This is not the kind of article typically published by the Austenasian Times. However, given the recent accusations of “fraud”, “cybercrimes”, and acting in “bad faith” that have circulated within parts of the micronational community, particularly on MicroWiki, I feel it is necessary to respond publicly.
The intention behind this article is to document my perspective on events in the hope of reaching a peaceful resolution, something I have attempted to achieve over the past year with only limited success.
For sixteen years, Austenasia existed largely within a legal vacuum. It was a deeply loved and longstanding project, but in practical, real-world terms, it remained an informal and unincorporated hobby community, without a corporate structure, statutory protections, or any clear legal framework surrounding ownership and administration.
As a result, the name “Austenasia” was never formally protected or legally vested in any recognised entity capable of owning and defending it.
Recently, we applied for — and were subsequently granted — trademark rights to the name “AUSTENASIA” within specific commercial contexts. This was done because the project was moving towards a more formalised and public-facing direction, including the planned July coronation of the new Emperor and proposals to help fund the project through the sale of novelty titles, flags, and coins to allow it to be self-sustaining.
We also intended to pursue partnerships with third parties and charitable causes, with the broader aim of allowing the Austenasian community itself to help decide which charities and initiatives any surplus funds would ultimately support.
With that direction in mind, having two separate public-facing entities both claiming to represent the “Empire of Austenasia” was, in my view, ultimately unsustainable.
I will admit, in hindsight, that there were instances over the last year which could reasonably be perceived as acting in “bad faith”, even if that was not my intention at the time. For that, I sincerely apologise to anyone affected by the actions taken in relation to protecting the intellectual property rights associated with Austenasia and securing what I believed to be its long-term direction moving forward.
Fundamentally, my primary concern is for the people affected by this situation, and the possibility that matters could escalate into a bitter, drawn-out legal dispute lasting months or even years, in which nobody truly wins. In the worst-case scenario, Austenasia itself could end up destroyed in the crossfire.
While some may view the enforcement of these rights as harsh, the reality is that legal ownership ultimately rests with those who take the necessary formal steps to protect and maintain an identity and its associated infrastructure. At present, we hold the infrastructure, core assets, and primary domains associated with Austenasia.
My intention moving forward is to ensure that Austenasia develops in a manner that is organised, stable, secure, and professional. Despite the conflict that has occurred, my door remains open to anyone who genuinely wishes to help build that future within this formal structure.
This article will present a timeline of events from my perspective, outlining where I believe genuine efforts were made to resolve the situation in good faith.
I should note, however, that certain details and communications will not be made public out of respect for individuals involved who either do not wish to be named or are simply exhausted by the drama that has surrounded Austenasia over the past year.
Timeline of Events
11th November 2024: Ownership of austenasia.com was formally transferred to me by Jonathan Austen, the project’s esteemed founder. However, at no point was there any expressed or implied understanding that the domain was being transferred merely “in trust” or temporarily — an argument that, from my perspective, only emerged retrospectively after the wider dispute had developed.
In addition to this, ownership of austenasia.wordpress.com — the project’s original website, and the WordPress-hosted Austenasian Times website — was also transferred to me during this period.
4th June 2025: The situation between me and Aggelos, Emperor of Austenasia, reached a boiling point when he attempted to call an early general election on the advice of John Gordon, my then Deputy Prime Minister. In my view, this action contravened the Elections Act of 2020 and represented a serious constitutional breach within the Austenasian internal framework.
The same day, I proclaimed the ‘Commonwealth of Austenasia’ and declared that Emperor Aggelos had been deposed from office. The terminology and constitutional framing were consciously inspired by the historical Commonwealth period in England following the abolition of the monarchy under Oliver Cromwell.
The concept of the ‘Commonwealth of Austenasia’ originated as a collaborative idea between John Gordon and me. Jonathan was aware of the proposal, although he preferred not to involve himself closely in its development beyond viewing it as a means of creating an interesting constitutional narrative for the project.
12th June 2025: An article was published announcing that I was due to represent the ‘Commonwealth of Austenasia‘ — as the project was then known during its transitional period — at the EuroMicro Summit 2025. This ultimately did not come to pass, as Jonathan Austen contacted the organisers directly with concerns regarding the situation.
As a result, I was asked to attend only as a representative of MicroWiki rather than Austenasia, which I nevertheless agreed to do, despite my later justified ban from the MicroWiki community approximately a month afterwards.
However, in the immediate reaction to the article’s publication, Sertor — a high-ranking individual within the Discord-based Austenasia server — generated and circulated an AI-generated image depicting my death in a car bombing. This material has been documented and retained.
24th June 2025: During the dispute, after discovering that the Discord-based Austenasia had copied content from austenasia.news onto their newly launched site, I engaged in retaliatory conduct by hotlinking inappropriate images onto the Discord-based Austenasia website. This action was immature, inappropriate, and escalatory, and I do not seek to justify it. I include it here for the sake of completeness and transparency.
I was later banned from the MicroWiki community and removed from my positions as Administrator and Bureaucrat — actions which, given my conduct during this period, were ultimately justified.
30th June 2025: I was hospitalised and underwent emergency surgery relating to complications with my gallbladder. During the operation, I briefly died on the operating table before being resuscitated. I remained hospitalised for several weeks afterwards.
1st–3rd August 2025: During this period, austenasia.com unexpectedly returned online. At the time, I was in Amsterdam and later in a remote village in Germany with no internet connection, attending MicroEuro Summit 2025. Following my recent near-death experience and the ongoing stress surrounding the dispute, I spent much of the trip outside the convention itself, in pain due to my recent operation, smoking and trying to focus on medical recovery and processing the ongoing dispute.
