Defenestration.** All offices, peerages, titles, privileges, and rights, unique to that nation/state will be declared null and void, and any physical property which confers such things will be destroyed and invalidated. This includes regalia, both magic and mundane, as well as any land or property deeds or papers. *The nation's rules and rulers will cease to exist.*
* **Reclamation.** The debellated territory will be depopulated for so long a time as nature may require for her to re-assert her dominance over that territory. The process is indefinite, but a minimum period of 500 years is enforced. *The nation will cease to exist.*

This process of the thorough destruction of the nation/state can be directed only at the nation which is subject to debellation, and no other nation/state regardless of affiliation; however association of any kind can still result in collateral damages. For example, if a city is subject to debellation, all of its assets are to be destroyed and/or removed. This WILL include things like bank accounts in foreign countries, or property which is held in trust. When a nation or state is designated for debellation, it is not permitted that any of its property be held by any power other than The System itself, which will then liquidate any assets in as destructive a method as possible while allowing some of their value to be recuperated. Gold sceptres will be melted into coins, statues will be broken down and used as concrete filler, etc.

## How it Works

Debellation is very heavily debated by all branches of The System's government. It must be clear, apparent, and obvious to each branch that debellation is the appropriate course of action, since committing to the debellation of a realm will most assuredly result in riotous violence to say the very least.

After a motion of debellation receives sovereign assent, then the unified security forces immediately deploy in as great a force as they require to arrest the nation's citizenry. Each part of the debellation order is valid the instant it receives sovereign assent, so every citizen is summarily arrested and shipped as far away from their homeland as possible to await trial and sentencing. This process of arrest and detainment will continue until the nation's territories are entirely depopulated. As the arrests are being made, all property which can be moved is shipped to the Supreme Judicial Authority where its ownership is confirmed and assessed, and the fate of those items is decided. After all movable property is cleared from an area, property which cannot move is destroyed or decommissioned, and buildings and houses are deconstructed and their materials are salvaged, even if only as fuel. It is the intent of debellation that anyone who returns to a debellated country should find only barren landscape, which nature is now free to reclaim. The country has been "given back" since humanity has been found unfit for stewardship over the land.

## Criteria for Debellation

The critera for debellation are that the nation/state in question be acting in a highly anti-social and destructive manner which is has shown no willingness and/or ability to improve upon.

It is not necessary that each of the listed criteria be met, nor is it necessary that the offending nation be truly impactful in its transgressions. Ijzerian law does not distinguish between "attempted crimes" and "crimes", there is no such thing as "attempted murder" on Ijzeria, charges and punishments do not change based on the success rate of the offender.

The criteria which must be met are;

