Factbook of the Unified City-States of Tsvarchi + Q&A

[Maraque]

Updated Economy section to include Tax section.

[Maraque]

Updated Culture section to include the national anthem.

[Maraque]

Updated Q&A, updated Population section to include immigration policy and added Constitution and list of Supreme Court Justices to the justice and law section.

[Maraque]

Updated Culture section to include Historical Landmarks.

And of course comments are always welcome.

[Maraque]

Updated Culture to include Dates and Times.

[Minami Atollia]

What is your national stance and reputation on Nuclear Weapons?

[Maraque]

When the new government took power a decade ago, the Royal Legislature passed a law that would ban the use of nuclear weapons and it was passed in referendum by the people. We're now a nuclear-free nation and pride ourselves on that fact.

The governments official stance is that they're evil, unnecessary and do nothing but murder innocent people across the world everyday, and the use is never justified.

[Maraque]

Updated a few things that have changed since the first draft.

[New Jack Lanta]

New Jack Lanta is now having a new capital naming choices are
Jackson,NJL
Atlanta,NJL
New Orleans, NJL
or Asrimite City
the citizens will take a vote and the capital will be built I ruler of New Jack Lanta are looking for friends and endorsements to better New Jack Lanta and all countries willing to help with efforts of making this country a success if anyone needs help if i get endorsements i will address their issues in the world assembly and will fight to get their issues pasted but i cant do it without endorsements and i need to get a foot in on the security council to that way we can boost national defense and provide better care for citizens


[proposal= a new law stating that all communist and dictatorships must be located in there own region an that if less than 2 billion citizens countries must have some type of healthcare reform and social welfare in place for the people.
also propose a new law saying rulers can come up with their own laws for their country and a simulation vote goes through the country and majority passes bill or kills bill a
also propose a new law stating that all government officials must get reelected or revoted for after a two month period

[Maraque]

The Democratic Elective Monarchy is not a member of that dreadful World Assembly, and would not be able to endorse you because the Democratic Elective Monarchy is not in the same region as New Jack Lanta.

[Maraque]

Added a Recently Passed Legislation subsection to the Justice and Law section for quick references to new laws.

[Senestrum]

When the new government took power a decade ago, the Royal Legislature passed a law that would ban the use of nuclear weapons and it was passed in referendum by the people. We're now a nuclear-free nation and pride ourselves on that fact.

The governments official stance is that they're evil, unnecessary and do nothing but murder innocent people across the world everyday, and the use is never justified.

What is the government's stance on peaceful nuclear devices, for uses such as earthmoving or spacecraft propulsion?

[Hemenster]

You have stated that your citizens dismiss conservatism - does this mean all kinds of conservatism? I am specifically talking about the kind of cultural conservatism that isn't necessarily linked to politics, but that of conserving the nation's heritage, traditions, buildings, culture, language etc. (OOC: this is how we in Australia were brought up to think of conservatism); the same kind of conservatism required to retain at least some form of monarchy, as your nation has done?

[Maraque]

When the new government took power a decade ago, the Royal Legislature passed a law that would ban the use of nuclear weapons and it was passed in referendum by the people. We're now a nuclear-free nation and pride ourselves on that fact.

The governments official stance is that they're evil, unnecessary and do nothing but murder innocent people across the world everyday, and the use is never justified.

What is the government's stance on peaceful nuclear devices, for uses such as earthmoving or spacecraft propulsion?

The government has no problem with peaceful nuclear programs of any sort. Only weaponry used with the intent to harm. 85% of the nation's energy consumption is from nuclear power.

[Maraque]

You have stated that your citizens dismiss conservatism - does this mean all kinds of conservatism? I am specifically talking about the kind of cultural conservatism that isn't necessarily linked to politics, but that of conserving the nation's heritage, traditions, buildings, culture, language etc. (OOC: this is how we in Australia were brought up to think of conservatism); the same kind of conservatism required to retain at least some form of monarchy, as your nation has done?