21st August 2025: I was approached by Jonathan to discuss the transfer of austenasia.com to the Discord-based Austenasia. However, at the time, I was still recovering mentally and physically from my surgery and subsequent near-death experience, and stated that I wished to focus on my well-being before discussing any potential transfer further, a boundary which Jonathan respected at the time.
3rd September 2025: Following the near-death experience, I decided to redirect austenasia.com to the website of the Discord-based Austenasia.
I had also arranged a call with Jonathan during which I intended to offer a £500 donation to the Discord-based Austenasian Treasury and formally hand over control of the domain name — something I had already discussed with Shiro (“Cosmic Fury”) several days prior.
30th September 2025: Aggelos formally abdicated from the Discord-based Austenasia, following which Shiro (“Cosmic Fury”) was proclaimed the new Emperor.
1st November 2025: Ultimately, the intended reconciliation offer was never made, as I had discovered that several prominent members associated with the Discord-based Austenasia had been referring to me using homophobic slurs. I did make Jonathan aware that this was the intended purpose of the call.
29th December 2025: Upon concluding that informal reconciliation was unlikely, and following offers of investment from third parties, I formally applied to register the trademark for “AUSTENASIA” within certain commercial categories. This application was filed through standard, public channels with the UK Intellectual Property Office to legally protect the continuity and ownership of the assets transferred to me in 2024.
16th January 2026: The trademark application for “AUSTENASIA” was formally published on the UK Intellectual Property Office’s public register. This initiated the statutory two-month opposition window, a transparent legal process during which any interested parties were entitled to review, challenge, or file an objection to the application.
2nd February 2026: I approached Shiro and Jonathan with a proposed ‘Austenasian Domain and Assets Transfer and Settlement Agreement’ intended to facilitate the transfer of the Austenasia-related domains and infrastructure back to their side of the project. This would have also included the trademark rights once they were formally granted.
Within this document, I provided a detailed breakdown of costs associated with the Austenasia-related domains under my ownership, hosting and server expenses, and the hours spent designing and maintaining the website infrastructure. The total amount requested came to £499.00.
To make the arrangement more affordable, I also offered the option of payment by instalments, while noting that any additional costs incurred by me during that period would likewise need to be reimbursed.
This offer was ultimately rejected, and I was subsequently accused of extortion and blackmail after disclosing, in the interest of transparency, that another interested party holding openly hostile views towards Austenasia had expressed interest in acquiring the domains and associated assets. However, I ultimately declined to pursue any arrangement with that individual precisely because of those views.
At the time, I was also under significant financial strain due to the amount I had personally invested into the project and its infrastructure. Even at this stage, the amount requested did not come close to reflecting the total time, money, and effort I had invested into Austenasia.
23rd March 2026: During a private conversation, Vera Hewitt — a former Prime Minister of Austenasia and currently in the line of succession to the Discord-based Austenasian throne — made statements which I understood as indicating that certain individuals had intentionally sought to place me under severe psychological stress during the June events. Relevant documentation relating to this conversation has been retained.
27th April 2026: The public opposition period for the “AUSTENASIA” trademark application concluded. No objections, challenges, or disputes were filed by any party.
15th May 2026: The “AUSTENASIA” trademark was formally entered into the UK trademark register under No. UK00004343867, with an effective registration date of 22nd February 2026.
16th May 2026: I organised a call with Jonathan and Shiro (“Cosmic Fury”). Ultimately, Jonathan was unavailable, and the discussion proceeded with Shiro alone. The objective of this call was two-fold: first, to privately and transparently disclose the finalised trademark registration before it became public knowledge; and second, to discuss operational steps forward. The intention was to provide a structured, amicable path toward integration, offering their community a formalised mechanism to continue operating safely and legitimately under a unified framework, rather than leaving the situation vulnerable to prolonged conflict or inevitable platform enforcement.
20th May 2026: I contacted Shiro once again to check on his well-being and to arrange another call where we could discuss reconciliation efforts in greater detail. Following the events described below, Shiro later responded by stating “No, I am not [okay]”, which was entirely understandable given the circumstances, before telling me to “fuck off” — a reaction which, again, I understood.
In the late hours of the evening, I received an email from Discord’s LEER Team containing a relatively vague response stating only that “infringing material had been removed”. The email itself did not specify what action had been taken, and my assumption at the time was that Discord would simply require the “Discord Austenasia” server to be renamed or delisted.
I only became aware that the server itself had been removed after being contacted by an individual connected to the Discord-based Austenasia, who will remain unnamed out of respect for their privacy.
I was aware that removal of the server was a possible outcome, and this was something I discussed directly with Shiro (“Cosmic Fury”), the Emperor of the Discord-based Austenasia, during the aforementioned phone call.
Whilst I recognise that the outcome was deeply regrettable, my actions were taken with the intention of ensuring that there could be no confusion regarding what constitutes the official Austenasia moving forward. The specific enforcement actions ultimately taken by Discord’s LEER Team were, however, made at their own discretion rather than by my direct instruction.
21st May 2026: Upon waking this morning, I was inundated with screenshots from various individuals documenting the conduct and rhetoric of several members associated with the Discord-based Austenasia on the official MicroWiki Community Server. These screenshots included the publication of my real name, as well as insults directed towards individuals who had defended me or attempted to de-escalate the situation. The primary participants featured in these screenshots were Shiro and Sertor, the latter of whom has already been referenced earlier in this timeline in relation to generating an AI image depicting my murder.
For this reason, the trademark application had been registered using a business address rather than my home address. I was conscious that, once the application became publicly known, there was a possibility that individuals might attempt to dox me, and I took that precaution out of concern for my personal safety.
Despite everything that has occurred, I continue to hope that a peaceful resolution remains possible, and that the wider Austenasian community can eventually move beyond the hostility of the past year.