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Desgarrada la nube; el arco iris Brillando ya en el cielo y en un fanal de lluvia y sol el campo envuelto. Desperté. ¿Quién enturbia los mágicos cristales de mi sueño? Mi corazón latía atónito y disperso. . . . ¡El limonar florido, el cipresal del huerto, el prado verde, el sol, el agua, el iris! . . . , ¡el agua en tus cabellos! . . . Y todo en la memoria se perdía como una pompa de jabón al viento.  Discord link: https://discord.gg/7YpGYYS You can join the game at any time by posting a character name, portrait, and party in the thread.  In ancient times, the everlasting machines arrived from a distant star and remade this world in the image of a dream… In the 23rd century, machines of incomparable complexity were dispatched to the distant constellation of Taurus, to prepare promising moons for transformation into homes that could sustain human life and society. Even during the great crises of the 26th and 27th centuries, when the old cradles of human civilization began to fall into quiet and stillness, the machines carried out their mindless work over the centuries, exterminating the simple bacterial life they found and unleashing tremendous energies to create garden worlds for colonists. By the time the machines of the Taurus sector finished their task in the 30th century, however, colonization had fallen far enough in stature that those who departed were made up of the insane, the fanatic, or the eccentric. It was by pure chance that the moon the Taurus machines most loved was purchased by a family of dispossessed Earth nobles, who hoped to revive their dynasty’s declining fortunes in a place impossibly distant from their disgraces.  Thus were founded the great and many civilizations of the Taurus stars, which grew in the image of the past… Four hundred years after the nobles arrived on their moon, Anthe, the sector had grown into a thriving center of human civilization, culture, and trade. Power was divided between the vast, sclerotic, powerful League of Hyades and the traders and bankers of the United Pallene Territories, who led a group of fellow former Hyadic colonies in an alliance of mutual support and defense. In the meantime, the Kingdom of Anthe had fallen peacefully, replaced by the Republic of Anthe in 3444. The people of Anthe embraced their new democracy, and tried to maintain their traditional independence from either superpower. By 3579, the Republic of Anthe was clearly experiencing a wide social and political crisis. Anthen society and its economy had always been dominated by the great landholders of the nobility, the churches, and the wealthy industrialists, and by the 3570s the Republic’s political institutions had long since been corrupted and captured by their power and influence. The mechanisms of government simply did not respond to those without wealth or pedigree. Eager to distract a population growing more and more discontented, the Republic’s leadership began the third war against the Hyadic League in Anthe’s history. The First and Second Hyadic Wars had been more or less a series of skirmishes along trade routes, waged against a declining imperial power which could barely be bothered to acknowledge the Anthen declarations of war. In 3579, however, the League was experiencing one of its occasional reforming upswings, and the Anthen military had been hollowed out entirely by corruption and complacence. By 3580, Hyadic forces had landed on Anthe itself, welcomed and supported by national minorities who had always chafed under the chauvinism of the nobles’ descendants. As Hyadic armies marched on the Anthen capital of Piedra del Sol, the United Pallene Territories announced its intention to prevent further League gains, and the period of modern Anthen history known as the Intervention (3580-3589) began, as does the narrative of our game.  The Republic fell in war... After a long and terrible struggle, the combined Anthen-Pallene forces managed to stabilize the front south of Piedra del Sol in 3581. The Union made it clear to the Republic’s political and military leaders that their continued support rested on a drastic realignment of Anthen foreign and economic policy towards Pallene. Anthen leadership demurred. Whether the resulting 3583 coup (led by senior military figures) had the explicit or merely the tacit approval of the Union is fiercely contested by historians, but by the next year most of the Republic’s leadership had been arrested, parliamentary government and elections had been suspended indefinitely, and the generals announced the formation of the National Salvation Council as the governing body of the new State of Anthe for the duration of the emergency. For the next several years, Anthe was plunged into an unimaginable state of chaos and terror as the Salvation Council and its Union allies waged a three-way war against the surviving Republican loyalists as well as the League armies and their own Anthen auxiliaries concentrated among the ethnic minorities common to the south of Anthe. 3586 saw the final defeat of the Republic’s hounded remnants and the public execution of its leaders. The League was slowly driven south, until in 3588 its position was reduced to the great southern port city of Maravilla, which had been declared the seat of a rival puppet government under Hyadic control. After nearly a decade of war, the current Master of the League declined to carry on the conflict any further, and ordered his generals to negotiate a peace. The resulting treaties ended the war between Anthe and the League, but the Salvation Council’s armies still marched on. The Suppression of Maravilla, which lasted through the early months of 3589, remains a topic heavily censored by the government over all forms of telecommunications and popular media. The worst war in Anthen history ended. The leading figure of the Salvation Council had always been a young, talented Vice Admiral named Isidor de Luna, and following the war’s conclusion he was confirmed in the new position of Head of State, which concentrated nearly all institutional power in his hands. The new Anthen state that emerged was focused on three things: security, stability, and rebuilding. De Luna achieved all three through a mixture of terrifying autocracy, genuine reforming energy, and a full embrace of Anthe’s new status as a Union ally. Republicans and dissidents were arrested and jailed indiscriminately, huge programs of rebuilding and expanding public infrastructure were funded by Pallene loans, and the most important industries were immediately nationalized. Order and prosperity returned to Anthen society, at the point of a gun and backed by the threat of further state terror.  In 3637, de Luna revealed to his circle of advisors in the government two things: one, that he was dying of a terminal illness; two, he had decided on the structure of his succession. By now, it was apparent that the autocratic regime had moderated its most violent and repressive tendencies, and even grown somewhat lenient towards its political enemies, who were allowed to live on Anthe as long as they refrained from public political activity. Dissidents within and without were allowed to voice modest criticisms without fear of arrest, though hardliners in the military and administration continued to advocate for the return of the regime’s harshest years, and imagined that all could be solved through application of unyielding force. Whether this was even possible (the Union had made it known that political liberalization and reform would not be unwelcome, and labor unrest grew by the year despite labor unions being declared illegal and strikes being violently suppressed) was debated among reformers in the administration and underground political opponents. The question of whether further repression could solve the regime’s problems also applied to the topic of autonomy for the southern ethnic/linguistic minorities: resistance to the regime among these groups ranged from peaceful protest from tolerated autonomy political associations to outright terrorist action by militant organizations that did not shrink from bombings and assassinations. This was the atmosphere in which de Luna made his wishes known, and they surprised literally everyone. A young naval officer named Josephine Beira was sent for, as were the leaders of the underground opposition. The resulting secret negotiations resulted in the return of two institutions long thought expired on Anthe: democracy, and the monarchy. The position of Head of State would expire with de Luna, and Josephine Beira (a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the last monarch; and really Josephine Isabel de Beira y Metis, if you asked her estranged pretender cousins living off-world) would be crowned Josephine Isabel II. The underground opposition agreed to the arrangement on the condition that the monarch share power with a democratic head of government and parliament, and have her powers limited by a constitution. The military and administration agreed to the arrangement on the condition that the monarch retain several important powers. The autonomists who could be negotiated with agreed to the arrangement on the condition that an autonomist party be allowed to stand as one of the authorized parties in the elections. The Pallene ambassador let it be known that the Union would assent to the arrangement as long as loan repayments were not disrupted and all existing security and trade agreements remained in effect. Isidor de Luna died of organ failure on March 22nd, 3639. The new constitution was announced in a joint ceremony between underground political opponents and regime stalwarts on July 19th. Josephine Isabel II was crowned Monarch of the Serene Crown of Anthe on November 2nd. Elections are to be held on March 1st, 3640. Early polling indicates a public approval rating of Josephine Isabel and the new constitution at above 75%. Welcome to my sci-fi government simulation game! Can you, the players, manage the transition from autocracy to democracy? If any of this interests you, read on to find out how to play. tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Oct 3, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 02:22
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For now, you can participate in the game by making a character and picking a party to join. You’ll need a name and portrait, and then just announce which party you’re joining in the thread (One caveat; no active duty military characters, so no ranks in titles unless retired). In a few days, I’ll post how elections work. Between now and then, I’ll continue to provide setting information with posts about Anthen geography, society, culture, economics, foreign relations, and government, as well as the basic mechanics of the game. For more questions and for a general out-of-character chat, you can join a discord server I made for the game here: https://discord.gg/7YpGYYS Parties The managed transition to democracy is the result of years of negotiation between bitter political enemies. These are the parties authorized to stand for election in 3640. Each is a coalition of many interests, though each party’s “base” description should give a broad idea of which social groups support which party. The important position of Party Leader is determined by internal elections that will be held shortly in the future; if no PC runs as a candidate in a party election, the NPC listed will remain in the position by default. Party Leaders serve as head of government if they win elections, and are responsible for setting the party's platform, while Player Characters serve as their government ministers, or as the political opposition. Player Characters cannot found their own party at this own time, but must join one of the three listed below. Two other special parties exist as NPCs only, to serve as important political pressure groups and foils. Each party platform is only the vision of its current leader; PCs are encouraged to form their own ideas of what the parties should represent, though if it is a drastically different vision than that of their base they should expect constructive feedback and/or carbombings from NPC party members and ordinary voters.  Name: National Construction Party - “Our regime will eliminate the very roots of social struggle, because all who work together in production shall comprise one single organic entity. We reject and we shall prevent at all costs selfish interests from abusing others, and we shall halt anarchy and self-interest in the field of social relations.” Our current peace and national strength was bought with the holy blood of the saints, heroes, and martyrs of the nation in a terrible war for independence and freedom -- a revolutionary struggle that saw the triumphant second birth of the Anthen people. Millions of martyrs gave their lives for the cause of the nation, so that their children could live free from imperialist domination and foreign tyranny. Isidor de Luna, leading the faithful and patriotic people of Anthe, restored peace, prosperity, and justice to a corrupt and chaotic system which had entered a terminal and abhorrent decay. Some say that excesses were committed during his time in leadership - but we will not apologize for what was done in the name of national survival, nor will we accept the logic of the foreign-backed subversives who insist that we become the first nation in history to judge its victorious soldiers who struggled and prevailed for the stability of their fellow citizens. We remember the grinding poverty of the old Republic, the cruelty of the grand nobles, the demagogues of petty religions and ethnic hatreds whipped into a hellish, murderous blaze by imperialist puppeteers, the catastrophe of military defeat and invasion. When no one else remembers, we shall, and when no one else will stand for Anthe -- for honor, household, faith, and our way of life -- we will. The faithful and patriotic people of Anthe stand together in the name of the peaceful present we have built for ourselves, and for the just and free future we will continue to build for our children. Colors: Purple and Orange Leader: Carolina de Oliveira y Vidre, Countess of San Saturnino, 49 years old : The Countess San Saturnino is a veteran of the de Luna administration’s turbulent internal factional struggles, where she was seen as a moderate, extremely capable reformer from the younger generation of state officials. As the former Minister of Finance and Interior, she has secured support among her party’s factions by promising a steady, stable policy of continuity with de Luna’s major financial and foreign policies. The Countess’s long experience in government has convinced her that the best way for the state to prosper is to undercut radical demands by implementing a genuinely attractive and just welfare system for Anthe’s citizens. Platform: Maintain close relations with the Union, but resist further economic integration in favor of protecting domestic industries; Maintain a strong military presence against the League and for the glory of the nation; Maintain the political and economic structure of the regime, continuing the policy of export-led economic growth and investment in infrastructure; Resist attempts by the Monarch to gain power at the expense of the rest of the government; Establish or expand national systems of healthcare, education, unemployment, and pensions in order to build mass support for the party; Refuse autonomist demands, and do not negotiate with terrorists; Maintain and expand the Churches' position as the rightful administrator of education and healthcare, and as the proper religion of Anthe; Prevent social chaos and disunity by insisting on the provision of an amnesty law reconciling Anthens to each other no matter their side or previous actions, in the name of national reconciliation. Base: Army officers, nationalists, conservative clergy, social conservatives, industrialists, government clerks & administrators, conservative peasant associations, medium-sized landowners.  Name: Free Constitutionalist Party - “Free Labor. Free Constitution. Free Society.” The various underground opposition groups of the de Luna regime (a huge network of everything from urban liberals to rural anarchists to bankers to immigrant mutual aid societies) find it difficult to agree on anything but this: the Constitution of 3639 is a disgrace to democracy and requires immediate replacement. No constitution signed at gun-point is worth preserving; thankfully, that’s a pretty broad appeal for the animating force of your political party. What it should be replaced with is up for debate, but party members agree that the suffocating government monopolies and tariffs should be broken up, the military must be somehow tamed and banished from political life, the Monarch must be either sidelined or gotten rid of, the churches and clergy must be shoved back into the dustbin of history, the benefits of closer economic integration with the Union must be embraced, and the creative, rational, democratic forces of society must be unleashed at every level. Colors: Green and Aquamarine Leader: Ali Hakkar, age 55: Hakkar is the charismatic scion of the founders of a major electrical engineering firm, though by age 30 he had established himself as an organizational wizard and successful industrialist in his own right. Hakkar is one of the most important stabilizing forces in the FCP, as his single-minded defense of civil liberties, parliamentary democracy, and secularism provide a steady base to orient the many party factions around. The Free Constitutionalist leader is cosmopolitan, well-connected, and devoted to his vision of a society where every Anthen is free to pursue their own destiny. Platform: Establish closer ties to the Pallene Union and Themis Concordat, including further economic integration into its currency union, common market, and military coalition; Reduce the power of the military and security forces; Resist attempts by the Monarch to gain power at the expense of parliament; Open up international trade by reducing or abolishing tariffs and encouraging foreign investment, and the liberalization of the financial sector; Reduce the power of former administration elites by breaking up government monopolies and ending unfair government intervention in industry; Establish further democratic reforms, including universal individual suffrage and the rights of speech, assembly, and jury trials; Establish a new constitution through national referendum; Establish a secular education system; Accept autonomist demands, and negotiate with terrorists; Investigate the crimes of the De Luna regime and bring its worst offenders to justice; Secularize society, and reduce the power of the Churches by stripping it of its privileges, wealth, and legal protections -- education and healthcare must be made entirely secular concerns. Base: Major nobility, republicans, liberals, conservative trade unionists, progressive clergy, civil libertarians, media, financiers, urban teachers, intelligentsia, internationalists, immigrants.  Name: Royal Alliance - “The Queen, the working people, and the Homeland constitute an indivisible whole. For the first time in history the common Anthen will be the subject of history, and the engine of change." The compressing effect of the managed transition has produced some strange political bedfellows, but none stranger than the new “Royal Alliance”, which formed through a merger of the underground, monarchist Royal Society and the radical-dominated Peasant-Miner Alliance. The common denominator is every faction’s hope that the new Monarch can be harnessed as a powerful political force, sweeping aside entrenched large noble interests, foreign capital, and the reactionary elements of the old regime. Above everything else, the party agrees on the vital necessity of land reform and the expansion of the power of trade unions. Nearly 40% of Anthen workers are engaged in agriculture or an extractive industry like mining, and nearly all of those are indebted sharecroppers, struggling smallholders, or working in dangerous conditions for terrible pay. The minor nobility and the radicals want the major nobility’s land monopoly broken; they want more education and healthcare; they want to nationalize the banks and other strategic industries; and they collectively see the Monarch as the most convenient way to achieve all this. Tagging along for the ride is the leadership of the Anthen Navy, who maintained a power base and patronage network separate from the Army as de Luna’s pet service, and who want to secure a new patron in the Monarch. Colors: Red and White Leader: Belen Ahmad, age 31: The former Executive Secretary of the Peasant-Miner Alliance, Ahmad pioneered the political alliance with the monarchists and small landowners. Formerly involved with radical, militant peasant groups organizing for land reform in her teenage years, Ahmad gave up a promising career in the Navy’s scientific research branch to pursue politics full-time when she grasped that the new system of government would offer unique opportunities, for those keen enough to pursue them . She seems very confident that the new Monarch will be sympathetic to the Royal Alliance’s goals, and observers have pointed out that they actually did attend the Naval Academy at the same time. Ahmad represents the youngest and most radical generation of Anthe reformers, who are neither invested in the maintenance of the former political regime nor interested in the cobwebbed ghost of the Republic. Platform: Resist the economic imperialism of the Union; Establish detente with the League; Establish a process of land reform to break up the large landowners and give land to the indebted and landless peasantry; Empower the Monarch to act swiftly and decisively in the name of the Nation and the working people and peasants of Anthe; Maintain high tariffs and protectionist policy for domestic industry and agriculture; Invest in rural education; Nationalize finance and other strategic industries not yet under state control; Empower the trade unions, miners, and peasants through legislation supporting their fundamental rights, representation & control, and large wage increases; Establish small landowners and minor nobles as the basis of an expanded Anthen agriculture; Maintain the strength of the Navy; Accept autonomist demands if they will support Royal Alliance policies like land reform, negotiate with terrorists; Pass a constitutional amendment forbidding the sale or alienation of land or natural resources, and establishing the right of the state to re-possess the same if it is being squandered for personal gain; Defend the Monarch's right to immunity from criminal prosecution, and the lese-majeste law. Base: Navy officers, monarchists, minor nobility, small landowners, radical peasant associations, poor clergy, miners’ associations, rural teachers, radical trade unionists. NPC Parties Name: Steel Pact Colors: Gold Leader: Carla Juvarra Base: Veterans, ultra-nationalists, imperialists. Name: Autonomy Movement Colors: Sky Blue Leader: August Maier Base: Federalists, Maravilla autonomists, Maravilla financiers & industrialists, ethnolinguistic minorities.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:23
