Apollo Foundation
The Apollo Foundation is an intermicronational organization dedicated to recording, listing and, in some cases, preserving the heritage of dead micronations. Founded in late 2000 after the collapse of Audentior by micronationalist Orion, the original foundation was established to protect the AIN from the multitude of claimants that arose and disputed its remnants. The plan was simple and based on the Foundation series of novels by famed science-fiction author Isaac Asimov. That objective was to provide for a neutral protector over the dead (simulated) lands and ownership of the Audentior nation. The idea caught on, and eventually the Apollo Foundation was granted authority over a multitude of dead micronations. Unfortunately, in this early stage the foundation was obliged to protect the simulated lands of a micronation as well as its literary content (such as the micronation's name, cultural uniquities, etc). In this case, that simulated land was within the Micronational Cartography Society.
Eventually, the Apollo Foundation's holdings became too vast, and it was deemed impractical to hold so much land for dead nations when it could be put to better use for new and aspiring ones. Control over the lands were relinquished and the dead nations occupying them subsequently erased from the map. However, said literary content was retained in a registry. Thus no claims could be levied against those dead nations without the consent of the parties who registered them. This policy shift was loosely carried out without objection for well over three more years.
In August of 2005, the Apollo Foundation undertook a major revival effort and overhaul of its organization and services. A more professional attitude was adopted and registered micronations were re-registered with formal treaties and cosignees signing respective authorization for protection. This protection was no longer applicable to the lands of those micronations. Instead, the objective was focused on halting plagarism and intellectual infringement. Quite often, dead micronations are reclaimed by parties not of the original groups. In other cases, mere chance brings about a micronation with the same name as a previous one. The role of the foundation is to both stop that and, for new micronationalists, provide information–which is often non-existant in this case–of dead micronations.
Currently, the Apollo Foundation is focusing on two areas of development. First is its registry, which comprises those dead nations which have, upon closure, deemed their projects worthy enough to make a formal treaty of protection with the foundation. In effect, the dead micronation is placed in a "safety deposit box" of sorts where those who signed the treaty are the only ones who can withdraw that nation for restoral in the future. Second, the foundation is focusing on constructing a "microbase" or information on dead micronations. More often than not, many young micronations come into the hobby and then disappear, leaving only scant information about them for historians or other micronationalists. The goal of the microbase is to alleviate that problem, if at least in a small part.
