The Battle of the Thermometers

The Battle of the Thermometers was a small-scale naval conflict involving several nations, but principally involving Gruenberg, Kjata Major and McKagan. The battle was fought over the claim of a shipping area by Gruenberg, which was interpreted by others to be illegitimate, as it violated UN Resolution #74, 'The Law of the Sea'.

RESOLUTION #74

The Battle of the Thermometers was initiated by the controversial interpretation of UN Resolution #74 by the Gruenberg State Department for UN Affairs. The first operative clause of this piece of legislation lays out mechanics for maritime claims, specifically stating that 'all areas of sea more than 20 kilometres from an internationally recognised settled landmass or scientific research station are described as international waters'.

Given the importance of the fishing business to Gruenberg's economy, Gruenberg attempted to extend its sovereign waters beyond that standard 20 km areas in the Bays of Abzhan-Rejak and Solitude by use of the provision for claiming waters within 20 km of any scientific research stations. This had been thought by some UN members to be an impractical loophole to exploit, given the prohibitive expense of funding a network of such installations. However, as the Resolution does not define what constitutes a scientific research station, Lori Jiffjeff, the legal attache to Gruenberg's UN delegation, convinced the State Department of the Merchant Navy that any form of scientific equipment, no matter how basic, could constitute such a station.

As such, Gruenberg announced to the international community that it was establishing of network of National Scientific Research Stations (NSRS). In practice, this merely involved the designation of thermometers on various marine installations, including the Blankard Oil Well and the 401 Gas Terminus. The State Department for the Merchant Navy then declared an area of some 120 km, all of which did indeed fall within a 20 km radius of an NSRS, to be a Federal Reserved Trade Area (FRTA), reserving the waters for the Gruenberger fleet and announcing that all foreign vessels entering the FRTA would be obliged to conform to Gruenberger maritime law and, more importantly, pay a Shipping Privilege Contribution (SPC).