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 Geography of Anthe Anthe ("Anne-thuh") Population: 211 million Demonym: Anthens Currency: Anthen Dollar Unprocessed agricultural products, in descending order of tons exported annually: Wheat, sugar, coffee, tea, non-tropical fruits, corn, rice, cotton, tropical fruits, staple vegetables, animal meat products, dairy products, alcohol products, sorghum, plant products used in medicine and industry, fish, agave, vanilla, oilseeds, and nuts. Anthe is the second and smallest moon of the ringed gas giant Great Anthe. Uniquely among the Taurus sector, Anthe seemed nearly ready for human habitation even before the everlasting machines arrived and began their centuries-long task of terraforming the moon. Whether it was this lucky template or the brilliance of the machines that were assigned to Anthe (do they differ in intelligence and talent? Hardly anything is actually known about them), Anthe today is the jewel of the sector and the envy of its neighbors. Other inhabited systems in the sector can range from dull and dry (like the arid prairies of the Royal Republic of Chime-Marches) to actively hostile (the Pallenes, for all their wealth, have to live in towering spires built in rocky gorges, wreathed in corrosive mist and a permanent gloom). Anthe's habitable zone, by contrast, is enormously fertile and pleasant. Anthe is dominated by its one and only continent, which is scorching and empty desert except for the 1.5 million square miles of the habitable zone made by the everlasting machines. The habitable zone is bounded by two enormous forests reaching to the northern and southern ends of the continent. A traveler arriving on Anthe would probably arrive in the subtropical south, dominated by the international port of Maravilla. The climate of the southeastern shore is wet and warm, perfect for growing sugarcane, cocoa, indigo, and vanilla. White sand beaches mix with mangrove swamps, turning into thickets of wildflowers and palm trees as the traveler moves inland. If the traveler moves to the northwest of Maravilla, they will run into the great marshy delta at the confluence of Anthe's great rivers. As the traveler takes a train north up the river valley, they will notice the humidity lessening as they gain altitude. The river valleys slowly slope upwards, clouds and mists girdling the sides of the ringing hills and mountains. The river valleys of central Anthe are the most fertile on the moon, with dark black nitrogen-rich soil shaded by oaks. Rain here is plentiful enough that irrigation is unnecessary. The slow climb upwards ends at the capital of Piedra del Sol, which sits on the lip of Anthe's central plateau. To the east is the temperate high coastal plain, occasionally interrupted by low hills and forests of birch, ash, and rowan. To the northeast, the plateau stretches north, beginning at the city of Heliotropo (named after its endless sunflower fields) and stretching past Quince, where the vegetation begins to thin out until the flowering heath of the cold highlands meets the dark pine forests of the northern forest band. To the west, the plateau dips to meet the river valley cities of Pontevedra and Rodeiro. Southwest past these, the land grows more and more arid, so that the thickly clustered farming towns begin to use irrigation, until the rolling valley-land gives way to semi-arid grassland and finally desert at the zone's southwestern border.  To the northwest of the capital, the plateau dips slightly, the mountains and valleys giving way to the large northern plain and its tall grasses and famous wildflower fields. Here are the grandest estates on all of Anthe; the towns here are named for and owned by the great noble dynasties, and entire branch railroads have been built to ship their crops first to the regional processing center of Campanilla and then off-world. The end of the plain traditionally marked the last of the major population centers on Anthe, since the land slowly turns drier and drier until the great central river is bounded on both sides by featureless wastes made of gravel and sand. One hundred years ago, though, enormous mineral deposits were discovered in the last mountain range before the uninhabitable desert wastes, and now the huge industrial city of Salvatierra occupies the bare, rocky lower slopes of the desert ranges. This is truly the end of the line for any civilized Anthen. There are plenty of uncivilized Anthens, however, who are rumored to have established communities even further than this, in hidden desert oases and underground cavern systems far from the eyes of the government. Their number probably doesn't exceed a hundred thousand, though, and they mostly figure as the settings of fanciful children's tales for other Anthens. In the background of life, the everlasting machines continue to work to maintain the ecology and weather of Anthe. Most Anthens will never see one in person, as they are as likely to spend centuries wandering the vast empty deserts or the deep ocean as they are to wander among the clouds above a river valley. Occasionally, their lights can be seen in the distance at night. The polite response from an Anthen is to remove their hat and wait in place until the lights disappear from sight; the person who spotted it is guaranteed some good luck in the near future. tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 02:32
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 Ostap, formerly a leading figure among his regional sharecropper's union movement, now finds himself thrust into Parliament under the banner of the Royal Alliance. Some of the more radical folk back home might whisper where they think he can't hear about cutting deals with the devil, but the Queen seems like a reasonable enough young lady, and certainly their best shot at getting some serious demands seriously met. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 02:46
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 Baron Gabriel Francisco de la Cerda y Canovas had a brief but consequential career in the Anthen Navy, commanding a cruiser, the Lanza, in multiple Themis Concordat police actions. His participation was noted as decisive especially in the brief skirmish above Corrientes. When not fighting, Gabriel spent his time in Union space marveling at their technological innovations, and asking one question to himself: why does Anthe not have these things? In the final years of the de Luna regime, his father suddenly died, and he was forced to resign his commission early to return to the planet and manage his Household’s affairs and lands. With the birth of the new government though, Gabriel has seen his chance to return to his former naval companions in the Royal Alliance and advocate for planet-wide technological modernization, and perhaps do the Pallenes one better. Lord Cyrahzax fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 03:01
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 Aleixo Espindola, educated on Pallene in industrial engineering, from a family of well-to-do coffee-growers outside Piedra del Sol, is a rising figure in the National Construction Party. Based on his public statements, Espindola is believed to support: -Modernization of export agricultural production -Increased military preparedness through collaboration with the Union -Continued support for the “national champion” firms to grow the economy DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 03:33
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 Florimel Ortega-Hēi, a scion of the nobility. Her house controls sprawling agricultural interests. The intra-house politics are byzantine and cutthroat, but Florimel appears to have gained at least the temporary support of several of the branch families, allowing her to approach the Free Constitutionalist Party with some measure of legitimacy. It is said that the water gardens of the house seat are among the most beautiful on Anthe.
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Aug 26, 2020 03:41
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 Society & Culture of Anthe “Evil cannot be eradicated. No man is capable of curtailing its growth in this world. The individual might improve his own lot, perhaps, but always only at the expense of sealing the fate of others. And there will always be kings, who can be distinguished from one another by the degree of their cruelty, and there will always be, too, crude and debauched barons, the same as there will always be stupid folk, the ignorant masses, who show delight toward their oppressors and who, paradoxically, meet their liberators with hatred. This can all be explained by the strange phenomenon that servants and slaves understand their masters (even the most cruel) so much better than their liberators; for each subjugated slave can easily picture himself in the place of his master, but it’s a rare one who can visualize himself in the role of his liberator. This is the way of human beings, Don Rumata; this is what our world is like.” “The world undergoes constant changes. Doctor Budach,” said Rumata. “We know of a time when there were no kings at all …” “The world cannot keep on changing forever,” countered Budach, “for nothing is forever, not even change itself ... we do not know the laws of completed perfection but completion will be reached some day, sooner or later. Examine, for example, the structure of our society. How pleasant for the eye of the beholder to regard this geometrically perfect system! Down at the very bottom come the peasants and the artisans, above them the noblemen, then the clergy, and finally the king. How meticulously everything has been calculated! What steadfastness, what constancy, what harmonic order! What change could ever occur in this cut crystal from the hand of our divine jeweler? There is no structure in this world that is superior to a pyramid—as any well-trained architect will confirm.” He raised a finger, punctuating each remark with a slight stab in the air. “When grain pours from a sack, it does not spread out flat in a plane area, but will form a so-called conical pyramid. Each little grain adheres to the next, trying to avoid the fall to the ground. And this is the way it goes with mankind. In their attempt to form some kind of an entity, men must cling together, and inevitably they form a pyramid.” “Do you seriously consider this world the best of all possible worlds?” asked Rumata astonished.  Life on Anthe has been shaped irreversibly by three social institutions: the relation to land and seasons, the peasants and nobility, and the churches. A fourth institution, agricultural industrialization and the slow movement of the peasantry out of the countryside into the towns and cities, is currently emerging as a force destabilizing all three. For now, at least, every Anthen is linked by their experiences with the former, from their diet to their social calendars. The land is the source of Anthen identity and its greatest wealth. Anthens enjoy a greater and more varied diet than any other system in the sector, and they know it. Anthen cuisine is split in two broad schools; 'low' is associated with the hearty, practical food of rural workers and 'high' emphasizes complicated recipes that use an array of ingredients so vast it would be hugely inconvenient to make anywhere except on Anthe, with its overflowing food markets. The steady stream of foreign tourists (itself a major sector of the Anthen economy) tells them that they possess a moon of surpassing natural beauty, and the inexhaustible appetite for Anthen agricultural exports in foreign markets tells them that they live in a place of uncommon fertility. When Anthens gather to perform the Festivals of the Seasons (White Rain, Blue Flower, Red Water, and Black Wind, spaced three months apart), they are not only paying ceremonial tribute to the grace of the everlasting machines and their religions, but acknowledging that the land and seasons have shaped their identity and society. Festivals in the cities are more lavish and use more natural imagery, not less. Likewise, even peasants who move to the city and become industrial workers or actual trained professionals maintain strong ties to their rural places of origin. Rural emigrants in the cities tend to stick together and may found mutual aid societies that pool money for large purchases or even provide basic insurance schemes and banking services. Neighborhoods in cities are often named after the rural areas their inhabitants arrived from. "Peasant" is a broad term that encompasses several distinct rural classes, which includes small independent farmers, tenant farmers and sharecroppers, agricultural wage laborers, and the local artisans and merchants that support the rural economy. Peasants aren't technically bound to the land, though in practice a fair portion are so indebted to landlords or merchants that they have no other option but to stay (debtors can be sued and jailed, after all). Likewise, "nobles" is a broad category covering landless Dons and landed Dukes alike. Since the founding of the Republic hundreds of years ago, the title of "noble" has meant that one's household possesses a hereditary title of distinction and special rights, though it may in many instances serve more as an indicator of wealth than of any kind of feudal relationship. Noble titles can be purchased from the state for great sums, or awarded for exemplary service to the state. This is the usual distinction between the "major" and "minor" nobility; the former are marked by their immense wealth and their enduring control over land and production, and the latter come from commoners holding onto an aspirational mark of distinction usually passed down from an esteemed ancestor. The difference between a minor landless noble and a prosperous peasant, after all, is usually literally only the title itself. Nobles do not enjoy any sort of exemption from taxes, nor are they exempted from any sort of state service. The nobility do enjoy some specific privileges, though: no one else is allowed to carry out certain ceremonial duties during religious ceremonies (including the Festivals of the Seasons), and many civic records like marriage and death certificates require the signature of a noble to be recognized as legitimate (some enterprising minor nobles survive on "donations" given to them by "grateful" customers peasants for these services). In addition, since the re-organization of noble titles by the de Luna government after the Intervention, certain families hold 'household monopolies' over certain firms and industries: they are forbidden by law to work outside those firms (drawing passive income from land and investments not counting as 'work', nor does serving in the military), draw a stipend for their work, and the entire extended family serves as administrators, board officers, and executives for that firm. Though there is no explicit law on the matter, the highest administrative and military ranks have always been closed to everyone except the major nobility or commoners sponsored by a major noble's patronage network. Whether the social conservatism of Anthe emerged naturally over centuries or was consciously shaped by the nobility and clergy is mostly a moot point. Education, after all, has never previously been regarded as a task for the government to oversee beyond the issuing of a set of standards and best practices, and nearly every school is operated by private religious or charitable organizations, the major exception being schools and universities operated by municipalities. When most Anthens receive their education, the official curriculum stress the orderliness of society and the stability guaranteed by the current social order. Anthens tend to have a skeptical view of technological innovation (with the notable exceptions of agronomy and military science); 'tinkerer' is a mild insult with a vague negative connotation that implies someone is a busybody, or cannot leave well enough alone. Religion on Anthe is dominated by the Churches of the Eternal Sovereign Mercy, a syncretic religious framework that has inherited portions of aesthetics and theology from nearly every great spiritual tradition. The Churches (if you say 'the Churches' or the Clergy' on Anthe, this is who it is assumed you are speaking about) operates a massive network of schools and hospitals throughout Anthe, and often rural communities rely on Church services much more than the distant government and its tax collectors. They also interact with the Churches as landlords, since the Churches are, collectively, the largest landholder on Anthe (among peasants, the Churches have a not-always deserved reputation of being a less strict collector of rent than the nobles). Nearly 70% of all Anthens report some kind of affiliation with the Churches; of the remainder, the significant religious minority groups are Orthodox Christians, Mahayana Buddhists, Muslims, and non-believers. Most religious minorities are also ethno-linguistic minorities of some kind, so these other religions are concentrated in the south.  Some noted quirks of Anthen culture: Anthens are obsessed with music, and enjoy hearing it at nearly all hours. Anthens don't fidget; they hum and whistle. Popular singers are major celebrities, and most Anthens consider the ability to play an instrument a basic social skill. Anthens are so notorious for always wanting to hear something playing that "foreign quarters" in cities are distinguished by their strict noise ordinances, and Anthen hotels and resorts compete to market how quiet they can be to foreign tourists. Anthens drink an astonishing amount of sweet, sugary beverages, often carbonated and flavored with vanilla or fruit. Type 2 diabetes is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged health crisis on Anthe, with Anthens being around three times as likely to contract the disease as their offworld neighbors. On the other hand, Anthen soft drinks are famous among foreigners and have achieved an incredible level of market penetration and brand recognition in foreign markets. Anthens view military service as a social good, and soldiers are mostly seen as belonging to the same category of respectable professionals like teachers or doctors. Most Anthens live in multi-generational housing arrangements, often including extended family like cousins. The idea of a nuclear family living in a single-famiy dwelling would strike most (but not all) Anthens as a bit odd, and popular media reinforces this view through positive portrayals of large families and negative portrayals of loners or childless couples. The idea of the extended "household" is much more common than the "family" to most Anthens; after all, only the heads of households (regardless of gender & must be above 21) can actually vote.