Well first and foremost, conservatives in Maraque do exist - plenty of them - but they tend to still appear to be quite liberal compared to contemporary conservatives in other nations.

In the matter of cultural conservatism; yes there is a strong sense of cultural conservatism in the nation. The culture and traditions of the Kingdom are immensely important to the people, and they become very fearful when someone tries to challenge that. However because of the open border policy there have been a few issues concerning assimilation, and whether people who deliberately move to the Kingdom should respect the local culture, but at the same time Maraqueans value diversity and multiculturalism, so long as the main culture (that being theirs), is still the most present and visible.

Examples of the Kingdom's cultural conservatism:

Buildings built before 1880 CE cannot be destroyed.
The monarchy, which has existed in its current form for over 4,000 years.
Requiring all immigrants who seek to become citizens to learn the three native languages (Maraquean, Cuerakian, and Atrulian) plus English fluently.
Barring specific things from being overturned (same-sex marriage, euthanasia, abortion, polygamy, recreational drug use, prostitution, etc)

[Albignano]

I have a few questions/comments over various issues

Calendar:
According to your calendar, you have 972 days in an year Are you on a planet other than Earth?

Also: you say "six weeks of nine days each. This makes a typical work week seven days long, with three days rest." Which makes 10 days per week

"June holiday": You can shut down many things for one day, very few things for a week, probably nothing for one month. This "June holiday" would have so many exceptions that virtually nobody would enjoy it (apart from those lucky unemployed).


Suffrage and age of consent:
13yo can do everything (including becoming drug or alcool addicts) but they cannot have sex (with 2+ years difference). This seems a bit contradictory in a country who declares so openminded about sex

Politics and government:
According to your system, each law has to get 2/3 approval out of 4 subsequent steps, then it basically needs the king's approval, then again it needs a 75% approval.
I'm not a statistic but I assume there's about 0.00001% probability that ANY law could get through ( = big potential for total anarchy) ...

...although, as you have a fiercely majoritary election system (i.e. only 1 seat per each wide collegium), it could even be that ALL the members of any of the chambers are of the same party. I.e. the strongest party get 100% of seats. ( = big potential for zero democracy)

Justice and Law:
"law in the Kingdom is loosely based on the opinions and ideology of the individual judge presiding over the case". This means that you never know if you're doing right or wrong? And, in any case, condemnation or absolution would be a matter of luck (depending on which judge you'll face.)

Economy:
"The economy is highly diversified and self-serving; only 10% of the goods and services consumed within the nation are produced from foreign entities, and Maraquean corporations are banned from outsourcing."
This is called autarchy. It's a typical fascist dogma and it almost inevitably brings to decadence, poverty and backwardness for it isolates the country from any positive foreign influence. History proved it.

"Corporate taxes:..." This scale is the go-ahead for "Chinese boxes" economy (instead of a company with 100 employees, I can set up 10 companies with 10 employees each.)

[Maraque]

Calendar:
According to your calendar, you have 972 days in an year Are you on a planet other than Earth?

Yes we're on Earth. Not sure which one (there are several, apparently). But we're on one of them.

Also: you say "six weeks of nine days each. This makes a typical work week seven days long, with three days rest." Which makes 10 days per week

Slight oversight, will be fixed.

"June holiday": You can shut down many things for one day, very few things for a week, probably nothing for one month. This "June holiday" would have so many exceptions that virtually nobody would enjoy it (apart from those lucky unemployed).

While I say "everyone has off," it's not to be taken literally. Everyone has the potential to be off, but in reality it just means most people have vastly fewer hours during the month. A lot of places do indeed close, though. The economy does not completely shut down.

Suffrage and age of consent:
13yo can do everything (including becoming drug or alcool addicts) but they cannot have sex (with 2+ years difference). This seems a bit contradictory in a country who declares so openminded about sex

A 13 year old has no business having sexual intercourse with a 50 year old person. Waiting until they're 18 to have sex with that 50 year old person can't hurt.

