This is why one person can't destroy a realm, which applies even for you (Quintus) thinking its dead
No, it isn't. Hireshmont has no power and publicly said the opposite as well as publicly resigning all authority. The only reason he got anything back was during the 3-man elections - he became Judge. If the game mechanic is that Hireshmont Vellos should be able to perpetuate a realm even though he has no land and no soldiers and no vassals, that's a stupid game mechanic.
Same thing with Arcaea and Tara. Being reduced to one or two regions does not mean that the realm is dead. Being reduced to one or two regions when the lords of both regions and the Duke all want to surrender does, and that was never true of Arcaea (which had powerful diplomatic allies as well).
So let's look at what we are trying to prevent, because obviously that's got to be important. Look at Ohnar West in FEI. One duchy realm with a small but dedicated group of active players. If the Duke of Sasrhas could push a button and join Arcaea or Coralynth, that would register on my scale as gamey because even though the Duke of a one-duchy realm is going to be a powerful person and even though there may not be one other single person with that level of power, there exists a larger number of quasi-influential people - namely the region lords, and of course the ruler. Collectively they could just switch their banners right back, or refuse the directive from the Duke to change in the first place.
Versus Terran, where you had every last region lord on board and where the now sole opposing noble repudiated his authority up until there was not anyone around left to challenge it. No offense to Vellos, here, if he'd been a Duke or even a Lord I'd say there's at least a case that Quintus could've been delayed.
So how do you prevent one and not the other? Seems pretty straightforward to me: either require the ruler and the capital Duke to sign off on it, or if you want to be super careful, require a majority of region lords and then enable a region lord to pledge to a realm that used to neighbor his region, say, within the last few weeks. If the Chateau went rogue tomorrow and Vellos was able to get a half-dozen nobles to come back to him, for instance, there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to raise Terran's flag again.
The argument that 'one person can't destroy a realm' is facetious in the event that the realm has already been destroyed according to everybody except the server, and Vellos admitted as much himself - plus even without Quintus, let's be honest, unless he's got a hidden stash of nobles somewhere there's no way he can make it happen. Arcaea and Tara still had fighting nobles who were not going to desert it.