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Aug 26, 2020 03:43
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 Sacerdote Exequiel de Heliotropo is a figure whose exact loyalties are hard to pin down. Originating from a family of migrant farm laborers, he was radicalized in his youth by the mistreatment of agricultural workers he saw in the fields around Heliotropo. At the age of fifteen he ran away from home to follow a radical organizer he had befriended who was on his way to Salvatierra to work with the miners. The partnership was short-lived, however, and Exequiel was soon forced to find work. He got a job as a warehouse hauler, lifting and lowering heavy loads at back-breaking paces. He was fired after some years for trying to organize his fellows and had to skip out of town to avoid criminal prosecution. Somewhere along the line he joined the church, or has always claimed so. He ran a small parish some distance from Poio, preaching to the sugar plantation workers about a day of judgement and justice. Either because of the contents of his sermons or because he was not an official priest, he was kicked out of the church. Thereafter he spent some time in Sudberg among a number of ethnic autonomy groups, before joining the Royal Alliance at the encouragement of a friend and leading trade unionist in Lieder.
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Aug 26, 2020 04:05
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The NPC Parties, Part 1: The Steel Pact "In Otaguro’s mind a strategy for sweeping away misrule had already taken form. To unseat corrupt advisors and enhance the grandeur of the Imperial Throne, there was no better way to begin than by raising a force of loyal men and seizing the camps at Kumamoto. With this stronghold as a focal point, a number of like-hearted men could be rallied to the cause from both east and west, and a vast force could be put together for an advance to the east. The first step was the seizure of the Kumamoto camps. It was a time when the enemy had become extraordinarily vulnerable, and it behooved Otaguro and his comrades to turn this to their advantage. Thus it was that Otaguro once more consulted the will of the gods through the Ukei rite. Again, after fasting for a number of days he made his way reverently into the Divine Presence, and, raising the branch adorned with the sacred pendants, executed the rite of Ukei with a devout heart. This time the darkness was not filled with the heat of mid-summer. The chill of early spring held possession of the sanctuary. Then, too, it was just before dawn, and from the rear of the priest’s house could be heard the crowing of roosters. Their cries seemed to shatter the darkness like streaks of crimson lightning. They were rending cries, as if the dark throat of night had been burst asunder and was spurting blood. The sage Atsutané Hirata talked endlessly of the pollution caused by death, but, as to blood pollution, he mentioned only the loss of a trivial amount of blood. Now there took form in Otaguro’s mind, here before the gods, the image of pure, seething blood. As his thoughts dwelt upon this blood which was to purify the Imperial Court, he felt that the gods would not take offense. There flashed through Otaguro’s prayerful entreaty terrible phantasms: glinting swords cutting down the wicked, blood spilling out on every side. And beyond the blood, what was pure, just, and honest took form, like the blue line of the distant sea."  Colors: Gold Leader: Carla Juvarra, age 38 Militarism and xenophobia have always been latent (at the very minimum) features among broad swathes of Anthen society, but the crisis of the period of De Luna's succession has given a new form to this nebulous feeling of righteous violence and crusading nationalism. During De Luna's time in power, the ideology of the National Salvation Council stressed that it was the failures of the republican system that required the military's intervention, however strict, into politics. Consequently, there are many (especially among Anthe's veterans, who number several million) in or associated with the military who have carried this ideology to a conclusion they find natural: that democracy itself is inherently unworkable, and that civilian control of the government inevitably results in corruption, perversion, and weakness in the state and the individual. These elements have joined with the most hardline military figures in the former regime to produce the Steel Pact (and it was only because of the promise of official recognition of the Pact as one of the five parties to stand in the elections that those hardliners agreed to remain in their barracks). Though the muscle of the party comes from its military connections, the ideology of the party is, to put it charitably, heterogenous. In the Steel Pact an observer will find ossified generals, wide-eyed radicals whose politics are difficult to place, poets waxing about the virtue of strength and speed, disaffected and formerly apolitical veterans, and ultranationalists who despise what they see as foreign influence and foreign ideologies. Herding these cats is Carla Juvarra, a young and charismatic cavalry officer, a veteran of a half-dozen "police actions" undertaken by the NSC on the Union's behalf, a published author of political theory and adventure stories, and an occasional mystic and seer. Though she claims no noble heritage, her devoted followers elevated her to the position of party leader by acclaim, citing her authentic experience as a patriot, warrior, philosopher, and visionary. What anyone can tell of that vision is that the Steel Pact wants the following: to reject foreign influence in all its forms (and especially slavery, that most depraved and disgusting foreign practice); to embrace Anthe's heritage as a martial nation and expand its power at the expense of its barbarian neighbors; to elevate the Monarch to the position of Emperor and declare Anthe an Empire; to restore virtue to the youth through universal military training and mandatory attendance of Patriotic Academies; to give no quarter to terrorist minority groups or their sympathizers, and to uphold the highest morality by breaking the economic stranglehold the rich industrialists and landholders have on the nation (this monopoly of wealth has, of course, foreign origins either in deed or influence). They are also enthusiastic proponents of land reform, and want to see every Anthen granted their own plot of land work as a citizen-soldier-farmer.
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Aug 26, 2020 04:40
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NPC Parties, Part 2: The Autonomy Movement "Thus, the most productive position we can hold is not merely insisting on "greater rights" for this or that minority population, but challenging the concept of the nation itself. For nationalists, the "nation" is the ahistorical, eternal basic unit of societies, and all societies form "nations" through which to conduct diplomacy, war, and trade...all differences and divergences from this nation come to be understood as corrupting and polluting influences, a disease affecting the organic and natural society. The inevitable product of this view is the centralization of power in the government in the name of using coercion to ameliorate conflict between groups in society. From this follows the familiar campaigns against minorities, against all checks to the nation's power, until power rests with those who rise through a faux-pragmatism, promising to carry out the unpleasant but unnecessary steps to protect the nation against its enemies. Those of us who reject terrorism, either as a short-term strategy or because of fundamental principles, also hold that we cannot secure for ourselves lasting peace and happiness by seeking to establish our own little nations beneath the central government, which cannot brook any competitors to its authority and sovereignty. We must, instead, commit to working against the concept of the Anthen "nation", against the "Anthen" identity, against chauvinism, against centralization of power. We do not say that by insisting on our languages being spoken and our traditions being honored we will have our own nation. We say that as long as the power to determine which languages are spoken and which traditions are honored rests with the government and not the citizenry and their communities, the time will come when power preys not only on us, the fanatics and terrorists you hate as a proud Anthen, but on the Anthens themselves, in the name of Anthe..." - Excerpted from August Meier's 'Notes on Federalism'  Colors: Sky Blue Leader: August Meier, age 41 What makes up "Anthen" culture and "Anthen" language has always been an extremely contentious debate. For the de Luna regime, and even the Republic before it, it was a matter to be settled with lethal force against those who insisted that theirs, too, were legitimate expressions of Anthen traditions and language. Immigrant-descended communities have always been concentrated in the southern parts of Anthe, but it was only in the last century that laws were adopted to standardize language in education, signs, government, and religion. Towns and villages were renamed, children were taught to speak the language of the government, and folk celebrations were suppressed. As a natural response to this, minority groups began to organize politically to protect their heritage and rights. As a response to this response, the government escalated its use of force by disrupting rallies and exiling or imprisoning leaders. The conflict entered its most serious phase when, in 3577, a dozen minority organizations amalgated into the Action Organization, which determined to meet every attack with even greater force. Since the founding of the AO, thousands have died in bombings and shootings, and even more have simply disappeared. The latest generation of AO leaders have attempted to shift to a pattern of warning targets before attacks, in order to minimize civilian casualties, but bystanders are still routinely injured or killed in the bombing of police stations, banks, or government buildings, or in the brutal reprisals that follow. The AO has also seen splits and splinterings, with a half-dozen offshoots that routinely adopt an even more militant and uncompromising stance towards the government. These splinter groups have been responsible for some of the worst terrorist attacks in Anthen history (the 3631 bombing of a ferry in Maravilla carried out by the Action Organization(Renewed) killed the Director of the Office of State Security, and 781 others) and are often indistinguishable from criminal organizations as they branch out into bank robbery, extortion, and drug trafficking. Police reprisals have been, if anything, even more violent: every gendarme shot to death on a back road is met with a hundred arrests, beatings, or disappearances. Anti-minority paramilitary and vigilante groups have been supported (and, it is often speculated, funded) by the Ministry of Security, and it's an open secret that many of the special units founded to hunt down terrorists have become involved in the same web of corruption, extortion, and parasitic gangsterism as their nominal prey. There have always been those who want to de-escalate and "go legal", and the Autonomy Movement represents those who were willing to come to the table when reforming elements of the de Luna regime reached out in the succession negotiations. Hardliners have always maintained that the leadership of the AM contains those with former or active ties to the most violent elements of the AO. They're absolutely correct, but the AM's willingness to participate in formal electoral politics and move away from armed resistance represents such an important break from the status quo that de Luna personally commanded that they be included as a party in the 3640 elections. The Autonomy Movement is strongest throughout the south, and especially in Maravilla (which houses the largest concentration of immigrants and minorities on the moon), but others have responded positively to their platform of devolving power to local sub-units. The central government appoints governors of districts, mayors, prosecutors, judges, and most administrators: the AM wants these to be locally elected, and they want to reverse the centralization of government and economic power that has been a feature of Anthen life for at least a century. They also want a total de-escalation of the police presence in minority communities, an investigation into police atrocities and reprisals, the release of all political prisoners, bi-lingual representation for minority languages, an end to the harassment of minority cultural displays, and the establishment of autonomous sub-units for the largest concentrations of minorities on Anthe, including Maravilla. The leader of the AM is August Meier, a young Laibacher-Anthen who is seen as one of the architects of the AM's move towards legal representation and one of leading intellectual forces in the federalist camp.