Politics and government:
According to your system, each law has to get 2/3 approval out of 4 subsequent steps, then it basically needs the king's approval, then again it needs a 75% approval.
I'm not a statistic but I assume there's about 0.00001% probability that ANY law could get through ( = big potential for total anarchy) ...

...although, as you have a fiercely majoritary election system (i.e. only 1 seat per each wide collegium), it could even be that ALL the members of any of the chambers are of the same party. I.e. the strongest party get 100% of seats. ( = big potential for zero democracy)

The King has no say in the matter. He can disagree but he can't stop legislation from becoming law; he can only petition the courts to review it. In Real Life perhaps this extreme way of doing things is impossible, but this ain't Real Life.

I don't get your last point. The Royal Legislature is made up of a few different Coalitions, and the King's coalition only makes up 37% of the legislative body (it's an estimate because members of the Royal Legislature don't run under a party; they run independently).

Justice and Law:
"law in the Kingdom is loosely based on the opinions and ideology of the individual judge presiding over the case". This means that you never know if you're doing right or wrong? And, in any case, condemnation or absolution would be a matter of luck (depending on which judge you'll face.)

They still have to follow the laws on the books. This is just saying they have the opportunity to set precedent, and form the basis for other trials of the same or similar offense (or lack thereof). A judge cannot create their own punishments; they have to sentence someone within the set parameters of that particular offense. The Bill of Rights and Responsibilities outlines some of the rights and wrongs that the law is based on. The people will vote out of office any judge they don't want.

In any case, this entire Factbook hasn't been updated in a long time and I haven't updated it to reflect the changes done, so anything you read in its current form isn't accurate to begin with.

Economy:
"The economy is highly diversified and self-serving; only 10% of the goods and services consumed within the nation are produced from foreign entities, and Maraquean corporations are banned from outsourcing."
This is called autarchy. It's a typical fascist dogma and it almost inevitably brings to decadence, poverty and backwardness for it isolates the country from any positive foreign influence. History proved it.

Our markets are open to foreign industry. The fact we don't need it doesn't hurt.

And keeping Maraquean corporations from outsourcing call centers that serve a primarily or wholly Maraquean customer base isn't doing any harm.

"Corporate taxes:..." This scale is the go-ahead for "Chinese boxes" economy (instead of a company with 100 employees, I can set up 10 companies with 10 employees each.

Corporate taxes have since been eliminated. I just haven't updated the Factbook to reflect this. Creating "ten companies with 10 employees each" would be against the law if this were still in effect.

[Haiz]

Does your nation have a cultural language?

[Maraque]

Does your nation have a cultural language?

Maraquean, Cuerakian and Atrulian have been in use for 4,100+ years. English has only been a national language for the last 300 years.

[Albignano]

Calendar:
According to your calendar, you have 972 days in an year Are you on a planet other than Earth?

Yes we're on Earth. Not sure which one (there are several, apparently). But we're on one of them.

Therefore, you cannot have 972 day years

Also: you say "six weeks of nine days each. This makes a typical work week seven days long, with three days rest." Which makes 10 days per week

Slight oversight, will be fixed.

OK

"June holiday": You can shut down many things for one day, very few things for a week, probably nothing for one month. This "June holiday" would have so many exceptions that virtually nobody would enjoy it (apart from those lucky unemployed).

While I say "everyone has off," it's not to be taken literally. Everyone has the potential to be off, but in reality it just means most people have vastly fewer hours during the month. A lot of places do indeed close, though. The economy does not completely shut down.

OK

Suffrage and age of consent:
13yo can do everything (including becoming drug or alcool addicts) but they cannot have sex (with 2+ years difference). This seems a bit contradictory in a country who declares so openminded about sex

A 13 year old has no business having sexual intercourse with a 50 year old person. Waiting until they're 18 to have sex with that 50 year old person can't hurt.

