I disagree that giving an order that is impossible to be followed IC prevents it from being an IR violation.
- "I forbid you to attend tournaments until you have achieved 300 prestige." Something that is patently impossible under current game mechanics, yet still an IR violation.
This is not in the same category. This is not ordering something that is impossible: this is giving a conditional order that violates the IR, where the condition itself is impossible to fulfill.
See the difference:
"If you do not gain 300 prestige, I will kill you."
"Until you gain 300 prestige, you may not go to a tournament."
The former case is logically equivalent to "I order you to gain 300 prestige", with the punishment for not doing so being death. This is plainly not against the IR.
The latter case differs only by the change to the consequence, not the condition. It is not the inability to gain 300 prestige that is the problem, it is the order not to go to the tournament.
In the case at hand, it is the condition that is being claimed to violate the IR, not the order, because it is a time-based condition.
- Ordering someone to go to a region that does not contain a temple and while there change class to priest. Again, impossible due to game mechanics, and something that our characters would know is impossible, yet still a violation.
Here, I'm not sure whether I agree or not. I'm inclined to say that I agree that this is a violation, but, again, I disagree that it is analogous to the current situation. I think it's partly because it's so very clearly contrived to be an impossibility that relates to changing class; I'm having a hard time seeing why anyone would order such an absurdity in the first place, so I am having trouble constructing (or, therefore, refuting) a parallel between it and...well, anything.
I
have seen orders to change class be part of an official diplomatic document, and therefore potentially a partial excuse for war. However, they were clearly an IR violation, because it simply ordered that all priests of the religion were to become non-priests.
(I would note that I still have some philosophical issues with the way the class IR interacts with priesthood; it could be argued that destroying a religion violates the class IR, because it forces all priests of that religion out of their class. However, obviously it cannot violate their IR, because it is something done by the game, that is not only allowed, but an encouraged part of war.)
- "Go back to the capital that is four regions away, drop your unit of infantry, recruit archers, and get back here in three days." Is an IR violation, even though it is technically impossible to do, since it would take four days to march there and back.
Yes, it's an IR violation, but like the first example, it's because of the order ("recruit archers, not infantry"), not the condition ("within three days").
"Absolutely no interpretations will turn a violation into a non-violation." There is no escape clause in the IRs that allows them to be circumvented or avoided by stating the violation in such a way that it is technically impossible to comply with.
I absolutely agree with this. This is why I am saying that it doesn't matter whether anyone would have sacrificed themselves if they'd logged in in time: either the ultimatum given is
always an IR violation, or
never an IR violation; what happens after the order is given does not affect its validity.
So, to clarify my point with all this:
No, simply making the IR-violating order an order that is blatantly impossible to be fulfilled IC is not sufficient to make it not an IR violation.
Indeed, I think I would have to say that this category of order is limited to orders that demand that something be done within a certain amount of time, where
what is ordered does not violate the IR, and the amount of time is
obviously too short for any character receiving the order to carry it out as instructed.