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Aug 26, 2020 05:25
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 Manuel Cobos Free Constitutionalist Party The owner of the news publication, The Anthen Anthem, Cobos has emerged as a prominent voice among liberal intellectuals and media-types. As a member of the Free Constitutionalist Party, he has advocated strongly for guaranteed freedom of speech (without limits), a new constitution, and other civil liberties. He was educated abroad, and has a well-known fondness for foreign cultures and societies. His detractors would even say he likes them more than he does Anthe. In his editorial publications, he has argued for: -The immediate end of all forms government censorship, and a guarantee of the right to Freedom of Speech -Replacing the current, "temporary" constitution with one based on universal and individual suffrage (the principle of "one person, one vote") -Using the power of parliament and the constitution to declare and enumerate a set of universal civil rights that apply to all citizens equally -Eliminating all artificial legal barriers between the peasant and noble classes -The pursuit of true "Free Market" policies, including the abolition of all monopolies and tariffs Takanago fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 05:56
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 The Anthen Household System Because of its importance in law, religion, and culture, the Anthen system of the Household deserves some further explanation. Legally speaking, Anthen citizens are not considered citizens on account of any kind of individual status or right. Instead, Anthens are recognized as Anthen nationals because they belong to a registered Household - the multigenerational unit that is responsible for recording births, deaths, marriages, adoptions, and family relations, for receiving benefits, and for holding property and inheritable titles of nobility. In modern times, it has become a focal point of controversy and proposed reforms, both derided as a backwards relic and praised as a symbol of Anthen tradition. Although it has existed in various forms and according to various legal regimes throughout Anthen history, the modern Household Registry was created by the De Luna government in 3595 as part of its relentless modernization and rationalization campaigns. The government had to reconcile several overlapping legal categories and traditions, but by the turn of the century they had hammered out a workable amalgam, so that each household belonged to one uniform registry system, and the rules for creating new ones were common to all. As a result of the reshuffling, consolidating, and re-filing this process made necessary, most households trace their origins back to this period a mere four decades ago, though wealthy families can afford lawyers to establish lineages reaching back centuries through various iterations of legally recognized predecessor registries. The Household system is simple enough on its face: an Anthen belongs to a Household by virtue of being born to their parents, or by being adopted into one. Each Household is chaired by a Head of Household, who is either the oldest child-bearing person registered to the Household or else the eldest mentally competent member. Each Household is required by law to record every birth, death, marriage, adoption, and secession involving its members. When children are born, they are added to the Household. When someone marries, they are able to establish their own Household with their spouse if they wish -- the children they bear will belong to that new Household. Otherwise, they and their spouse remain in the original Household, as well as any children they will bear or adopt. A person is legally allowed to secede from their Household, and establish a new Household where they are the only member, though this act still carries a substantial amount of stigma. In the case of divorce, a person can also choose to revert back to their original Household, or else begin a new one as the lone member. Because of these choices available to individuals, Households can vary dramatically in size - some include dozens of members across multiple generations and "branch" sub-families, while others consist of two parents and their children, while still others consist of individuals either satisfied with their own company or looking to add new members through marriage or adoption. When a person dies, the Household registry is updated but they remain on its list of members, merely acquiring a deceased status. Each Household is required to list a single Household Address as its location, though this is non-literal and symbolic: it can be literally any address on Anthe, and Households often maintain a Household Address different from their literal (and separately registered under the Land Registry) daily addresses -- for example, a Household which traces its roots to a village can list a Household Address in that village even if all its members have long ago moved on to city life, and some ultrapatriotic Households have listed the Summer House (the palace-turned-museum of the old monarchy) as their location in symbolic solidarity with the old ways of the nation. Heads of Household may change the Household Address as they please once every five years. One factor influencing the size of Households is whether or not a Household has got a title of nobility.* For obvious reasons, ambitious individuals without title may marry into a Household with title -- they won't be ennobled, but their children, spouse, and acquired extended family will be. For the same obvious reasons, noble Households often become sprawling affairs, as hardly any nobles on Anthe are eager to secede or marry into a new (and newly common) Household. Properly speaking, Households are the real owners of private property on Anthe, since an individual can only hold property jointly with the Head of their Household, whose approval must be got for any sale, purchase, or transfer above a very small threshold of $500. This further encourages Households to increase in size over time, since the existing tax structure provides small tax benefits for Households with more members and inheritances and gifts between Household members are either not taxed at all or only very lightly (an individual can designate an heir outside their Household only with considerable tax penalties and a usually severe amount of disapproval from other Household members if they stand to lose something of value). A sharp observer may be wondering: where do foreigners fit into this, since Anthens are Anthens by virtue of being born into Anthen Households? For most of recorded Anthen history, they simply did not, and thus were denied formal citizenship. Since the era of the Anthen Republic, foreigners were able to access citizenship on only slightly less onerous terms: they had to pay an enormous sum, adopt an "Anthen" surname, pass an infamously difficult naturalization test, and only then were they able to found a new Household. Since the modernization of 3595, the fees and surname adoption have been abolished, and the test drastically lowered in difficulty, so that foreigners wishing to establish their own Households and become citizens only need to establish residency for six years and take a simple naturalization test and oath. An even quicker route into a Household, of course, is simply marrying an Anthen national and joining theirs. In the rare instance of foreign parents assuming custody of Anthen national children who have no existing Household ties (say a Laibacher marries an Anthen, has kids, they make a new Household, then the Anthen divorces the Laibacher and adopts their old Household while not transfering the children over), the children are considered to be members of their own new Household. Household Registries are an essential part of documentation and record-keeping on Anthe, serving as proof of inheritance, proof of family ties, adoption records**, birth and death certificates, and property records. The actual physical documents are kept in the offices of the hundreds of local districts of the Department of Records, Passes, and Documents, which belongs to the Office of the Interior, and only DRPD officials are allowed to alter or create the physical records. Families wishing to update their Household Registry must contact the Department, which hires tens of thousands of young people on a part-time basis as roving record-keepers - a teen getting an Assistant Recorder job in the summer is a common background in scores of bildungsromans. Finally, individuals can request official copies of their Household Registry documents from the district office of their recorded Household Address (the originals do not leave the district office, while the digitalization of Household records into a Office-wide system is a long-standing goal for the government). *Assuming the title of nobility covers the other members of the Household, which may not be the case -- noble titles were another thing the De Luna regime modernized, and now they fall into two categories: Titles of Grant, which is either granted to an entire Household and all its descendants (these have probably been inherited, or in rarer cases awarded by the ruling authorities of the nation in the last few generations), or else a Title of Service, which confers noble status (for legal and religious matters) to an individual but not their Household or their legal descendants (this latter category is much more common, as an award for valorous service to the government). ** An "illegitimate" child is one whose birth not been recorded in their Household. But because every Anthen comes to be in a Household one way or another, they either found their own upon becoming an adult or become adopted into another one which may have no connection to their biological parents; in fact, the Household Registry makes no distinction between a biological parent and adoptive ones, since there is only one "parent" category - whoever is registered as a parent, either upon birth or adoption, and no genetic connection is actually required.
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Aug 26, 2020 06:20
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 Yazmin Ochoa, Countess of Zizurkil National Construction Party The Ochoa household's ancestral lands and wealth were frittered away long ago; a common family joke is that they shall soon be forced to eat the Title of Grant. However, the joke is told is rather better humor these days, as recent years have seen the family's fortunes rise again. Count Sandobal Ochoa, then serving as a loud-spoken but relatively unimportant clerk in the Ministry of the Interior, managed to secure a key position as Secretary for Transportation just weeks before the announcement of the nationalization process of the HS/HC rail system, catapulting him to wealth and prestige in the blink of an eye. Sandobal has always laughingly described this timely stroke of luck as simply "being in the right place at the right time" or "knowing which way the wind was blowing," but rumors persist of corruption and under-the-table dealing. Sandobal's adopted daughter Yazmin was born to a ranching family near San Vitoria, and was sponsored by the local academy to pursue a degree in geology at UAM. While there, she married a Laibacher-Anthen landowner named Nikolai, but after his sudden (some would say "suspicious") death, she was introduced to the childless Ochoa by their mutual acquaintance, the Countess San Saturnino. Yazmin was soon adopted and given a position in the Ministry, eventually being promoted to Undersecretary of Surveying and Mapping. Her landmark accomplishment in this capacity is an ongoing modernization of the land-accounting system, clarifying the often ill-defined borders between landowners' holdings and enforcing standards to untangle the byzantine mineral rights regulations attached thereto. When the transition was announced, Yazmin's father took the opportunity to declare his intention to retire "along with the old system," passing the countdom to Yazmin. When asked if she would assume his position as head of the Ministry, Yazmin demurred, saying: "That is not for me to decide, but for the people of Anthe. Rest assured, as I am, that the most suitable person for the position will be chosen." To date, Yazmin has rarely spoken of political matters, but in preparing to take the Ochoa seat in the House, she consented to an interview regarding her goals. She praised the "sweeping" improvements made to the rail system since nationalization, and stated that her primary goal will be to apply the same process to healthcare and local safety administrations, such as police and fire brigades. Asked about calls for reform of the governmental apparatus, she agreed that changes were necessary, but said, "Such things must be done carefully. If a bridge is damaged, it might seem faster and easier to simply rip out the supports and start anew. But then those who relied upon the bridge must wait. And in the end, it often ends up taking longer and costing more than you thought, because you took action and then wrote the plan afterwards. Turning your eyes to the soil and laying stones one by one does not mean you have given up on the dream; it is how you achieve the dream." megane fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 08:17
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 Isidro Gonfalcon Free Constitutionalist Party An educator of several decades good standing and ostensibly a member of the clergy, Isidro was something of a classroom firebrand advocating discernment and free thought to his students. It took the Constitution of 3639 to take him out of the educational system and into the hallso of government, an advocate for reform and disestablishment, separating church and state for the benefit of both. His household is extensive, with a high proportion of adoptees.
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Aug 26, 2020 09:54
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 Danno Pheal Royal Alliance Danno Pheal, a somewhat notable landowner around certain parts, is a de-facto representative of a coalition of small landowners and miners' associations, a not insignificant portion of them giving him backing and himself backing them up in return. He never seems to be one to take guff, and was always a mediator. The disputes get resolved, for sure, even if he has to batter them into the path of good reason, good reason being an enigmatic thing as always. These sessions were always followed by many soft drinks being drunk. He's grown up around this lot for all of his time since birth on Anthe, and one thing was clear; They could stand to shake things up a bit, get themselves a little more. And what do you know? The lot of them shared his sentiment, and the course was decided. Break up those steadfast land borders, redistribute it all among the small-timers and peasants, perhaps empower the unions and up everyone's wages quite a bit, and keep some fools from selling away or alienating their hard-earned gains by passing a choice amendment. And if you wanted all that done decisively, heck, what better way is there than a monarchy you helped out with?
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Aug 26, 2020 09:58
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 Husein Falgueras Royal Alliance 40 years old By Huseins own words: "My parents were originally from Navidad and they went to the Piedra del Sol in search of better life in the aftermath of The Intervention. From my father words, I think we were minor nobles, but he like to exaggerate, so I am not sure. Only fond memories I had of him was when he would sit down with me to read between shifts on his jobs. He was smart, but life was hard, and he had to work two, sometimes three jobs, so we could get by. Luckly for me, I got scholarship and could finish Agricultural engineering. My parents were proud... They died few months after that in rail accident... I found wife during my work. She was a foreman of an agricultural collective. Managing all their work and making sure that nothing is out of the order. But some landlord got an eye on that plot of land. He did something shady, and all of a sudden she, and everyone else there, were working for him now. It was good in the begining, but he was a getting meaner by the day, and worker started to protest. Well, the new owner found a willing security agency, some head were crecked, and people got back to work... One of the heads crecked was my wife's. She didn't die, but she couldn't work anymore. And as time went by she just started... to wither away. She didn't last long... Why, I am telling you all this? So you could see why I support the Royal Alliance plea for land and unions reform." His houshold has only one living member, him, with Household registry confirming that his parents and wife death certificates are in their archives.
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Aug 26, 2020 13:06
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 Lucio Valens Free Constitutionalist Party Age: Late 30s Born presumably to oasis people, Lucio was found as a young child wondering out of the desert near Bayt Shanna. His childhood and early adolescence was one of crushing poverty, working as a child labourer at the mines and factories of Salvatierra. Around Lucio's mid-teens and while employed at an ironworks, he was adopted by a retiring foreman who took pity on the child. This allowed Lucio to receive a proper education, and by his early adulthood he was able to experience a fairly modest, but still respectable, middle class lifestyle. His rough upbringing still marked him, however, and left him with little sympathy for any of Anthe's institutions: after his adoptive father died Lucio has even refused, wherever possible, to use his household name, and the Salvatierra FCP members privately acknowledge that Lucio is one of the more radical voices in the party meetings, often echoing autonomist rhetoric.
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Aug 26, 2020 17:17
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 John- Our mutual friend has asked me to provide you with basic information about the nature and scope of Anthe's major religion(s? I admit this spiritual stuff is beyond me). I hope this is useful for you in your new post. Good luck. Best, Willard Hail the Union, whose Light illuminates the Universe for Man, Light upon Light. To begin with I recommend you dispose of what you have absorbed through our home's media; Anthen religion and society is reduced to a caricature and you will be betrayed in your position by holding fast to prejudice or chauvinism. Our own culture has little interest in studies of religion or metaphysics. In this way you must regard yourself as newly separated from your old life, and prepare to enter a world where all is mediated through a spiritual and sometimes mystic lens, and where irrational but powerful forces possess men's minds. But there is a deep and complicated history and theology here, much to learn if you intend to understand Anthen society, as well as those societies in our region which share its origins. Most of what you will hear from the horses' mouths are lies, or self-serving half-truths. Do well to remember that you are a scholar, not a seeker, and the perspective you retain will be your tool in sorting through myth and partisan-ship to find a greater understanding. What is the largest religion of Anthe? The simple answer is that it is 'the Churches of Eternal Sovereign Mercy', and all its members. But difficulties may arise when we attempt to precisely identify what institutions, rituals, beliefs, or customs constitute a central, irreducible center for the Churches, for any scholar investigating this subject is familiar with the sensation of sinking into an endless, contradictory, irreconcilable diversity. A believer on one end of the moon may spend her youth being taught the careful steps necessary to carry out seasonal animal sacrifice, and mark her coming-of-age by leading a ceremony herself, reciting without error the 144 stanzas of the Timus Canon - all with no experience of daily prayer or attendance of scheduled services at an urban cathedral. A second believer may be raised to attend cathedral services led by a clergy-order in an urban center every Friday, to observe every Saint's Day, worship at his family's altar which will include prayers to his city's patron saint, his household's patron saint, his parents' trade's patron saint, and his personal saint, and mark his coming-of-age by enduring ritual scarification on the back of his left hand with the symbols of those saints. A third believer may practice no ritual at all, and give little thought to ritual in her youth except for when her elderly relatives embark on their final pilgrimage to a distant holy world, renouncing their positions, possessions, and duties in order to prepare for death in a sacred place, returning to Anthe only to be buried, and she can understand her faith to be only the observation of this end-of-life ritual. A fourth believer may be attracted to a life of asceticism and contemplation, retiring to the quiet and hidden parts of the world in silence - and a fifth may spend their life of asceticism and contemplation in the membership of a clerical order, adopting vows of celibacy and study, becoming active in community life as an educator, doctor, or civil administrator. A sixth believer may observe their faith in ritual dance and music - and a seventh may become angry at the sound of music, believing it a devilish temptation not fit for clean people. An eighth believer may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God - and a ninth believer may believe that there is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet - and both would identify as members of the same faith, and most importantly, identify each other as members of the same faith, for they both observe the Saints' Days, practice common rites of animal sacrifice, have scarred left hands, plan to travel to a holy place for their good deaths, and donate alms to the clerical orders. This is the vast, bottomless ocean we are confronted with when attempting to grasp the nature of religion on Anthe - how can this even be properly called a religion? It bears almost no resemblance (despite what you may hear from certain partisan clerical orders! And make no mistake John, these agents are not to be trusted, they are to be opposed at every step, for they seek the obliteration of this awesome garden of humanity and the destruction of history itself) to the very centralized and violently doctrinaire Church of Eternal Sovereign Mercy as it exists across the lands of the Hyadic League (itself a topic deserving of your further study, John, but I may summarize my viewpoint for you by venturing that before the reforms of Hahan I the ‘Church’ most likely existed in much the same form as Anthe’s ‘Churches’). But this ocean is fed by identifiable conceptual and textual rivers - to grasp the essence of this moon’s faith, it is to these you must turn. It is my conviction that when Anthens refer to 'God' they are referring to the same concept: a transcendent, unified, and unbound Being who yet dwells within all living beings, is represented in all things, and can be approached in a variety of methods (note the latter). Yet it is not the task of the Anthen faithful to identify the 'correct' method, nor the ‘correct’ depiction of God, nor the ‘correct’ individual relationship one has to God. Indeed, the most important feature of Anthen indigenous ('indigenous' in the generic sense, your briefing should have instructed you on the details of the timeline) religion is its polycentric nature - it is accepting of several different sacred texts, and no member is obliged or expected to accept all as the foundation of their ritual practice - they are only to accept that Anthen religious life is properly observed by belonging to this melange and no other (leading, obviously if paradoxically, to the hostility and chauvinism directed towards the minority creedal religions). The nature of this transcendent Being is discussed at varying lengths in sacred literature, which is produced either in prehistory or by those authors identified as exceptionally holy, who have achieved a measure of enlightenment or sacredness through contemplation or good deeds. An even more important function of the sacred texts is to reveal the basis of a ‘sacred society’, whose rules constitute all ethics, law, family structure, and social relationships. The most common shorthand for these related concepts in Anthen society is ‘duty’ or ‘responsibility’ or ‘debts’ - that is, the duty an individual has to her station in this society and the responsibility she has towards those the sacred texts commands her to protect, counsel, serve, raise, or command, as well as the debts she must pay to honor the proper social order and secure a good afterlife. These duties are revealed and meditated upon by the various gospels, canons, epics, poems, and songs which constitute the body of the Churches’ scriptures (each may very well feature different protagonists or pantheons as God or God’s incarnated aspect!). They are sacred because they represent the power and positive energy which maintains not only society but the cosmos in good order. These duties, responsibilities, and debts are manifold and dependent on one’s social station, as well as on which scripture is being consulted (the ‘lord’ of the Gospel of John differs greatly from the ‘lords’ mentioned in the Song of Ayyur, which dwells on a literal militarized hereditary aristocracy). The most celebrated and observed duties, responsibilities, and debts are the most universal - that of a parent to a child, of a child to a parent, of a spouse to a spouse, of a worker to a supervisor, of a farmer to the land, of a hunter to the animal, of a soldier to the state, of a teacher to a student, of a dying man to God. Each is celebrated and observed in an uncountable variety as one moves across the breadth of the moon, though several major denominations have emerged, most centered around the persons of famous Saints who have ascended to demi-godhood through acclaim and attention, or even to a position in a divine pantheon. There is an interesting wrinkle to this order which we must observe. The worshipper, God, the social order, and the saints and icons through which things are mediated - fundamentally, they share an essence or identity according to the major traditions of Anthen indigenous religion. An apparent act of mediation is only illusory in a system where worshippers are taught that the boundless nature of God is hidden inside themselves, that the distinction between their particular, subjective self and the absolute unity of all things is artificial. Perhaps it is this which makes Anthens able to tolerate the most backwards aspects of their society - it is easy to exercise barbaric feudal power if one believes she is fulfilling natural law, and perhaps less hard to be subject to that power if you believe you, your lord, and his lash are fundamentally part of the same cosmic energy.  Does this allow us to emerge with a clearer understanding of what faith on Anthe looks like, and how Anthens understand themselves as members of their faith? We might tentatively say that a member of Anthe’s Churches is one who is born into Anthe’s social order, who adheres to its sacred rules governing and underpinning the same, who performs its rituals, and who honors this diversity within Anthen indigenous religion while rejecting membership in a creedal, monocentric religion. This, I believe, properly explains the chronic chauvinism and condescension exhibited towards those minority religions which possess common (or at least superficially similar) origins and rituals but insist on their own independence and uniqueness. A member of the Churches may, for instance, actually believe that a Muslim born and raised on Anthen is basically also a member of the Churches (!), and yet one who lives in error by holding themselves apart from what they see as the cosmic social order of all Anthens living in harmony. Organizationally, the Churches’ modern form is a result of the far-reaching reforms enacted by the Anthen state at the conclusion of the Civil War more than forty years ago. Admiral de Luna, in addition to the standardization brought to noble titles, made considerable progress in re-organizing and rationalizing Church administrations (those which own land, organize themselves in orders, administer schools, hospitals, universities, or charitable organizations). De Luna’s reforms are a compromise between allowing local variety & autonomy and making sure there is someone the state can look to (or look to blame) when they need to deal with the Churches. Each municipality and its surrounding region is allowed a non-hereditary (in theory) autocephalous episcopate, who is elected by acclaim by the city’s religious leaders. The internal politics and procedures of each episcopate vary, with bastions of conservatism, heterodoxy, and radicalism having established themselves in different places. Each regional head is referred to as a metropolitan, though the colloquial term of ‘bishop’ is frequently used. Together, the entire body of metropolitans forms a synod, whose consensus decisions are technically binding on the whole of Anthen Church members. The sun is setting, and I am afraid my aging mind has reached its limits remembering useful things. I hope this brief letter finds you well, and that you devote considerable time in your new post to the deep study of Anthen society - the foundations of friendship are always found in a mutual commitment to learning more about each other. I will find time to write more, and deliver the letters through Willard. Best, A.S. Darling, C.B.R., H.E.A. Office of Observation & Suppression, Anthe Branch (Ret.) P.S. - I’ve remembered one more detail. Those partisan clerics I warned you to avoid or at least watch carefully - their current shibboleth is insisting that theirs is an ‘Abrahamic’ religion. I trust my labored introduction to Anthen indigenous religious systems has taught you how stupid, or at least revealing, that sentiment is. 