You stated a permission is required if difference is 2+ years, i.e. a 13yo with a 16yo. Again, I'm not saying this is right or wrong. I'm saying it's contradictory in a country who declares so openminded about sex and which permits more harmful beahviour (like drug or alcohol) with no restriction.
For the sake of consistency, either you state that anybody 13yo can do whatever they want, including sex with anybody else, or that there are some rules that apply to anybody under, say, 16 or 18 or whatever y.o., and regarding several potentially dangerous behaviours, INCLUDING sex.

Politics and government:
According to your system, each law has to get 2/3 approval out of 4 subsequent steps, then it basically needs the king's approval, then again it needs a 75% approval.
I'm not a statistic but I assume there's about 0.00001% probability that ANY law could get through ( = big potential for total anarchy) ...

...although, as you have a fiercely majoritary election system (i.e. only 1 seat per each wide collegium), it could even be that ALL the members of any of the chambers are of the same party. I.e. the strongest party get 100% of seats. ( = big potential for zero democracy)

The King has no say in the matter. He can disagree but he can't stop legislation from becoming law; he can only petition the courts to review it. In Real Life perhaps this extreme way of doing things is impossible, but this ain't Real Life.

I don't get your last point. The Royal Legislature is made up of a few different Coalitions, and the King's coalition only makes up 37% of the legislative body (it's an estimate because members of the Royal Legislature don't run under a party; they run independently).

I know this isn't RL but then we're trying to set up "realistic" environments, aren't we? Otherwise, why taking the time to write all this stuff?

My last point is a technical point of politics. (I hope to explain myself for English is not my mothertongue): If you hold elections in which each "area" (whether it be a neighborhood or a region) elects just 1 person, this simply means that whatever is the win margin, the winning party gets that place.
E.g.: in one region, Party A gets 90% of votes and wins the seat; in another region Party A gets only 15% of votes but NO OTHER PARTY gets more than that, so Party A win the seat there too.
In other words, if one party has a decent (but not necessarily overwhelming) majority ON AVERAGE throughout the country, they could theorically win ALL the seats. I.e. a party enjoying 20% of approval could get 100% of the seats.
This is a typical "majority" system (like in UK) and has the advantage to provide a winnin party with a usually solid majority in Parliament to go ahead governing with stability. The disadvantage obviously is that the % of parliament seats never represent the actual % of forces in the country.
This thing can be "toned down" by having "election areas" to be very small but in your description you seem to have areas as big as cities or provinces, etc.

Justice and Law:
"law in the Kingdom is loosely based on the opinions and ideology of the individual judge presiding over the case". This means that you never know if you're doing right or wrong? And, in any case, condemnation or absolution would be a matter of luck (depending on which judge you'll face.)

They still have to follow the laws on the books. This is just saying they have the opportunity to set precedent, and form the basis for other trials of the same or similar offense (or lack thereof). A judge cannot create their own punishments; they have to sentence someone within the set parameters of that particular offense. The Bill of Rights and Responsibilities outlines some of the rights and wrongs that the law is based on. The people will vote out of office any judge they don't want.

In any case, this entire Factbook hasn't been updated in a long time and I haven't updated it to reflect the changes done, so anything you read in its current form isn't accurate to begin with.

OK, but your wording seems to leave too much discretion to each single judge. I wouldn't say "opinions" nor "ideology" but "interpretation".
"Opinions" means, e.g., a judge can think that if I kill somebody who insulted me, I'm right, so he won't condemn me, despite killing is a crime.
"Ideology" means, e.g., a judge can think that corporations are inherently wrong, so he will always rule against corporations when they face individuals or small companies.
"Interpretation" just means a judge can rule on a case which is not EXACTLY covered by the law, by trying to find similarities and/or applying the "spirit" of the law itself.

Economy:
"The economy is highly diversified and self-serving; only 10% of the goods and services consumed within the nation are produced from foreign entities, and Maraquean corporations are banned from outsourcing."
This is called autarchy. It's a typical fascist dogma and it almost inevitably brings to decadence, poverty and backwardness for it isolates the country from any positive foreign influence. History proved it.

Our markets are open to foreign industry. The fact we don't need it doesn't hurt.