1. **State Criminal Enterprise** - Those nations and states which engage in criminal activity as a core cultural practise demonstrate continually an overt disdain and disrespect for their fellow beings and the planet which they share.
	* This criterion is important as it allows The System to dismantle criminal organisations which have managed to grow in scale such that they have become synonymous with the government of their homeland.
	* An example would be a hypothetical nation which resorts to funding illicit activities like smuggling or piracy against other nations in order to acquire wealth or status. Just because the pirates have a "king" doesn't mean they have diplomatic immunity.
2. **State Philosophical Corruption** - Those nations and states which openly advocate for the stripping or limiting of rights and freedoms based on station or preference, regardless of stated intent or ability to enact such limits or restrictions.
	* This criterion is important as it allows for nations which are preparing to go to war, and allows for The System to intervene before such a war has the sociopolitical means to proceed. Although it is the right of all Ijzerians to ask questions and receive coherent, clear, and concise answers from their governments; it is not within the rights of Ijzerians to advocate or demand the abrogation or erasure of the rights of other Ijzerians, using the powers of their governments.
	* An example would be a hypothetical nation which desires the territories of another nation, and neither wishes to wait and inherit those territories, nor does it wish to pay for those territories, and so instead tries to convince its citizens and its allies that the foreign nation does not deserve its territories or that its population is inherently unworthy or treacherous. One may not invent crimes so that their enemies are guilty, and doing so on a national scale can result in dire consequences, and no person is ever under any circumstances required to justify their existence.
3. **State-Sanctioned Violence** - Those nations who through action allow people or property to come to harm for gain or spite, or through gross indifference to the dignity and rights of people or property allow harm to befall them through inaction.
	* This criterion is important as it pre-empts political violence and ensures that states understand their responsibility to enforce civility and mutual respect amongst their people and their peers. All governments are answerable to all peoples, there is no "us" versus "them", this kind of thinking has no place on Ijzeria.
	* An example would be either a hypothetical nation who decriminalises violence, either against a particular group, or in general; or a hypothetical nation which does not provide critical aide to its neighbours or to its people. Governments which do not continually prove their value to the people they serve can be subject to reorganisation.
4. **Armament and Travesty** - Those nations who through action or inaction allow their people to engage in the practise of unlawful militarisation, or who through action or inaction allow their people to believe that unlawful militarisation is an achievable and desirable solution to any problems.
	* This criterion is important as it makes it clear that merely possessing the ability to make war will automatically put a country on The System's watchlist. There is much more to this criterion than it first seems, but there are many limitations and restrictions which govern the sale and production of weapons, the teaching of martial and arcane arts, and the discussion and exploration of military action. In general Ijzerian society, the very idea of "war" is completely alien, it is an inconceivable evil that would never be pursued as a resolution to conflict.
	* An example would be a hypothetical nation which is purchasing or producing arms and armour at a rate which is not allowed by Systemic law. This alone is a serious and dangerous offence, but if it were discovered that such materiel were intended to be used in a credible and plausible threat to life and prosperity, then the consequences would be historic.
	* Ijzerian law does not allow for a distinction between murder during peacetime and killing during war. Without authorisation from The System's unified security forces, there can never be a militarised response; even in cases where a war may seem "justified" The System will demand that both parties simply forget or ignore any grievances, and will deploy peacekeeping forces. If a proper, recognisable war *(with large-scale armament, trained soldiers, tactics, killing machines, etc.)* were ever to break out, in most cases, debellation would be seriously considered.
5. **Mutilation and Disfigurement** - Those nations and states who through action cause their environ to decay beyond reason, and with the purpose of gain or of spite.
	* This criterion is important since it lays out that nations do not get to decide to destroy their land simply because it is theirs. Polluting the earth beneath your feet is not the sin of a single lifetime, but generations of pain and suffering, which cannot be allowed.
	* An example would be a nation which for reasons that are not justifiable commits itself to exploiting its natural resources beyond reason. It is not enough that a nation exploit a resource, but rather that it exploits it in a way that the environment suffers or is even destroyed. Species must be preserved, rivers must flow, and chemicals which do not occur in that environment must not be allowed to pollute it.
6. **Unprecedented and Unpredictable Events** - Those nations and states which in their expression of identity pose a unique and undeniable hazard to life and prosperity, or whose existence through unforeseen means may imminently and undeniably be hazardous to life and prosperity.
	* This criterion is important as it allows for nations which are dangerous in ways not yet conceived, yet whose debellation would provide immediate relief and safety from threats as a result of that nation's continued existence.
	* An example would be a hypothetical nation whose citizens had undergone a drastic and undesirable transformation and had become a danger to themselves and others on a grand scale; perhaps through alien mind control or influence.

## Legal Justification for Debellation

### Ancient Precedent

Debellation is a very old power of The System, left over from a much more violent and chaotic era. Nevertheless, it is a power that The System maintains.

### The Rights of Others

Rights are not permissions. It is not the right of any person, place, or thing, to extract life, liberty, and happiness from the life, liberty, and happiness of someone else.

### The Responsibilities of Nations

Just as private citizens are expected to behave in a dignified and upright manner, so too are nations and states.

If a person *commits a murder*, their property will be confiscated and they will go to jail.

If a nation *commits a war*, its property will be confiscated and its people will go to jail.

Further, since a nation cannot commit to war by itself, individual citizens who failed to prevent a war will be held responsible. It is not enough that a person be an innocent bystander, they must actively work to prevent warfare, otherwise they will subject to a prison sentence as well. It is the responsibility of a private citizen to report the possibility of warfare to their neighbours, it is the responsibility of a private citizen to resist attempts to arm a nation's populace, and ultimately, it will be the responsibility of a private citizen to rise up against their own homeland - using violence if necessary - in order to prevent the outbreak of war. Failure to do so is considered a high crime, and a great moral failing. Those citizens who do not wish to directly work against their homeland must then flee from it at their earliest opportunity and surrender to Ijzerian Security as soon as possible.

### The Nation Dies, the People Live On

To us in the realworld, debellation is a very strange and perhaps immoral or even barbaric concept. In the realworld, debellation might appear as The System giving itself permission to perform a series of warcrimes, and allowing it to execute a "genocide by the backdoor".