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Aug 26, 2020 18:42
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Anthe's most important neighbors, Part 1: The Holy and Sovereign League of Hyades "Who is this inexplicable being?...He is like a world in himself...hardly has be been assigned to his proper dwelling-place when others remove their homes elsewhere. In the midst of this desolation he lives alone with his mate and his young, who acquaint him with the sound of the human voice. But for them he would hear nothing but shrieks of agony. One of the lowest menials of justice knocks at his door and tells him that his services are wanted. He goes. He arrives in a public square where people are crowded together with faces of expectancy. A prisoner, a parricide, a man who has committed a sacrilege is flung to his feet. He seizes the man, stretches him, ties him to a cross which is lying on the ground, raises his arms, and there is a terrible silence. It is broken only by the crushing of bone under the blows of the iron mace, and the screams of the victim. He unbinds the man, he carries him to the wheel; the broken limbs are twined round the spokes and the head hangs down; the hair stands on end and from the mouth - open like the door of a glowing furnace - there come at intervals only a few broken syllables of entreaty for death. The executioner has finished his task; his heart is beating, but it is with pleasure; he is satisfied with his work. He says in his heart, 'No man breaks on the wheel better than I.' He comes down from the scaffold and holds out his bloody hand, into which, from a distance, an official flings a few gold pieces. The executioner carries them off between two rows of human beings who shrink from him with horror. He sits down to table and eats, he goes to bed and sleeps, but when he awakes next morning his thoughts run on everything but his occupation of the day before. Is he a man? Yes, God allows him to enter his shrines and accepts his prayers. He is no criminal, and yet no human language dares to call him, for instance, virtuous, honorable or estimable...nevertheless all greatness, all power, all social order depends upon the executioner; he is the terror of human society and the tie that holds it together. Take away from this incomprehensible force from the world, and at that very moment order is superseded by chaos, thrones fall, society disappears. God, who is the source of the power of the ruler, is also the source of punishment. He has suspended our world upon these two poles, 'for the Lord is the lord of the twin poles, and round them he sets the world revolving.'"  Population: 1.43 billion Transit Time: 2 days to the Free League City of Biberach, 1 week to Florianopolis, the closest Court Moon Demonym: Hyadic, Hyadean Currency: Various, most common and trusted is the League Mark used by several major Free League Cities including Biberach Head of State: Erlantz Polion Iraitz Noain Ainhitzeder (Erlantz III), Empyrean Master of the League since 3627, age 77 Representative on Anthe: Ozkar Leuzipo Solagarai, Ambassador Summary: The League of Hyades is a vast and powerful empire spanning 100 distinct political, ecclesiastical, and territorial sub-units and several dozen inhabited moons and stations, united under the rule of the Empyrean Masters of the League, in whose person all sovereign state power is concentrated. In practice, the difficulty of administering such a large polity and the historical circumstances of the league's development has resulted in a structure so particular and unsystematic that the common idiom "denser than Hyades" has entered Anthen culture as a way to refer to a problem or situation of insurmountable complexity. Thus, the League is better thought of as a series of unifying institutions shared by these territories than as a unified nation-state. These institutions are the Master of the League, the system of electoral sovereignty, the petition-and-response system, and the Church of the Eternal Sovereign Mercy. The League began life in the 3000s as a loose confederation of a half-dozen systems that swore to support each other in war. Centuries of wars of expansion and centralization followed, until the modern arrangement was formalized in the 3200s. Over that time, the nobles of the leading systems had expanded their rights and privileges within their respective societies, until they had become the dominant social class in the League's military and economy. The Great Council of 3287 was an agreement between these nobles to form a power-sharing arrangement, and cement their rule over the League through the creation of a shared monarchy - the Empyrean Masters. Government: The Empyrean Masters are elected by eight Prince-Electors, who represent the eight largest territories in the League, and preside over the League Diet, an advisory body in permanent session made up of the Prince-Electors and a representative from every territory and vassal within the League. Every member of the League government acts in the name of the Masters, who govern through decrees. However, centuries of concessions, compromises, and power struggles have resulted in a bewildering galaxy of exceptions, exemptions, and special personal or collective privileges. Some vassals only pay half the normal taxes expected of territories; some are required instead to pay taxes in special kind like ships, men, or rare materials; some, like the dozen Free League Cities, are essentially vassals in name only and conduct trade and foreign affairs as they see fit. These personal, special relationships influence every aspect of the League's administration. For example, instead of an Office of War as on Anthe, the Cupbearer of the Master of the League (a hereditary position held by the Prince-Electors of Pettarra) hold the duty of raising, maintaining, and leading the armies of the League Masters. A succession of centralizing and reforming Masters in the recent centuries has seen the emergence of a system that has become the backbone of League administration. Technically, literally anyone (including foreigners) can submit a petition to the Masters requesting adjudication of a dispute, suggesting a decree be issued on any subject, or providing general information to the Masters. Once received, the Master can then issue a decree regarding the request or suggestion. The Masters receive tens of millions of such petitions every year, which would obviously overwhelm any one person. To handle this massive circular flow of petitions and responses, the Masters delegated their sovereignty to a series of Sovereign Councils encompassing either a geographic or topical jurisdiction. Each council, chaired by a Viceroy, is empowered to issue decrees in the name of the Master, raise and collect taxes in their area of jurisdiction, and direct military and police forces to ensure compliance with decrees, which can range in scope from issuing a few thousand gold ducats to build a bridge to abolishing slavery in all League territories. Each Court resides on a Court Moon, a designated administrative center that sits in the middle of a huge web of reports flowing towards it and sub-committees offering specialist advice. How well the Viceroy can navigate the labyrinth of special feudal relations and restrictions depends on their own talent and the health of their relationships with powerful vassals and territories (often, the Viceroy is one of those powerful vassals, which either streamlines or undermines the process, depending on who you ask). Fundamentally, though, the strength of centralization in the League depends on the ambition and talent of any given Master, and on how far they're willing to go to reform or rebuild the system. Like on Anthe, the Church of the Eternal Sovereign Mercy is the largest provider of education and healthcare. Unlike on Anthe, the Church is the official state religion of the League, and it is the only religious organization legally allowed to hold public ceremonies. The Masters and the leaders of the Church have always been careful to maintain the symbiotic relationship of converging interests between League and Church. The League could not function without the Church preaching its order as legitimate, and the Church would almost certainly see its power and influence erode without its great protector. The Church also controls a great deal of territory directly through its ecclesiastical sub-units which answer only to the Master, and its metropolitans occupy two of the six Prince-Elector titles.  Ozkar Leuzipo Solagarai, Marquess of Itsas Hegia and League Ambassador to The Serene Crown of Anthe Foreign Relations: The League's relationship with Anthe over the centuries has been volatile and subject to rapid re-orientations as the geopolitical situation demands. Previous to the Intervention, the League and Anthe had gone to war on two brief occasions as trade rivalries and diplomatic failures resulted in brief skirmishes that altered little. The Intervention, on the other hand, was a much more serious commitment spanning ten years, costing millions of lives and billions of gold ducats - all ending in failure when the Pallene Union, its hated enemy, forced the League off Anthe anyway. The League was obliged to pay millions in war reparations and pledge to respect Anthen sovereignty, and watch in frustrated impotence as the Union solidified its hold over its alliance partners and grew in strength. In the following decades, the League's stance towards Anthe itself softened, and the Masters made several important gestures towards reconciliation, including the re-establishment of a permanent League diplomatic presence on Anthe, as well as granting Anthen merchants access to its gargantuan internal markets. Even in the present situation of cold war between the League and Union, Hyadic purchases of Anthen food exports make up an enormous portion of Anthen revenues. The League and the Union regard each other with a loathing that goes beyond mere geopolitical rivalry, as each considers the other its ideological antithesis and a perversion of natural law. The League's foreign policy regarding its former colony is quite clear: no peace or trade with the blasphemous rebels of the Union. Eventually, the Pallenes will have to be defeated in open war. Until then, the policy of the League seems to be to look for opportunities to pry the Union's allies (Anthe included) away from it through bribery, intimidation, or even subtler and more obscure means. tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Oct 10, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 18:53
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 Annete Durand, age 38 Countess of Ticenza Director of the Executive Center for National Oversight and Public Security Special Advisor on Informational Warfare Having spent the last two decades rising swiftly through the ranks of de Luna's government's extensive state-surveillance apparatus to become one of the youngest faces in the administration's most senior ranks and being awarded a noble title for her service, it was only natural for Annete to find her political home among her fellow major establishment figures - the NCP. Which is exactly why so many of them were so thoroughly rattled by her almost immediate entry into the Royal Alliance after the Constitution's ratification. "I stand convinced that one of the foremost lessons imparted onto us by His Excellency, the late Isidor de Luna, is that a nation may only hold together when bound by a singular will. A strong leader armed with accurate information, advised by wise counselors and aided by loyal subordinates is the only proven assurance for the continued prosperity and security of the people. In light of this, de Luna was wise to recognize the powerful potential of the relatively untainted symbol of the Monarchy to form a fertile ground for raising a garden to fill the void left by his departure. As such, it would be enormously irresponsible of me not to aid in blazing the trail he led us to. The nation must unite unconditionally behind our newly crowned Queen or else prepare to perish in short order. We, as Her Majesty's stewards, must do our utmost to aid her in gaining domain over all organs of the state and to ensure that her reign is stable, prosperous and free of any outside interference." Durand's stances on the main issues at stake are as follows: - Strongly favors the transformation of government into an instrument of the Monarch's will and the relegation of the House of Deputies to a purely advisory role. - Resents any notion of internal factionalism or dissent and is fully prepared to clamp down harshly on their sources whenever possible. - Seeks to diminish the influence of any and all non-Royal groups and institutions, such as the landed nobility, the Churches, other political parties and the Autonomy Movement. - Views the trade unionism cause with skepticism, but is willing to ally with its' proponents to advance the cause of Monarchy. - Trusts the Queen to judge the merits of various reform proposals and welfare programs. - Despises "all stripes of terrorist provocateurs purveying violent revolutionary rhetoric, sowing poisonous division among the people and tearing at the very fabric of our nation". Her personal life has, at times, been the subject of unkind rumors and speculations, as she has neglected to adopt any children into her Household, despite being married to her much younger wife Asha for almost a decade. AFancyQuestionMark fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Aug 27, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 19:15
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Anthe's most important neighbors, Part 2: The Laibach Second Republic Population: 16 million Transit Time: 1 day Demonym: Laibacher Currency: Laibach Stater Head of State: Presidium Chancellor Antje Steinwachs (since 3636) Representative on Anthe: Marieluise Zweig, Consul-General Summary: Commentators have always marveled at the special relationship between Anthe and its closest neighbor, which seems to have bound the two moons closely together (sometimes reluctantly, sometimes enthusiastically) in trade, culture, and politics. Anthens used to joke that if you wanted to visit the recent past, you only had to travel to Laibach, as they were invariably ten years behind. Recent developments, however, have many Anthens wondering whether Laibach has transformed itself into a model for Anthe to emulate, while others (especially elites from the former de Luna regime) consider Laibach's return to democracy with a mild, familiar anxiety. For centuries, the special relationship between the two nations was based around a mutually beneficial exchange between two things both sides wanted very badly. Laibach, which is composed of a massive archipelago circling the equator of a moon otherwise covered by ocean, had discovered large deposits of precious strategic minerals and fuels in its oceans, but often struggled to feed itself from its rocky soil. The Anthen Kingdom struck an ad-hoc trade arrangement trading minerals for food: four hundred years later, the trade between the two has grown more than a hundred times in volume, and the two nations have become closely associated through formal trading and security agreements and cultural cross-pollination. Laibach is Anthe's largest supplier of aviation and spaceship fuels, which it supplies at a considerable discount; meanwhile, Anthe maintains minimal tariffs on Laibach goods, and sets mandatory quotas and price ceilings for agricultural exports to Laibach, which ensures the ocean moon a regular food supply. For centuries, Anthe and Laibach shared a now-expired mutual defense treaty, and both are members in the Themis Concordat (the military alliance and customs union led by the Pallene Union) as well as the Reserve Fund, the interplanetary trade and development organization (also led by the Pallene Union). Two years after the formal establishment of the de Luna regime, Laibach's own weak parliament was overthrown by its military during a period of panic over perceived Hyadic aggression. Unlike Anthe, the military's leaders were less willing to use force against the population. A large surveillance network was established, and people joked that the new regime meant bigger families (the newest family member being the intelligence officer listening in), but actual arrests or repressive actions occurred at a vanishingly small rate compared to Anthe's apparatus. Even if dissidents were arrested, torture was unheard of, and short prison sentences of a few months were seen as a method for forcibly cooling tempers instead of enforcing long-term compliance. Anthe dissidents and regime figures also found this atmosphere useful; dissidents in hot water with de Luna were allowed to "retire" to Laibach unbothered if they promised to keep a low profile and stay out of politics, and "going on vacation" to Laibach became a common habit for many Anthen underground figures. The Laibach military state had few external enemies after it joined the Themis Concordat, and had even less of an interest in economic policy. As a result, by 3630 the military leadership had lost most of its rationale for remaining in power and was unable to reverse the damaging long-term effects of several investment bubbles collapsing simultaneously in 3628. The military couldn't name an enemy it was threatened by, was increasingly overwhelmed by debt payments, and was hardly even very threatening to those it ruled over: it came as a shock but not a surprise when military rule collapsed in a bloodless 3634 revolution which restored the Laibach Republic. What did come as a surprise was Anthe's mild reaction. De Luna assured Laibach that Anthe would honor all its existing arrangements, and even arranged for a generous debt cancellation program, as well as charitable food shipments following a massive hurricane on Laibach in 3635. Many commentators have speculated that this was part of a wider liberalization trend in the de Luna regime; others argued that de Luna was by now consumed by the question of Anthen government following his death, and that he saw in Laibach the best possible outcome for an aging militarist regime; still others pointed out that Laibach was a major supplier of fuels for the Anthen navy and that any break with the restored Republic was always out of the question for strategic purposes. Whatever the reason, the following Laibach governments and consul-generals assigned to Anthe have returned the gesture with cordial relations, though they tend to take an active role in encouraging whatever steps the government takes towards its democratic transition.  