And keeping Maraquean corporations from outsourcing call centers that serve a primarily or wholly Maraquean customer base isn't doing any harm.

"Don't need it" means nothing, sorry. Unless you're saying that your country is so unbelievably advanced that any other country is like Stone Age compared to you and you cannot learn anything by them.
It's not a matter of "outsourcing call centers", which is an example of a marginal importance practice.
Fascist economies tend to restrict economic imports to "protect" domestic industry and to save precious money reserves. This has been done either through strict proibition of imports or via softer but equally effective punitive tariffs.
Either way, this is a myopic economic strategy, only good to retain approval by economic-uneducated masses (typical support basis for fascist regimes). Any restriction on foreign imports restrict the opportunity of getting better things (goods, inventions, etc.) at lower prices.
The result is a decadence of the autarchic country, sooner or later. Big, inherently rich countries like the USA, could withstand this for a longer time, for they have lots of resources inland, a big domestic market to exploit and lots of money to do effective research at home. But that just means they can go ahead for, say, 30 years instead of 10 years like a medium-sized country.

"Corporate taxes:..." This scale is the go-ahead for "Chinese boxes" economy (instead of a company with 100 employees, I can set up 10 companies with 10 employees each.

Corporate taxes have since been eliminated. I just haven't updated the Factbook to reflect this. Creating "ten companies with 10 employees each" would be against the law if this were still in effect.

OK

[Maraque]

Therefore, you cannot have 972 day years

Therefore, every 972 days the calendar goes up one year. Obviously the Gregorian calendar is in use as well, but the Maraquean calendar is still used by the general population.

You stated a permission is required if difference is 2+ years, i.e. a 13yo with a 16yo. Again, I'm not saying this is right or wrong. I'm saying it's contradictory in a country who declares so openminded about sex and which permits more harmful beahviour (like drug or alcohol) with no restriction.
For the sake of consistency, either you state that anybody 13yo can do whatever they want, including sex with anybody else, or that there are some rules that apply to anybody under, say, 16 or 18 or whatever y.o., and regarding several potentially dangerous behaviours, INCLUDING sex.

There are restrictions on drugs and alcohol such as the amount of drugs one can consume in a given month or the amount of alcohol that one can consume before one can be arrested, etc.

It just seems like you're nitpicking. The law is basically in affect so that say a 15 year old boy can't be charged with rape and then put on the sex offender registry because he decided to have sex with his 13 year old girlfriend, and that every subsequent year the youngest has a birthday the two year rule changes to reflect that; so a 17 year old can now have intercourse with someone up to 19. When they turn 18 it's any age from there.

I know this isn't RL but then we're trying to set up "realistic" environments, aren't we? Otherwise, why taking the time to write all this stuff?

My last point is a technical point of politics. (I hope to explain myself for English is not my mothertongue): If you hold elections in which each "area" (whether it be a neighborhood or a region) elects just 1 person, this simply means that whatever is the win margin, the winning party gets that place.
E.g.: in one region, Party A gets 90% of votes and wins the seat; in another region Party A gets only 15% of votes but NO OTHER PARTY gets more than that, so Party A win the seat there too.
In other words, if one party has a decent (but not necessarily overwhelming) majority ON AVERAGE throughout the country, they could theorically win ALL the seats. I.e. a party enjoying 20% of approval could get 100% of the seats.
This is a typical "majority" system (like in UK) and has the advantage to provide a winnin party with a usually solid majority in Parliament to go ahead governing with stability. The disadvantage obviously is that the % of parliament seats never represent the actual % of forces in the country.
This thing can be "toned down" by having "election areas" to be very small but in your description you seem to have areas as big as cities or provinces, etc.

RL to a point, but then again the entire idea of 50,000+ nations co-existing is ludicrous to begin with. There would not be enough resources in the multiple worlds to even sustain such.

