Geographical Standards Organisation

The Geographical Standards Organization was a cartography society that maintained the fictional planet of Giess from August 2006 to August 2009. It was the most serious competitor faced by the MCS and Micras in their project to unify micronational cartography.

Prehistory

During 2006 several factors conspired to make micronationalists increasingly dissatisfied with Micras.

First, Chief Cartographer Ryan Caruso pursued an aggressive policy of freeing up land for new nations to use that seriously restricted the ability of old nations to expand and sometimes even took land away from them. There were some attempts to define the amount of land to which a country was entitled mathematically via an equation taking into account post count and activity, an attempt which quickly ran afoul of countries who wanted more land than the equation allotted them. Most important was the Atkins Reduction, in which each country was asked to give up a small amount of land; many countries felt their core territories were being taken away from them in the name of preserving land for hypothetical future empires.

Second, John Darcy led a group (actually mainly just John Darcy, but he was very loud) of people pushing for higher simulation standards. The entire MCS Map had mostly been made up on the fly, and Darcy wanted tectonically accurate landforms and rivers, full-blown climate simulations, and constructed anthropology and ecology. This was opposed by many other Micras members, who wanted to leave the planet deliberately vague so that future micronations could claim land and mold it in their own image without being told every detail of what their fictional geography had to be like.

Third, several countries wanted to switch to a complicated simulationist "game" in which they assigned themselves resources, GDPs, et cetera and used them to produce things like industrial infrastructure and military units according to mathematical rules. This became not only a practical difference but also a philosophical rallying cry: these countries believed they were superior and "more serious" than countries that were "only about storytelling", and touted themselves as "simulationist" micronations as opposed to the others' "fantasy". They began discussing a world solely for simulationists, separate from the fantasists who were holding them back.

Foundation of Giess

After long talks behind closed doors, in August 2006 Ben Gray and John Darcy announced the foundation of the Geographical Standards Organization, or GSO. The full list of founding members has been lost, but it included at least Anthelia, Babkha, Baracao, Gotzborg, and Alexandria.

The organization was to differentiate itself from the MCS on a few lines. First, it would be admitting only the higher-tier, "simulationist" class of micronations. Second, it would explicitly try to create a strong simulation that tied together all its members. Third, it would use a map generated by AutoRealm, which would look better than the MCS's MSPaint style maps and be continuously updated directly off the AutoRealm file.

The reaction from the MCS ranged from dismay to anger; dismay because the cartography society had long acted as a unified force for the Sector and was now becoming a divisive force instead; anger because of the clandestine way in which the negotiations had taken place, with the existence of a discontent faction not even revealed until the final announcement. A leak of some of the classified negotiations revealed that the GSO founders were saying relatively mean things about most MCS nations behind their backs, adding to the anger. Among the most unhappy was Natopia, member of the Novasolum Confederation - the entire Confederation had been invited to the negotiations except for themselves, on the grounds that they weren't serious enough and might tell other countries.

Ryan, Chief Cartographer of the MCS, resigned in a rage and tried to close down the MCS; it was saved only when a group of participants led by V.C. Vehendi cancelled the closure and recreated it in their own image, starting the modern MCS structure led by a Council.

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