History of Mahuset

Playground origins

Mahuset's earliest institutions were not states. From January 2011 pupils at the Burgemeester de Wildeschool, a Dutch primary school, ran fan clubs and role-playing groups. Team Pika Pika, founded on 13 January 2011 by Nuri van Dijk and Ewout B., came first; others followed, and consolidated into the PP Clubs.

The clubs had rudimentary government, including a points-and-levels system, the PP-punten. Enthusiasts were Pikalovers and their opponents Pokéhaters, and the quarrels between them are remembered as the Pikawars. The PokePika Theory treats these clubs as Mahuset's true origin, though not everyone accepts it.

The founding date the state itself keeps is 29 May 2012, when Emiel van der Huijsen, having read on Wikipedia about Sealand, Seborga, Molossia and Talossa, proclaimed the Kingdom of Ihuset. Its page on MicroWikia brought the first contact with the wider micronational community.

The Kingdom

Ihuset's example prompted classmates to found micronations of their own, and Ihuset began absorbing them, along with the Cookielandic and Kittylandic States, informal projects run by Van der Huijsen's younger brother. Union with the neighbouring kingdoms of Matsia and Radon was styled the United Nations of Mahuset, then the Royal United Nations of Mahuset, its symbolism borrowed from Ancient Rome and the County of Holland.

In November 2012 the union consolidated into the Kingdom of Mahuset, a constitutional monarchy under King Emiel van der Huijsen. It declared independence from the Netherlands on 21 March 2013 in a post on Hyves: Wij, het volk van Mahuset, verklaren onszelf onafhankelijk van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden.

In the MicroWikia chat that day, the King paired the announcement with a domestic political crisis: his dog had died. Onlookers struggled to connect the two.

Eniakism and the Triumphant Era

Eniakism, taken up as the state pseudo-ideology, is generally held to be named after the ENIAC computer. It combined non-interventionism, mild nationalism and monarchism with support for direct democracy, animal rights and social liberalism. It drew condemnation from Hasanistan and Akharnes, and cost Mahuset its pluralism: the Eniak Party became the only one.

The kingdom built in earnest, with ministries, state enterprises and a Dutch-modelled education framework, and codified cifa, a potato gratin with aged Gouda and lardons, as its national dish. Matsia and Radon, which had seceded over ideology, adopted Eniakism and rejoined. The Triumphant Parliament followed.

The army disputes

The settlement broke over the army. Van der Huijsen wanted a single unified force; XO objected to any military at all, on philosophical grounds; Nuri van Dijk argued for separate territorial forces. None gave way. Van der Huijsen took Ihuset out and the kingdom fell, Eniakist centralisation having collided with the federal structure that let Mahuset grow.

Decline and revival

Unsuccessful states followed: the Co-Kingdom of Krasota, formed by Matsia and Radon; a reconstituted Royal Union of Mahuset, which broke apart in further disputes between Van der Huijsen and Van Dijk; and the Empire of Alkmaar. Mahuset also joined the Empire of Constantidium, a Dutch-sector bloc built to deter the Ashukov Federation, which soon collapsed.

By the end of 2015 no entity called Mahuset continuously existed. What survived was a network of friendships.

The Confederation claims succession in law, in dignity and in territory to eight predecessor states: the Kingdom of Ihuset, the Kingdom of Matsia, the United Nations of Mahuset, the Kingdom of Mahuset, the Co-Kingdom of Krasota, the Royal Union of Mahuset, the Empire of Alkmaar and the Cookielandic and Kittylandic States.

Early confederation

The Confederation was established on 3 January 2016 and formed its first government on the 8th, with five constituent states and the Free City of Lazia carved out where several of them met. A constitution was adopted, and Virgo and Starnia were annexed in February.

Ambition outran capacity. Talks on political union with the Khanate of Nedland, approved by referendum in both states, foundered on the titles of the two highest offices and on the flag. A federal shutdown followed, meant to rewrite Mahuset's encyclopaedia entries and publish its statutes. It ran nine months and only partly succeeded.

In Spygate, in July 2017, Van der Huijsen was accused in an Abeldane chat room of spying for Shorewell, and relations with Abelden froze. They were restored once it was written off as a misunderstanding.

Mahuset held its first election in January 2018. Van der Huijsen was returned; Stephen Freayth took the premiership with 61.1 per cent against the co-founder XO, who became Leader of the Opposition. The Lazian Chamber then began failing to reach quorum, and the December 2018 arguments over social legislation hardened into a crisis.

The 2019 referendum

On 23 February 2019 the electorate — nine people — was asked whether to set up a body standing outside the constitution, with power to remake the Confederation's legal and governmental order. All nine voted. One ballot was spoilt and the other eight were in favour. Nothing was organised against it; what the new body was charged to draft is set out on the politics pages.

The Lazian Chamber and the Supreme Court were suspended and the National Convention of 2019 took their place. XO revoked his citizenship that May, reducing the Social Democrats to a single chamber seat; that October the ministries were consolidated to their present number. Nuri van Dijk left in November 2021.

Consolidation and contraction ran together. New Brennonia acceded in June 2020; the following month brought Hasanistani recognition of the claim to Virgo, and the two republics became one in 2022. That summer the government also called an open forum on what it termed a citizenship crisis, and the Batyr Bloc followed in November.

Modern confederation

In March 2023 Mahuset renamed its two highest offices on old Dutch republican models. On 11 June the Lazian Chamber sat for the first time in three years, recognised the National Convention's legitimacy unanimously and gave the Confederation the arms it still bears. XO had made his final departure that January.

Consolidation has been the direction since. The armed forces were reorganised in 2024. In August 2025 the National Convention abolished its own constitutional commissions; separately, the government brought a number of independent offices under ministerial control and reshuffled the cabinet. In July 2026 the Convention abandoned its project of drafting a full suite of legal codes.

Mahuset Day marked fourteen years in May 2026. The Confederation has now stood for more than a decade, longer than the monarchist era and its failed successors together. What it has become in that time is described in the overview.