Marieluise Zweig, Consul-General to Anthe Culture: The political relationship between Anthe and Laibach is actually the weakest and most incidental part of the long bond between the two moons. Fully one-fifth of all Laibachers or Laibach-descended people live on Anthe or have lived on Anthe at some point, either as guest workers or permanent emigrants (there are four million Laibacher-Anthens on Anthe, mostly concentrated in the south). This, as well as the close trading relationship, has resulted in both cultures strongly influencing the other. Anthen poetry, cinema, and theater are famous and well-regarded on Laibach; Laibachers on Anthe are famous for their cuisine (Anthens eat so much Laibacher or Laibacher-influenced food that they don't really regard it as foreign) and for their own innovations in music, the favorite past-time on Anthe. Laibach singers and songs are famous all over Anthe. Laibach culture is more egalitarian and secular than Anthe's, which is taken either as a point of pride for Laibacher-Anthens in the south of Anthe or as a reason for suspicion by Anthen ultra-nationalists and reactionaries. The cultures are widely seen as fundamentally compatible or even complementary, though, and the reciprocal broad stereotypes each moon has for the other have become commonplace. The pious, serious, melancholy, honest, uptight, romantic, fatalistic, and martial Anthen is a stock character in Laibach media, just as the funny, laid-back, naive, pacifistic, gregarious, optimistic, and lazy Laibacher is a staple of Anthen sitcoms, plays, movies, and music. Both cultures share strong taboos against theft (both moons are relatively free of organized crime) and slavery (consequently, both moons are the only members of the Themis Concordat to have abolished the practice, and both regard it as a major obstacle to becoming closer to the Union-led Concordat). Polls continue to report that the two moons are each other's favorite foreign nations, with 80% of Anthens reporting positive feelings towards Laibach. The rate on Laibach was significantly lower following the fall of the military regime, but the news of the Anthen transition to democracy has resulted in positive feelings towards Anthe skyrocketing overnight. Laibach's major Anthen imports are agricultural products, heavy industrial products, machinery, and vehicles. Its largest exports to Anthe are aviation fuels, computer parts, electronics, software, and recreational and medicinal narcotics (Laibach is famous for its hydroponically grown tobacco and marijuana, both popular on Anthe). Additionally, Anthe and Laibach are joint investors in several research and development organizations focusing on advanced electronics and computer technology.
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Aug 26, 2020 19:32
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Anthe’s most important neighbors, Part 3: The United Pallene Territories “The principle of individualism, the pursuit of self-interest, was conditioned upon the proposition that self-interest was rational, that is to say, that it resulted from and was constantly guided and controlled by autonomous thinking. The rational self-interest did not coincide with the individual’s immediate self-interest, for the latter depended upon the standards and requirements of the prevailing social order, placed there not by his autonomous thought and conscience but by external authorities. In the context of radical Puritanism, the principle of individualism thus set the individual against his society. Men had to break through the whole system of ideas and values imposed upon them, and to find and seize the ideas and values that conformed to their rational interest. They had to live in a state of constant vigilance, apprehension, and criticism, to reject everything that was not true, not justified by free reason. This, in a society which was not yet rational, constituted a principle of permanent unrest and opposition. For false standards still governed the life of men, and the free individual was therefore he who criticized these standards, searched for the true ones and advanced their realization.” “The share of the operative workman in the machine industry is (typically) that of an attendant, an assistant, whose duty it is to keep pace with the machine process and to help out with workmanlike manipulation at points where the machine process engaged is incomplete. His work supplements the machine process rather than makes use of it. On the contrary the machine process makes use of the workman. The ideal mechanical contrivance in this technological system is the automatic machine.”  Population: 44 million Demonym: Pallene Currency: Pallene Guilder Transit Time: 5 days to Pallene Head of State: Great Judges Auguste M. Roche & Ebon H. Cobb (since 3636) Representative on Anthe: Sixteenth Tribune Oakes J. Ames, Commissioner for Anthe It is not surprising that the United Pallene Territories (referred to most often as the Pallene Union, or simply as Pallene) have come to define themselves as the negative image of their former colonial suzerain, or that their history has consisted of two hundred years of unremitting hostility towards the great empire the Pallenes view as their fundamental opposite. What has taken many scholars by surprise is how successful that resistance has been, and how quickly the Pallenes have grown to oppose the League of Hyades not merely as a thorn in its side but as a superpower of comparable strength and influence. Summary: The Pallene Union has emerged as the counterweight to the ancient League of Hyades and as the dominant force in the alliances opposing the League's expansion. While technically a federated state, the Union long ago concentrated its power in the federal government, which sets policy for its thirteen constituent sub-units, all of which are located on the large moon of Pallene (the capital of the Union is, helpfully, also named Pallene). What has given the Union its power is its incredible technological and financial sophistication, which it maintains through its two regional organizations, the Themis Concordat and the Reserve Fund. The Themis Concordat is nominally a an alliance of equals between two dozen independent states for mutual defense against Hyadic aggression, but the Union is by far the greatest contributor of money, technology, and influence to the pact. Correspondingly, the Reserve Fund exists to regulate and encourage trade and international investment through binding its members to trade policies favoring the free movement of capital, but it was the Union's proposal, and the Union pays the most into the fund, and receives the largest share of its dividends. To both its allies and its enemies, the Union often seems like it's playing by a different set of rules: the Pallenes apparently possess a bottomless wealth that they use freely to subsidize those they favor and undermine those they disfavor. This, the Union would say, is the result of its embrace of the modern, the scientific, and the rational. The roots of Pallene advancements in mechanization, automation, and financialization are partly the result of Pallene's wretched geography. Wreathed in smoke and corrosive acidic rains, Pallene itself is gray, dull, and nearly barren. What arable land existed on the moon had to be worked more and more efficiently as the moon's population grew, and in lieu of agricultural exports the moon began to pioneer methods of scientific management and financial engineering. The Union eventually began to orient its entire economy around the export of its efficient industrial machines and its management, corporate, and financial services, until it had achieved a power that was simultaneously far more subtle than that of the League and far more difficult to resist. The Union, which has been at war with the League nine times in its 250 year history, has grown from a former colony too costly to conquer to a superpower capable of matching the League's military and political power. While it maintains a large and advanced navy, the Union prefers to save its precious manpower by subsidizing allies to fight on its behalf - the Anthen Armed Forces currently deploys 74,000 Army troops in police actions around Concordat territories, and Anthe is compensated handsomely for it. The Union is convinced that it represents a new stage of human society -- a future of human reason, freedom, and technological advancement -- and that the League represents a rotting, jeweled hand scheming to drag the rest of the Taurus sector into a blood-dimmed twilight of barbarism, tyranny, and superstition.  Commissioner for Anthe, Oakes J. Ames Society: Two great enthusiasms form the central pillars of Pallene ideology and society: the famous Pallene love of liberty, which they define as freedom from tyranny, interference, or undue restriction of natural rights; and the Pallene social philosophy of Rationalization, which embraces empiricism, modernization, and efficiency in every sphere of life. To an Anthen, Pallene society would appear dynamic, disruptive, and revolutionary -- Pallenes maintain that compared to ossified feudal societies, relations in the Union are not straitjacketed by station but based on talent, judgment, and wealth (the last being the natural result of the former two). Anthens have two general reactions to this society where opportunity and glittering technological sophistication exist next to a ruthlessly unsentimental, rationalizing impulse. Those Anthens who admire the Union admire it precisely because of its promise of finally smashing the tyranny of the nobility, of the idiotic and superstitious churches (Pallene society is overwhelmingly atheistic and almost totally secular), and of transforming a society of peasants into engineers, scientists, and philosophers. Anyone in the Union, they point out, can vote in elections or attain high office if they possess the requisite amount of wealth - no matter their background. Those Anthens who fear the Union hate it because they hate how coarse, vulgar, empty, and cruel Union society is for those who fall outside the rarefied heights of wealth and power. The peasantry of the Union, they point out, was hardly elevated by industry and technology - most were turned into slaves or indentured servants who serve in the great factories and the home, until new robotic labor makes even this existence redundant and surplus. To this, a Pallene philosopher would simply point out that society has always had its losers and its failures - but only the Union has arranged that a slave, through his own labor, may transform himself into a magnate. All of human history is a struggle for survival and resources, but only Pallene has seen that the correct way to liberty is through refusing the principle of equality. And who can argue with results?  The Charter of The Themis Concordat In order to establish an international organization based on the principles of mutual defense, mutual liberty, mutual respect, and mutual brotherhood, We the undersigned nations pledge our observance of the following standards, to be honored in good faith and recognized as necessary for international goodwill, commerce, and defense against tyranny: I. This organization shall be called the Themis Concordat. II. Its membership shall consist of the charter signatories of this treaty. Future members shall be admitted upon the consent of 3/4ths of all members. Concordat members shall not depart from the Concordat or elect to ignore its standards without the consent of 3/4ths of all its members. III. Concordat nations shall provide for the common defense of the Concordat against foreign aggression. Concordat nations shall grant the use of harbors and ports to the navies of other Concordat nations to better provide for this common defense. An unprovoked attack on any Concordat nation shall be regarded as an act of aggression against all Concordat nations. IV. Concordat nations shall establish an international financial institution, hereby named The Reserve Fund, and recognize it as the common lender of last resort to all Concordat nations. Upon its establishment, each nation shall contribute to the Reserve Fund a set amount of funds, thus entitling that nation to a corresponding percentage of votes on its actions and policies. The Reserve Fund shall have the power to establish receiverships for Concordat nations defaulting on their loans, in order to provide competent financial leadership for all member nations in the event of catastrophe or mismanagement. The Reserve Fund shall have the power to establish conditions for its loans, in order to encourage behavior that promotes adherence to the standards and values of the Themis Concordat. V. Members involved in trade disputes, upon determining that they have exhausted all possible avenues towards agreement or settlement, shall submit to the judgment of a High Trade Court, compromised of five High Trade Court Commissioners appointed on an annually rotating basis between member nations. Commissioners shall serve terms of ten years. All members shall accept the judgment of the High Trade Court as final. VI. No Concordat member shall expropriate the property of another member, or of that member's citizens, without fair compensation and notice, which is to be either determined through mutal assent or through the judgment of the High Trade Court following the request of an injured party. VII. No Concordat member shall make laws that form an undue obstacle to international trade or movement. VIII. Concordat members shall honor their debts to other Concordat members. Concordat members shall shun and sanction any member that does not honor its debts to other Concordat nations. Joint Concordat missions to retrieve debts from defaulters are authorized to restore the interests of creditors making loans in good faith. tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 22:58
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So was Pallene always a toxic wasteland or did they make it that way?
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Aug 26, 2020 23:16
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It started out very rough, and got steadily worse over centuries before it could be halted.
