My tl;dr take on things is that the Overlord should be able to align an undeclared baron to renegade at any time, but at the expense of said baron being treated as if they were loyal if done within their seven day grace period. Meaning the baron gets the immediate right to challenge.
My caveat to this in regard to the current situation pertaining to King and Claire, since it is the first impression, is that it would be fair to have the renegade stance not in place for the Monday event challenges. If we really think the interest of fairness says waiting a week, I'm fine with that as well. In all cases in the future, however, I think it should be an immediate banishment to renegade.
So, the long winded why of this has several pieces.
The first rule, and the whole reason this is an issue, is the Overlord banishment clause:
*emphasis mine.. Can, at anytime, switch the alignment of a Loyal Baron with reason given in writing on the Public Notice Board provided a WoL record of 15 is maintained.
Having the word "loyal" in there makes the clause questionable. I believe that, as written, the rule simply doesn't contemplate the undeclared state and sees the world in the general black and white, with me or against me, loyal or renegade state of affairs. To me however, and I'll come back to this at the end, it doesn't make a lot of sense to treat undeclared any differently from loyals here. If, as the Overlord, I can take away a baron's right to be loyal then it only makes sense that I should similarly be able to withhold the rights of an undeclared baron from becoming loyal in the first place.
The next rule, which is being relied upon by some, but I believe in a misguided manner is from the baron's section:
Here's the thing I see with this rule (and the similar one in re: new barons) and it is going to be an area of dispute between people, but I do not read this as the right of the baron to take a week to declare. It is a subtle difference to be sure, but the way I read it is the obligation of the Overlord to declare for them after a week has passed. What's pertinent in my view is that the statement saying a baron must declare alignment within a week, is not mutually exclusive with saying the Overlord may also declare for them in the same one week.4. When an Overlord is dethroned all Barons must declare alignment within one week(7 days), to the Standings Keeper, or their alignment shall be set by the new Overlord.
The test really is this: Look at the Overlord's rule in the previous section and change it so instead it says something like "May banish a loyal or undecided baron to renegade alignment ..." and then look back to these baron section clauses. Do they need to change at all to continue making sense? No, they do not. It remains that if a baron doesn't declare within a week, the Overlord is obligated to do so for them.
Hence, in my mind, this is not a one week right given to the baron to be free of Overlord intervention. It is a one week mandatory thing that if they do not do then lose the right to the OL to do for them, but which does nothing to exclude the Overlord stepping in during that time. The end bit about the Overlord's setting alignment is the punishment of the baron not doing their job, not a restriction for what else the Overlord might be able to do.
Ok, so those are my takes on the rules clauses. What I think is really the biggest factor here though is that waiting for the undeclared baron to make a declaration at this point buys us absolutely nothing (as long as we give them the loyal right of retribution)*. It is undisputed that the Overlord can turn a loyal to renegade. So, the end result here, is that we wait 1-6 more days for a couple barons to make a statement which holds absolutely zero relevance to what alignment they are actually going to be. Waiting for a meaningless statement seems entirely nonsensical to me.
We can do this just for the future or we can say in this instance, in the interest of fairness for being a previously unexplored option, we not allow for the queuing of challenges until the week has passed (or they declare alignment themselves) - for going forward I think it only makes sense to allow this option to the OL in the first week and give both loyals and those undeclared barons banished to renegade the immediate challenge right.
So.. that was really long, sorry about that. Hopefully that explains what I'm thinking and why and salves any thoughts I might hold the opinion simply due to who the parties involved are. Doing it this way just makes the most sense to me.
~Kal