Declaration of Merensk

The General Staff of Benacia Command, the representatives of the Banner Groups, the Quartermaster-General of the General Inspectorate, and the representatives of industry and civil society, having met in Merensk on the 6th day of Vixaslaa in the year 1671 Ab Nortone, assigned to the Political Directorate of Benacia Command the responsibility for preparing a declaration on the future reordering of the Benacian continent.

On the 13th day of Vixaslaa the Political Directorate presented to the Commander-in-Chief the following text for his endorsement:

The failure of the institutions of the Imperial Republic to maintain, in the face of heresy, sedition, and rebellion, the values of our Benacian fatherland, has shamed us all. Two thousand years of history, stretching all the way back to fabled Khaz Modan, have been betrayed by the appalling weakness displayed by Shirekeep during the present crisis.

We see now that, in the degeneracy of the Kalirion line, the potency of Raynor's seed has at last been exhausted, and that the last coin in the treasure of legitimacy accumulated by the Kaisers of ages past have been spent.

During the period of Kalirion rule the peoples of Benacia were systematically incited against one another. The results of such a policy are known; massacres and pogroms on the one hand, slavery of peoples on the other. Land has been recklessly ceded to resurgent a Batavia, the Laqi have been facilitated in their takeover of Inner Benacia and in the commencement of a war of aggression against Lywall and Lachmeren – Imperial lands. In all of this Shirekeep has remained silent – permitting ancient enmities to run riot in the dominions.

An end must be put to this unworthy policy of falsehood and distrust, of fault-finding and provocation. Henceforth it must be replaced by an open and honest policy which leads to complete mutual trust of the people of Benacia. Only as the result of such a trust can there be formed an honest and lasting commonwealth of the peoples of Benacia. Only as the result of such a commonwealth can the ills of the present crisis be overcome.

1. Martial law is declared in all lands presently under the control of the Benacian Stabilisation Forces.
2. The Benacian Stabilisation Force shall henceforth reconstitute itself as the Unified Governorates of Benacia, hereafter referred to as the Unified Governorates.
3. The Unified Governorates remain party to the Raspur Pact.
4. The Unified Governorates shall operate under a provisional government in anticipation of an eventual reunification of the Shirerithian lands in a new Benacian Commonwealth.
5. The Unified Governorates shall be administered by the Political Directorate, reporting directly to the Chief of the General Staff.
   1. A Territorial Administration Bureau will be formed for this purpose.
6. Governorates (Counties) and Bailiwicks (Districts) shall be administered by civil authorities, reorganised and approved by the Territorial Administration Bureau.
7. All categories of unfree person are abolished, excepting those sentenced to the temporary loss of liberty by duly appointed courts, and those removed from civil society for their own protection.
8. All titles and pretensions of nobility are abolished. This shall not preclude the establishment of future orders of chivalry in recognition of meritorious service and conduct.
9. The Unified Governorates shall take as their legal code the relevant portions of the Constitution of Drakorda, the Charter of Coordination, and such aspects of former Imperial Law not made hopelessly obsolete by events.
10. Relations between Benacia Command and the Unified Governorates shall be determined by relevant customary laws.
11. The Natopo (₦) is adopted as the official currency of the Unified Governorates. The Erb shall remain legal tender until the end of the year 1671. Official exchange rates will be published in due course.
12. The Human Supremacy shall be upheld in Benacia.
13. The policy of the Unified Governorates shall be one of amity towards all successor states amenable to the values of Humanism and supportive of values of the Raspur Pact.

Endorsed and adopted as policy by order of the Commander-in-Chief on this day, the 15th of Vixaslaa, at Merensk.