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Aug 26, 2020 23:35
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"Padre" Miguel Angel Esparraguera Miguel, as he would describe himself to all that would listen, is one of the most important members of the clergy in Anthe: The personal, secret priest of the Royal Family, one that personally speaks to God and was handed down special scriptures to preach the real Word of God to the masses in Piedra del sol. In reality, No one remembers when Miguel showed up in the capital, but he's been a regular fixture in the streets and alleys for much of the past 30 years. Many members of the nobility have been accosted by the man, ranting and raving about the end times approaching. The police forces are well acquainted with Miguel, and thus Miguel also spends a bit of time proselytizing to the inmates of the local jail as well. Whether he was such a familiar face to the nobility he has accosted over the years, or that people think he is actually a priest, if a bit of a smelly one, but Miguel somehow was able to sneak into the Royal Alliance. Lord have mercy on their souls (and noses)
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Aug 27, 2020 15:35
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 The Structure of Government of the Serene Crown of Anthe The new government, like the Constitution of 3639 authorizing it, is the result of compromise between reforming elements of the de Luna system and its opponents who were willing to negotiate. As such, it contains several concessions that would have seemed unthinkable a decade ago. State sovereignty under the new constitution is split between the Monarch and a democratically elected legislature called the House of Deputies, with powers of constitutional interpretation given to an independent judiciary. The Monarch: Josephine Isabel II, Queen of Anthe, serves as head of state. She inherits several important powers from de Luna, though ultimately her reach is limited (in theory) by the current constitution. These include: the responsibility of leading the Anthen military as its highest commander; veto power over legislation or constitutional amendments passed by the House of Deputies (overridden by a subsequent 3/4 majority in the House); immunity from criminal prosecution; the power to dissolve the sitting House and call for new elections; the responsibility of approving a new government following elections; the ability to issue or revoke Royal Charters granting an organization tax-exempt status; unilateral power over appointing a successor; and the ability to govern by decree in a period of emergency for renewable one-year terms if approved by a majority in the House. Additionally, as the constitutionally-recognized Spiritual Leader of the Nation, the monarch has the power to recognize or not recognize foreign religious decrees originating outside of Anthe. Public criticism (including defaming, threatening, or mocking) of the person of the Monarch, as it was for the Head of State De Luna before her, is limited by strict lese-majeste laws which carry up to a year in prison as well as significant fines. Finally, the Monarch is the only person on Anthe with the power of ennobling common citizens. The Executive: The Executive is formed by the Cabinet of Secretaries, led by the First Secretary (party leader of the party receiving the most votes), who may appoint or dismiss cabinet secretaries at their discretion. Each Secretary oversees a particular government Office overseeing certain interests of state. The current constitution lists the following Offices, in descending order of succession if the First Secretary is somehow unable to provide leadership until a new election can be held: War, State, Finance, Justice, Security, and Interior. The House may add additional Offices as they see fit through legislature. The Monarch is also responsible for appointing a Personal Secretary to the Cabinet to act as her liaison and spokesperson; this Personal Secretary cannot be dismissed by the First Secretary. In addition to the Offices, the Executive has inherited four Boards whose function is to act as co-ordinating and standard-setting bodies for their various areas of expertise. Boards are run by a three-person Directory appointed by the First Secretary. The current Boards are Agriculture, Health, Labor, and Education. Though the Boards aren't strictly guaranteed in the constitution, most everyone figured they were doing a useful enough job that keeping them around seemed wise. The Government is responsible for passing a Budget Bill at the beginning of its term outlining the state budget and allocating funding for the various Offices and Boards. Secretaries may structure, form, or dissolve the various Departments of their Offices at their discretion, and assign their budgets to Departments as they see fit. The Legislature: The House of Deputies consists of 400 Deputies elected on a non-geographical basis. House seats are assigned on the basis of proportional representation; if a party wins 30% of the votes in the legislative elections held every two years, they will receive 30% of seats in the House. Only the House of Deputies may draft and pass legislation following a simple majority approval. In order to govern, the Government must maintain the confidence of the Monarch and the House - a Deputy may trigger a vote of no confidence in the current government, which will pass with a simple majority. If the Government loses the vote, it is dissolved and new elections must be held. The House also has the power to ratify foreign treaties presented by the Government, and it is the only body that may propose amendments to the constitution. These amendments must secure a 2/3 majority in the House to pass. The House may establish or dissolve Committees as it likes. The Constitution has a provision for a special, powerful type of committee called a Standing Committee, which may be formed or dissolved by a 2/3rds majority vote in the House. A Standing Committee's Chairs possess subpoena power and the power to appoint special judges to investigate matters pertaining to its area of interest -- its Chairs are appointed by the First Secretary and the Queen, who both make one selection. The only current Standing Committee is the Judicial Appointment Committee, which approves candidates to the High Constitutional Court nominated to a vacancy by the First Secretary. The Judiciary: The Anthen judiciary is widely seen as one of the major successes of de Luna's government. Prior to the Intervention, judges were overworked, underpaid, and regarded as thoroughly corrupt or beholden to the interests that appointed them. De Luna raised salaries for judges, reduced workload by hiring more judges and clerks, and took judicial appointing power away from local magistrates, instead assigning judgeships on the basis of merit through examinations offered by the Ministry (now Office) of Justice. Additionally, he empowered judges by abolishing the malfunctioning and widely-hated jury system, so that judges serve as independent investigators and conduct bench trials. He even paid for scholarships for peasant aspirants, and effectively cracked down on noble patronage networks reaching into the judiciary. Now, the only judges the House has responsibility for appointing are the seven Justices of the High Constitutional Court, who are both the highest authority in the appeals process for any Anthen court and the only court empowered to interpret the Constitution. The current Justices are almost all elderly and considered hardliners (many of them are former military lawyers and officers, and it was only through promise of continued employment and immunity that they declared the transition process actually legal). Justices are appointed for 30-year terms. Any new Justice must be approved by the Judicial Appointment Committee of the House. Anthe is a unitary state. Municipalities may establish and enforce taxes and ordinances as they see fit, as long as they do not conflict with national law or the constitution. Municipalities have traditionally borne the responsibility of funding and maintaining their own police forces and administrative apparatuses, though a national gendarmerie exists. The Churches of the Eternal Sovereign Mercy are constitutionally recognized as the official and historical religious traditions of Anthe. The government is explicitly empowered to seize private property by the following text from the Constitution's first article, enumerating government power and its limit: "The government, and all its representatives and agents, shall be limited in its powers to those enumerated in this Constitution, and shall exercise power in order to guarantee the safety and well-being of its citizens, and promote a well-ordered, just society; no person's personal freedom shall be abridged without due process of law, nor may private property be expropriated by this government for public use unless it promptly provides just compensation. The Department of Civil Intelligence of the Office of Security, and any organizational successors, is constitutionally protected in some specific ways. First, the work of its personnel is classified, and unless declassified by the DCI, the First Secretary, or the Queen, unauthorized distribution or publication of its material is strictly illegal, with very harsh penalties. Second, work within the Office of Security where DCI personnel gains this classification. Third, requests of records or project updates by the Secretary of Security or First Secretary are forwarded to the Queen with its contents copied. Fourth, DCI personnel traditionally use pseudonyms, and their real legal identities can only be made known to the Secretary of Security or First Secretary by express order of the Queen. tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Aug 27, 2020 19:24
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 Brief Biography: Josephine Isabel de Beira y Metis Josephine Beira was born in 3609, one hundred and sixty-five years since the last de Beira monarch abdicated her throne. By the time of the Intervention, the de Beiras had declined to the position of nobles possessing a middling wealth and influence, and the family had split into two main branches, descending from the two children of the last queen. In 3607, a rather farcical monarchist plot to overthrow de Luna was discovered by the Ministry of Security. The Head of State took a proactive approach to the plotters, who were jailed or executed, as well as to the pretenders they had planned to offer to support in a civil war. A few months later, the apartments of the pretender-in-exile Heitor de Beira (Heitor IV, according to his sparse crowd of supporters) in the Free League City of Biberach were bombed during a wedding, killing nearly every member of the main de Beira branch. The remaining branch either took the lesson to heart, or had never involved itself with plots in the first place, and anyway continued to keep a low profile as gentry near the city of Heliotropo. In 3627, the household pooled its resources and influence to secure a position at the Naval Academy in San Vitoria for Josephine, who returned the trust placed in her by graduating as the valedictorian of her class in 3632. Her excellent grades, , command of foreign languages, and recommendations from instructors resulted in a posting to the command staff of the Anthen 2nd Fleet, harbored at Pallene. After serving with distinction for five years as a staff officer and adjutant to the Fleet Admiral Jose Solano Soberon (including a six-month assignment to Fleet Intelligence, and a brief independent command of a picket ship), Josephine requested a transfer to the Navy's small Survey and Research Service, which was immediately granted. She took the opportunity to secure a long research sabbatical, and spent the next year traveling between Anthen universities and field research stations, studying geography and publishing several well-regarded articles in scientific journals. In 3638, when she was summoned to the capital, she had just accepted a position as a guest lecturer at the Royal Biological College in Pontevedra. Since her coronation, an obvious interest has sprung up in determining Josephine Isabel's personality and politics. Her superiors and subordinates have testified that Lieutenant Commander Beira was popular enough among her peers, and had always been considered thoughtful, quiet, and intelligent, with an extraordinary work ethic and an eye for detail. Either the example of Heitor de Beira had taken hold, or she possessed a natural disinterest in politics, since no one could recall any occasion when she voiced an opinion on the subject. Her published works, which dealt with technical subjects of soil science and hydrology, have similarly failed to give a hint of her political views. Participants in the transition negotiations remembered her as listening much more than she spoke. Since her coronation, she has apparently devoted herself to becoming familiar with the the Royal Household's accounts and expenses. The Queen lives in the southern wing of the Royal Summer House, the former royal residence during the Old Kingdom which had been converted during the long interregnum into a private museum. The Royal Household was given the enormous facility as a gift by its owner, but the northern wing has already been re-opened as a museum, this time open to the public at no charge. Josephine Isabel has not designated her successor. Her closest surviving relative according to the old Anthen laws of royal succession is her 7-year old nephew Fernando Luis, the only child of her younger sister Ana, who died of an illness in 3634. tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Aug 27, 2020 |
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Aug 27, 2020 19:46
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 José Emiliano de la Ascención Arguedas Fukuhara-de las Casas a.k.a. Emiliano Arguedas Scion of a wealthy northern elite, Emiliano Arguedas spent his childhood and youth under the care of the laborers of his state, being shunned by his step father. There he lived and worked as a peon and learned the language and culture, the sorrow and pains of the peasants and minorities that tilled the fields. After basic schooling, he fled south and attended University in Maravilla, and despite his first passion being literature, couldn't helped getting involved in student movements, specially in the land reform movement. After his parents passed away he distributed his states between the workers save for the old barracks where he used to sleep and to which he occasionally goes to write when the city overwhelms him. Tries to balance his literary work, his tenure as a profesor and now his political activities. He throws his lot with the Royal Alliance despite his mistrust of the idea of monarchy for realpolitick reasons
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Aug 27, 2020 23:11
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 Acero Amalden Acero represents a large, growing and until recently underground (he makes no apologies for the pun) group of miner unionists in Salvatierra. He supports the Royal Alliance as the only political party willing to do any kind of push back against the usually harsh, often murderous conditions in the mines. He despises "Pallene Attitudes" and generally anyone who sees the lives of the people in his industry as "disposable". He's generally not a fan of anyone who has inherited anything but their name and religion, and the fact that he's now effectively a Royalist has him scratching his head in deep confusion. He is most likely to support: -Protections for workers and their unions -Telling the bosses to take a hike -A robust and active regulatory regime to enhance worker health and safety -Anything that keeps people from being murdered or miserable while pulling rocks out of the ground really -The removal of foreign economic controls from Anthe -Abolition of slavery and debt bondage -Robust social services and welfare -Land reform (all his farming cousins insist it's important) -Drinks and music with the gang -Guns for the people he likes and no guns for the people he doesn't paragon1 fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 28, 2020 00:24
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 His Excellency Colonel Alejandro de los Fueros (retired), Count of Borones In the last few decades of the old government, a new faction of military officers started to rise to power. Often called "de Luna's boys", or "de Luna's children", these officers were too young to remember the Republic, and their loyalty was to de Luna personally. Born too late to experience the repressive years of the early NSC, while they were no democrats, they were supportive of peaceful dissent, their focus on stopping violent resistance and terrorism. It was due to their support in the military that the new constitution got passed, and they were able to help stop the more conservative factions of the military from stopping the transition. Alejandro was one of those officers. From a noble landholding family known for their sunflower and soybean fields, as a young man, the Count, in conformity with family tradition, joined the army. He rose through the ranks, until he was made a colonel in military intelligence, hunting down autonomous and secessionist militants in the south. When his father died, he resigned from the military to take over his family's household and estates, and when the new government came into power, he joined the NCP. The Count is a supporter of the Constitution as it is, seeing it as the best hope for society to stay together. He's seen the horrors that terrorism can cause, and he's worried that, should the country not reconcile, the society will tear itself apart in unrest and disunity. He's a strong opponent of southern autonomy, but he's perfectly happy to see an amnesty bill pass for those who would lay down their arms, but feels that to be fair, such an amnesty would need to be universal, and he sees no reason to apologize for the actions that the de Luna government did to keep the peace. He admires the queen personally, both for her natural skills and her personal history, but he's concerned that some around her will take advantage of her position to expand her official powers to an unconstitutional level for their personal gain. His pet cause, however, is agricultural modernization and stewardship. Better agricultural yields will enable the citizens of Anthe to improve their lives and standard of living, and the increased state revenues will help the government deter both the outright aggression of the League, and the more subtle cultural and economic imperialism of the Union.
