States through time, and states that never were

Solon holds the law of every place it covers as that law stands today. Pick a place on the atlas and you get its acts in force, read from the publisher, each with a hash that proves the copy is the publisher's.

"Today" is only one of the dates you could pick. Borders move and constitutions get replaced. Countries appear, merge and split. The map of Europe in 1990 is not the map of 1980, and neither looks like 1900. People argue about those differences all the time: which arrangement worked, what changed when a border moved, what a country would look like if its history had gone another way. They mostly argue from memory, without the texts in front of them.

This post is about two ideas we want to build toward. None of it is built. We're writing it down so the thinking happens in public and the ideas don't get lost.

1. The world as it was

The first idea is a date control on the atlas. Set it to 1990, 1980, 1945, 1914 or 1900, and you see the states that existed on that day, with their borders as they stood. For each state, Solon would show the law that was in force then.

That means the same record Solon keeps for today, kept for each date:

• Borders. Each state's outline on that date.
• Law. The constitution and the main acts in force, and the treaties that drew the borders.
• The same questions asked of every state. Who decides, who may vote, what it takes to change the rules, and whether people may leave. These are the questions Solon already asks of today's places, so a state in 1900 can be compared with one in 2026.

Some of the groundwork exists. Solon's roadmap already includes earlier versions of every act, which is the same idea applied to one country's law. Open historical data exists too:

• CShapes 2.0 has state borders from 1886 to recent years.
• The historical-basemaps project has rougher world maps going back much further.
• The Comparative Constitutions Project has coded national constitutions since 1789.

Each source would be cited the same way Solon cites a law today.

What makes this hard

• Disputed borders. In 1900, as now, a lot of land was claimed by more than one state. Solon already shows contested law side by side without picking a side, and history needs the same treatment: each claim shown with its source, and the area hatched where claims overlap.
• Colonies, protectorates and personal unions. What counts as "a state" changes with the century. A colony's law came partly from its own institutions and partly from the colonial power. Both have to be shown.
• Is it the same state? Is Germany in 1900 the same state as Germany in 2026? Solon should avoid ruling on that. It can link a state to the states before and after it and say what changed, each step with its source.
• States without borders. Some polities never had a line on a map. The Scythians on the steppe north of the Black Sea, from roughly the 7th to the 3rd century BC, were nomads. Their realm was wherever their herds and their people were. A polygon would misrepresent them. The honest picture is a range, drawn as uncertain as the sources are.

2. States that never were

The second idea follows from the first. Once Solon holds a state's law and borders on a date, you can start from that date and change one thing.

Some of the questions we want people to be able to ask:

The last one is more than a thought experiment: the vote it describes could actually be held.

A scenario on Solon would be a fork: a starting state on a date, plus the changes you propose. It might move a border, transfer sovereignty, or keep one country's constitution in place of another's. That is close to how Solon already handles a proposed change to a law, a draft shown as a redline against the real text. The assistant that thinks a law change through with you could also think a scenario through. It would set out what would likely follow, who would gain and who would pay, and where something similar actually happened, with every claim cited and no side taken.

Some scenarios have no modern data at all. The Icelandic Commonwealth (about 930 to 1262) had a parliament, the Althing, but no king and no executive. The courts gave rulings, but there was no state to enforce them, so the parties enforced them themselves. Each chieftain had followers, and a follower could switch to a different chieftain. People still argue about it as a working example of law without a state. Solon could set its rules beside a modern constitution and let readers compare.

Rules for a scenario:

• A scenario is always marked as a scenario. It never appears on the real atlas as if it were fact.
• Everything a scenario starts from is sourced. Anything it invents is labelled as invented.
• Anyone can fork anyone's scenario, and the record shows where each fork came from.

Why this belongs on Solon

Solon is for groups deciding their own rules. Historical states and counterfactuals are the largest test cases there are. A country is a group that once chose, or was made to accept, a set of rules. Seeing those rules change over time, and asking what would have happened under other rules, is the same question Solon asks about a club or a canton, at a bigger scale.

It is also a way to read the law that people might actually enjoy.

What happens next

Both ideas are on the roadmap under Later, after the work on today's law is done. The first concrete step is small: show the dates Solon already holds for Switzerland and Liechtenstein on a time control, then add borders from a historical dataset. If you know a source we should read, or a scenario you want to see, tell us on the roadmap page.

First published on solon.orangecat.ch.