I'm not so cynical that I honestly believe there's nothing new or unique on the Internet, but I've been in this soup long enough to know that it has more feedback loops than the internal logic of a Tea Party supporter. Take, for example, the number of message board denizens who self-diagnose with Asperger's Syndrome, a number which skyrocketed just shortly after the Wikipedia page for AS was published. It's not that there were thousands of undiagnosed autistics who just happened to effectively live on the Internet, it's that there are constantly thousands of people on the Internet who are adept at convincing themselves that their fantasies are true. Thence emerges the already tired idea of the Micronation and the subject of today's post, Byzantium Novum.

Micronations are nothing new. Childish super-geeks have been crowning themselves king of chunks of existing countries and flotillas of garbage in the middle of the ocean since the late 19th century. The most famous and oft-cited example is that of Sealand, a North Sea gun platform that an excessively silly man named Roy Bates claimed as his own sovereign nation back in 1967. Sure, two world powers (UK and Germany) have had some minor interactions with Sealand, but it all boils down to nobody giving enough of a damn about Prince Roy and his hunk of rusting nationhood to challenge him.

Personally, if the world's most socially awkward people want to self-isolate, I'm happy to let them. The real problem comes when news of entities like Sealand makes the rounds on the Internet and starts giving people bad ideas. That's where Byzantium Novum comes in. Basically, BN is a mostly harmless community of history nerds who get all tingly whenever they think of the Byzantine Empire, aka the lame, churchy sequel to the Roman Empire nobody really wanted. The crew over at Byzantium Novum have dedicated, by the looks of the site, a ridiculous amount of time entertaining the fantasy of reviving the Byzantine Empire and all of its cultural practices.

Of course, this self-proclaimed micronation exists entirely on the Internet, but it has further ambitions. The front page, a citizenship registration form, already makes mention of a $10 membership fee for those who want to hold official, in-person meetings with other citizens of the glorious, imaginary empire. They then require prospective members to fill out a form including a full legal name, a real-world address, a date of birth and a phone number. Anyone who has been on the Internet for a decent length of time should be extremely wary of forms like these, at least when they exist outside the context of a protected transaction program or the pages of a (real) government.

Despite the ill-advised contact forms and potential loss of money in Byzantium Novum, I don't think this is a genuine scam. There couldn't possibly be enough people who are interested in reviving an empire that was, all things considered, just the death throes of a different empire to constitute a real act of malice. Byzantium Novum is just another silly thing on the Internet by and for people with way too much time on their hands.

Amount of Time Likely to be Wasted: The site is pretty extensive, but a lot of it is so dry and not ludicrous that you probably won't linger for more than 10 minutes.

Likelihood to Result in Arrest in Real Life: Moderate. Whenever imaginary statehood is in the mix there's a chance some insane idiot will start shooting at tax collectors, but the BN site goes to great lengths to discourage such behavior.

MCDR: Keep a small salt shaker next to your computer with the instructions "Take one grain per Wikipedia page".

Internet Depth by Preposition: In leaning toward Of. Byzantium Novum has ambitions beyond the Internet and has the slim potential to connect real people in the real world. Still, it's the product of a type of thinking that exists almost exclusively online.