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Aug 28, 2020 02:15
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 Yixing 'Isabella' Leung Isabella, the eldest daughter of immigrants who ran a dry goods store, has done very well for herself in Anthean society. Her first business was a prosperous little dyes and textiles store. Her 'big break' came when, after being frustrated by delays and tardy shipments, she resolved to get it done herself and start up a shipping and deliveries firm. She owes a good deal of her success to good luck - and she will strenuously say so - but also to a keen business sense, an ability to size up other people, and refusing to suffer fools gladly. That, and paying her employees very well, which is fair compensation for an otherwise thankless job. Her foray into politics came much later in life - she had previously busied herself with running her company, and then, out of a sense of obligation to the land which brought her so much, a series of quiet and fruitful ventures in philanthropy. After some cajoling, she has finally thrown her considerable resources towards the National Construction Party. She has much to agree with - her faith, her business' need for stability, and her strong belief that there must be 'investments' made by those with plenty so that Anthean society can prosper - and avoid the hells of fanaticism - has made her a natural ally of the NCP. Kangxi fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 28, 2020 02:17
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finally, some patriots
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Aug 28, 2020 02:21
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 A Short History of Isidor De Luna and the Intervention Era (3580-3600), Part I: Independence to the Founding of the Republic ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From The Child’s History of Anthe, ed. Yusuf Ben Qays (pub. 3622) These are the narratives of those ancient years regarding the land of Anthe, its first princes and queens, and from what sources the land of Anthe had its beginnings. After the unwritten silence of the Old System, her successors and children began to divide the regions of known space between them. To the daughters of Hesperia fell all the new lands of the Taurus sector, comprising all those stars between the Quiet Sea and the Sea of Fading. In their share fell all the stars which would one day become the League of Hyades, and Anthe, Laibach, Corrientes, Florianopolis, Cachari, Ashtabula, and all the others, though all the noble families of these places were like siblings and cousins, and not yet master and servant, or parent and colony. It was in this way that nobles from the Old System were the first arrivals on Anthe, and it was from their traditions and customs that Anthe developed its civilization for centuries undisturbed. In those years before the Empyrean Masters ruled the League, Anthe was like a great and fertile jewel, and nearly unencumbered by people. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From The Great Anthen Encyclopedia, 39th ed. (pub. 3630) At the time of its independence from Hyadic suzerainty in 3299, Anthen society and economy had altered remarkably little from its earliest days as the private estate of a few thousand nobles and their extended personal retinues. Nor had these nobles much improved what they found, beyond introducing and raising a few million head of cattle and sheep, attempting several times to establish monoculture plantations in a lackluster manner, and ceaselessly feuding between themselves. Though three centuries had passed under the rule of the nobles families, who ruled themselves in loose confederation with the head of each noble house unquestioned suzerain of their territory, Anthe possessed few of those qualities which modern scholars would think necessary for a new state: as one historian noted, Anthe “had minerals but no mines, land but little labor, commerce but few commodities.” Only a few million inhabitants lived on the fertile moon, which could easily provide for a population several hundred times larger. Independence would alter this backwards economy, and introduce those centralizing qualities necessary for economic development into the politics of Anthe. Anthe declared independence from the Empyrean Masters in 3299, with its nobles crowning one of their own as Queen of Anthe (the Hesperian March was also declared dissolved, though history would show Anthe hardly considered its claims over its neighbors abrogated in any real way). From the beginning, it was clear that they intended the Monarch to serve as nothing more than a rubber-stamp, in the way that the old colonial executive office of Head of Households had done little besides issue enormous land grants to private households. The old system, and all its intrigues and politics, had revolved around this issuing of land through the land-leasing system, which granted the Head of Households authority to lease public land (that is, the entire moon, whose land could not actually be sold under League law) to households and corporations. These households and corporations only had to measure and claim an area to be granted its lease-title, which was inheritable, at extremely low and fixed prices. No limit had ever been placed on the area which may be leased, and the result was an outrageous concentration of land. By 3299, nearly 55 million acres of public land had been leased to 348 households and corporations. In turn, these lands could then be sub-let to those who worked for the nobles, who sought favor and protection in their patronage networks, or who served in their private militias. Because the land supply seemed practically bottomless, and because exports of beef, mutton, wool, hides, and leathers were both profitable and rewarded extensive rather than intensive investment, growth was only considered in the amount of new land brought under pastorage. Because this economy could be supported by a sparse population of pastors and hide-men, and involved a minimum of industrial or state bureaucrats, what society existed on Anthe revolved around the great estancias of the nobles, and all education and culture was found in their courts. Commerce did not require the creation of an indigenous class of merchants, for the monopoly on interstellar trade and technology was still held by the Merkatari Cities in those years before the rise of the Pallene; Biberachi brokers and ferries directed all foreign trade through their quarters in Maravilla, Flor de Cielo, and Piedro del Sol. Thus politics, if it can be spoken of as such, was not the heave of class tumult nor national destiny but only the personal intrigues of households and courts.  Perhaps it was farcical for the nobles to expect the Empyrean Masters to notice their declaration of independence and muster armies to reclaim Anthe for the League when those figures were waging great internecine wars, where entire moons were scoured or broken up, and entire populations led off into peonage through conquest. But regardless of the anticlimax, the nobles had given their new Monarch power over what state resources existed, and directed the office to rule in the interest of the new nation. Anthe’s first Queen, Ysabel de Bou of Piedra del Sol (r. 3299-3344), known as the Restorer, took this to heart, and began a savage institutional war against the estancias’ power in the name of modernity, industry, and justice. Where former executives had leased land out in the millions of acres, Ysabel reclaimed the same amount for the state through her power to revoke leasing rights. The Biberachi were expelled from their quarters and the Merkatari shunned, beginning a century-long ruinous disruption of luxuries only partly made up for by the encouragement of infant industries in textiles, mining, and metallurgy, until new trade routes with the Pallene were established. Pastorage was reduced in favor of intensive farming, which required a workforce of a previously unimaginable size: to find one, Ysabel transformed Anthe forever by inviting the people of the Churches and their priests to live in peace as her subjects. Tens of millions fled persecution by the state priests of the League and arrived on Anthe, adopting Anthen names and its language, and Ysabel was crowned as the Holy Queen of the Anthen Churches by its metropolitans. Much of Anthe (especially the southwest and the western river valleys) was settled by pious freeholders, who were neither landless nor peons, and it was through the militant alliance of Monarch and Churches that these places resisted the encroachment of the enraged nobles. Where no law had been honored except noble whim, Ysabel sent out the most learned of her followers out as judges, to hear the complaints and troubles of common folk and to hold all classes to the same just law. For her attempts on their privileges and power, Ysabel was faced with seven separate rebellions by the nobles, who led their private armies and courts against her, and otherwise fomented rebellion against her reign, until she was assassinated in the 45th year of her Monarchy. Ysabel’s only surviving daughter Aurrutia (r. 3344-3360), known as the Pacific, shared little of her mother’s desire to compel change through naked force, and little ability to lead her armies in the field as her mother had done. Instead, she brought the era of open war between the Monarch and the grand nobles to a close by relinquishing her control over land revocation, by winnning the conversion of her nobles to the faith of the Churches through persuasion, and by granting the management of those emerging industries to a mixture of her own allies and some of the leading families of the rebellion - and by extending tariff protection and credit to the estancias, who began to invest intensively in their estates. Once the nobles learned of the skyrocketing profits which could be made through capital investment, their hostility towards new arrivals turned to a desire for more manpower from every foreign quarter, more acres under cultivation, more hands in factories and on the plow, more goods bought and sold, more tenants, more subleases, more new money placed in the new banks founded by noble households. It was, all things considered, an easier lifestyle than leading lance-bearing irregulars in charges across the plains, or chancing a pathetic end in a ruined carriage every time one traveled between estancias, the sign of the Churches carved into one’s stomach.  Nearly one hundred years later, the economy and society of Anthe had undergone enormous changes. Though much of the northern plains retained the rhythm of the old cattle life, the entire process had become mechanized and industrialized, and elsewhere the most profitable sectors of the economy were those agricultural exports which could now be sold to the League moons directly following the overthrow of the Merkatari monopolies in the first war between Pallene and the Empyrean Masters. The rapid spread of technology through Pallene traders had resulted in unprecedented steps forward in communication, transport, and labor-saving devices, and for the first time Anthens began to purchase great starships from the shipyards of Pallene, and Anthen merchants began to appear in the orbits of many distant places bearing the cornucopia for which there seemed to be an unending demand throughout the sector. The nobles and Churches had, since the time of Aurrutia I, achieved a sufficient enough reconciliation that an uneducated person could assume they had always been joined together by common and indigenous tradition. New classes of traders, industrialists, working people, and scholars had grown into their own power and prestige, and began to form a thriving middle spectrum of society. In this time of optimism and wealth, great public works of architecture began to be sponsored by those noble families which had grown wealthy through their involvement with the new industries and commercial ventures -- the capital of Piedra del Sol (Ysabel had moved her seat of government there from Flor de Cielo in the course of her campaigns against the northern plain) and other great cities like Flor de Cielo and Maravilla still bear the famous baths, obelisks, stairs, fountains, plazas, palaces, cathedrals, monuments, and palaces built in the last years of the Monarchy. Anthe’s cities and elites burst with wealth and optimism, and political ideas were judged on the basis of their novelty as much as their fundamental soundness. By the time of the reign of Aurrutia I’s great niece, Aurrutia (r. 3429-3444), known as the Amicable, much of the Anthen elite had become allied through common ties of marriage and business, so that it was difficult to determine whether a noble household had its main interest in the Churches, or landowning, or industry, or the military, or banking, or a university, as many households held interests in all at once and their members held high office in all major institutions simultaneously. The founding wars of Ysabel seemed even more distant than a mere century past, and the institution of the Monarch itself began to be questioned in unexpected ways. What, people began to ask, was the exact nature of the Monarch? Was it an eternal form, existing in a perfected society? Hardly, for its origins were not in distant history but in the near-history of Anthens, who had merely determined to be free from foreign domination. Was it a necessary step towards modernity, towards the promise of industry and away from the backwards ways of the League? If it was, surely it had served its purpose, as Anthe was now a modern and dynamic society. Was it a necessary guardian against a single class growing too powerful? If it had been, surely the evidence of Anthe having become a society where all classes lived harmoniously was overwhelming. What did the most impressive societies look like? In a few decades, the tribes of the Pallenes had thrown off their own colonial masters, driven the armies of the Hyadic League back in total rout, decisively broken the trade monopoly of the Merkatari Cities in the Western Taurus Sector, and acquired a wealth and technological sophistication unsurpassed by all its neighbors. What did the most backwards societies look like? For more than a century, the Hyadic League had stumbled from one civil war or succession crisis to another, been wracked by social crisis and rebellion, and engaged in currency debasement and flirted with bankruptcy. Land - the most basic source of wealth - could not even be sold or bought freely between parties. The mood of the Anthen elite settled decisively in 3442 when the Pallenes announced the founding of the United Pallene Territories, a new federal republic shared by the ten Pallene states. In less than two years, the leaders of Anthe’s institutions presented the monarch with something they hoped would be more gentle than an ultimatum: as these leaders made up the Monarch’s senior advisors (and the heads of household of Anthe’s leading families), she could hardly refuse them. It was, they informed her, time to step down. Instead of naming a successor, they hoped she would usher in a new era, where Anthens governed themselves in the name of reason, law, fellowship, and social harmony. To their delight, Aurrutia II agreed with a minimum of fuss. The rage of her line had diminished with time, and on 80 White Rain, 3444, Aurrutia II became mere Aurrutia Ysabel de Beira y Metis, thus ending forever the tradition of the Anthen Monarchy. The Republic of Anthe was born a few moments later, to general acclaim. 
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Aug 28, 2020 02:24
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 Irena Serrano is a scion of a household who owns a carbonated drink business that is more popular offworld than it is on Anthe. Her interest in politics was seen as a mere dalliance that would earn her contacts that would prove useful to the business. Her nomination by the National Construction Party and subsequent victory was seen by her household as a happy accident. Irena is a fervent believer of the de Luna constitution and seeks to dull any radical shifts of power towards either parliament or the monarchy. Power split between many hands is harder to abuse than power wielded in a single fist
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Aug 28, 2020 06:55
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The relationship between the De Luna administration and organized labor was always deeply ambivalent, with trade unions being intermittently outlawed, then re-legalized, then barred from political activity, then subject to scrutiny, then allowed in public during a brief thaw -- until a perceived swing in labor's priorities or strength plunged the entire relationship back to square one. As part of the negotiated transition, labor leaders -- which find representation among all three parties, though fewer in the FCP than the NCP or RA -- were able to get unions made legal once more, but at a certain cost. The Law of Professional Associations is the current governing statute, and will be inherited by the new government.quote:The Law of Professional Associations tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 28, 2020 07:14
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 Jullian Situ A lawyer by trade, Jullian was born into a small mildly-prosperous merchant household. A former member of the Peasant-Miner Alliance Jullian was expelled from the party and spent a year in prison due to his criticism of the PMA's capture by Royalist influences. Since his release he has steadily grown closer to the NCP's brand of anti-imperialist, socially conscious guided democracy. However cracks already seem to be appearing between his stated views and those of the party, with calls to end the crisis in the South from a position of strength with concessions made in order to bring peace and unity to Anthe. WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 28, 2020 08:52
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 Duchess Miranda Alvarez-Cuevas The Alvares-Cuevas is an old noble household In the later years of the Republic, they were a major player in politics. When the Republic was overthrown, the Alvares-Cuevas had fought fiercely to maintain it, and paid a heavy price, both in lands seized and members executed. Miranda's branch of the family had kept a low enough profile that her mother, Simona Alvares-Cuevas ended up a head of the household after much of her extended family died. The family might have been on a slow decline as many others did, but her mother had spent the time the rest of her family had been fighting making connections among the Pallene contacts there, and managed to get some very lucrative contracts, maintaining the family's wealth and status. Miranda was given an education that not only made her capable of dealing with Anthen high society, but comfortably engage with contacts of the United Pallene Territories. Upon her mother's death, she became the head of the household. She had a new factory constructed, involving the food being made on her lands being converted into nutritious, non-perishable and easily transported food for space ships, mining stations and other areas where space is at a premium. She'd also experimenting with some Pallene influenced ways of dealing with employees and tenants, keeping careful store of initiatives and results, with some of the bigger 'success stories' even finding themselves married into the Household. She is an outspoken member of the FCP, freely donating to secular schools, arguing for closer relations with the UPT and lamenting tarrifs and 'outdated' rules that prevent progress. She is often heard saying that for Anthe to be all it can be, each individual needs to be free to showcase their best. She also often voices that the same people who shout so loudly about the 'terrorists' of the AM and how we should never forget the victims are silent about other bloodletting in the recent history, referring to the purges that cut off entire branches of her family tree.
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Aug 28, 2020 18:06
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 07:23 |
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Game Mechanics: Elections There are two kinds of elections, Party Elections and National Elections. Party elections determine who serves as the party leaders of the PC parties, a role which comes with considerable power over appointments and the platform of the party itself, and the leader of the largest party following elections will become the most powerful person in government. National elections determine the composition of the House of Deputies, and who can form a government or ruling coalition. The Party Leader has control over their Party's platform, and serves as First Secretary if their Party controls a majority in parliament. The Party Leader, while serving as First Secretary, can appoint, dismiss, and re-assign ministers at will. Party Elections At the beginning of the game, each party is led by a named NPC. At any subsequent point, and under any subsequent party leader, a party member may call for an internal election to determine party leadership, simply by posting a leadership challenge and getting a simple majority of the party to post their approval of it. Each party member gets one vote (including the named NPC, who will continue on as a party member if they lose their leadership), and the leader is determined by simple majority. Non-party members and spectators cannot vote in these elections. National Elections National Elections are mostly identical. During these elections, each voter chooses a party and casts a single vote. Party leaders and members do not cast ballots, as their vote is automatically counted for their party. For example, if Party Z with 1 NPC leader and three PC members receives two votes, they will result in a total vote count of (1 NPC + 3 PC +2 Votes) =6. In this way, party size can be overcome by enough votes. In addition, I plan to introduce a system of public opinion that will have a major effect on elections in the future, but not for this initial election. I still want to reward in-character roleplaying and participation though so I'll offer this reward: the party with the best campaigning (in-character posting explaining the party platform, campaign materials, etc) ,subjectively judged by me, will win some bonus votes. The first party election begins now, and ends on September 1st 6:00 AM PST. During either kind of election, new players can join but existing players cannot change parties. ELECTION LAWS - DO NOT VIOLATE 1. No meta-whipping votes from outside posters for your party. Period. No going into irc or discord and asking people who don't play to vote for your party as a personal favor. If you want to convince posters from outside, you have to earnestly canvass in a non-partisan way, on behalf of the game as a whole - you can do this creatively, but no bugging people to just go in and no-effort vote for your party. If I see you breaking this rule I will give you one in-game warning by having your character get savagely harassed by angry crowd. Second strike is in-game assassination. FAQ: How do I vote if I have a character?: You don't, your vote is counted automatically. How do I vote if I'm just an observer?: Just post your choice of party in the thread. If I'm an observer, which parties can I vote for?: You can vote for any party listed, including the NPC parties (the Steel Pact and Autonomy Movement). How do I trigger a party leadership election?: If you're a member of that party, announce a leadership challenge. If 50% of party members post their approval, it will trigger a party election for that party. Does the GM get a vote?: Yes, I get a single vote.
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Aug 28, 2020 20:37
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