While it's possible that an average Ijzerian may still agree with this line of thinking, the process of debellation is actually not a warcrime by Ijzerian standards, because The System guarantees the right to be a "citizen of the world"; that is, all Ijzerians are free to live and work wheresoever they wish. There are no passports, there are no visas. Everyone is equally entitled to live and work everywhere, so long as they do no harm to anyone else. A person's "homeland" is whatever land they build their home in.

It is precisely these rights, the right of abode and freedom of movement, which enable The System to confiscate the lands and assets of nations and states, since a person is free to go and start over anywhere they want, so the damage to individual private citizens is as minimal as within reason. The fact that private citizens will have to start over is not considered as disruptive as it is in our world; though no doubt it is just as traumatic. A person's homeland is sacred to almost all people throughout history, but on Ijzeria, which is a very old world, with a very longterm way of thinking, every nation and state must continually rise meet the needs of its people and its planet. Nations may choose to sequester themselves, they may choose not to participate in the international community and ignore the world and its goings on. But nations may not choose to hurt each other or their own people, for gain or for spite.

Nations do not have special rights or privileges which exempt them from the rule of law. Just as a single private citizen can be arrested, so too can an entire nation be subject to arrest if it has been found to be a poor steward of its natural environment, or a violent and murderous neighbour to its fellow countries.

## Criticisms and Hurdles

There is a very strong argument that by destroying a nation so utterly, that the planet as a whole will suffer from loss of ideological diversity. Further, there is the compelling argument that this power is little more than an act of terror which is meant to keep states and nations obedient to the will of The System.

In practise, the vetting process by which nations are debellated is very thorough, detailed, precise, documented, and publicised. Any international security action is possible only with overwhelming support, and in the case of debellation, it becomes a matter of public debate and inquiry at all levels.

There are notable **hurdles** which must be overcome, and without them, a nation will likely be exempt from debellation *(though it may still be subject to other security action.);*

* **Reclamation, Not Reorganisation.** Once intelligent life has existed for long enough in a particular environment, it becomes part of the fabric of that environment. It must therefore be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that removing a population from an area would cause a net reduction in the harm being done to an area's flora and fauna. In areas with fruit orchards for example, it may be important to allow those orchards to continue operating if local birds and rodents have become dependent on that orchard's trees.
* **Eviction, Not Extinction.** People, even former criminals, are entitled to live "somewhere." If at the end of their prison sentence, a person might have nowhere else to go for whatever reason, it must be allowed that they return to wheresoever they came from. This is notable since as a world of science-fantasy, Ijzeria has many nations which are populated by species who simply cannot live anywhere else for reasons which are beyond their control *(usually some physiological restriction)*. If a person or people cannot reasonably be expected to find accomodation outside their country's borders, then that country cannot be allowed to be reclaimed by nature.
* **Scattering, Not Genocide.** Part of the debellation process is that there are restraining orders which remove the freedom of association from the people of the nation being debellated. If for some reason, a person or people require close proximity to one another, it cannot be that they are restricted in this way en masse. Notably, this is true for the agaasin, a species of humanoids who require regular access to another one *(or more)* of their species or they'll die. Most agaasin travel in groups of three or more, and two or fewer agaasin may begin to suffer negative health effects, therefore they cannot be forced to remain separate from each other no matter the damage they may cause when gathered in greater numbers.

If after rigorous and heavily publicised debate, The System can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that destroying a nation so utterly will not result in further tragedy or the continued abuse of fundamental rights, then a debellation can proceed.

To illustrate how rare and how difficult it is to have a nation be destroyed by debellation, it is important to note that the Kobold city-state of Ch'Agl maintains its ancestral borders despite its people meeting all the necessary criteria for having their nation debellated. This is because during the end of the Kobold Terror, it was impossible to resettle them anywhere else, and erasing their homeland would give them nowhere to go. Since subjecting them to scattering was impossible, the kobold were allowed to keep their capital city, and rather than be imprisoned elsewhere in the world, were simply imprisoned within their sacred homeland. They were still required to rename it, and its original name is lost to history.

**Debellation** means more than redrawing a map; it means destroying a way of life, rewriting the cultural norms and traditions of an entire country's population, erasing the generational wealth of private citizens and corporations who call that country home, and reducing an entire civilisation to open fields. It must be proven beyond a doubt that nations which are subject to debellation have lost their fundamental rights through repeated, direct, and deliberate actions which have put themselves and their fellow nations at risk or subjected themselves or others to extreme harm.

It is not enough that a nation be "disruptive", it must be proven that the world *as a whole* will benefit greatly from that nation's debellation.