To the other point; take the first chamber for example. It has 400,680 seats. Each one of those 400,680 areas is the exact same size; 166 acres (give or take a block or two). The average number of people living in each one is around 30,000. So basically there are 30,000 people for every seat. Of course some areas have higher numbers of people living in them, but for the most part it's 1 for every ~30,000.

The country isn't that big; 104,000 or so square miles. With 11.2 billion people in such a tight space there will be a lot of people in a small surface area. An apartment on a single block could house thousands alone.

OK, but your wording seems to leave too much discretion to each single judge. I wouldn't say "opinions" nor "ideology" but "interpretation".
"Opinions" means, e.g., a judge can think that if I kill somebody who insulted me, I'm right, so he won't condemn me, despite killing is a crime.
"Ideology" means, e.g., a judge can think that corporations are inherently wrong, so he will always rule against corporations when they face individuals or small companies.
"Interpretation" just means a judge can rule on a case which is not EXACTLY covered by the law, by trying to find similarities and/or applying the "spirit" of the law itself.

Noted. In the new Factbook I will change the wording to reflect this.

"Don't need it" means nothing, sorry. Unless you're saying that your country is so unbelievably advanced that any other country is like Stone Age compared to you and you cannot learn anything by them.
It's not a matter of "outsourcing call centers", which is an example of a marginal importance practice.
Fascist economies tend to restrict economic imports to "protect" domestic industry and to save precious money reserves. This has been done either through strict proibition of imports or via softer but equally effective punitive tariffs.
Either way, this is a myopic economic strategy, only good to retain approval by economic-uneducated masses (typical support basis for fascist regimes). Any restriction on foreign imports restrict the opportunity of getting better things (goods, inventions, etc.) at lower prices.
The result is a decadence of the autarchic country, sooner or later. Big, inherently rich countries like the USA, could withstand this for a longer time, for they have lots of resources inland, a big domestic market to exploit and lots of money to do effective research at home. But that just means they can go ahead for, say, 30 years instead of 10 years like a medium-sized country.

Well, I do RP a PMT nation so perhaps to most MT nations their goods are inferior, but I get what you're saying. Although being a nation of great wealth and population there should be a lot of innovation happening.

It all fits into the whole "not RL" thing, again.

We don't restrict imports or have punitive import tariffs (except for certain things like cigarettes)

The outsourcing ban prevents Maraquean-based corporations from exploiting cheap labor in foreign countries to make a product for the domestic Maraquean market. Sure this practice makes the goods more expensive, but it stops exploitation and keeps Maraqueans making things for Maraqueans.

If they make a product for a foreign market they're welcome to have the manufacturing abroad. Just goods manufactured for Maraqueans have to be manufactured in Maraque. Maraquean's are indeed a nationalist bunch when it comes to jobs.

[Albignano]

Understood and "accepted" all of the above... apart from the 972-day year.
"Year" is an astronomical concept. It can be correctly derived by the sun (in which case it'll be 365 days) or the longer sum of 13 "moon months" (as it used to be with several ancient people), in which case it is "wrong" (approx 377 days) and must be periodically adjusted (e.g. the muslim calender). In any case, it's far from 972 days.

Years ago (for another game) I devised an alternative calendar made of 4 "seasons" of 90 days each, each split into 9 "decades" of 10 days each (into which you can place either 2 or 3 festive days). The remaining 5 (or 6) days of the year were called "Carnival" and were a national holiday.
It seems that this is quite close to your conception, including a somewhat "longish" holiday once a year. I have not copyrighted it

As a final note: thank you so much for all your factbook and the patience with which you answered to my picky questions, instead of going mad like many do when facing criticism.
As your factbook addresses several issues I was thinking about for my factbook, all this will be very useful to me.

[Maraque]

The Maraquean people don't consider the technicalities. They simply ask themselves:

Have 23,328 hours passed?

If yes, then it's a new year. Celebration time!

Is it a primitive system? Hell yes, do they care? Not really. Stubborn little twats. It took them long enough to accept the Gregorian calendar.

[The Scandinvans]

I must ask, how popular is the show in which quotes from my nation are broadcast?

[Maraque]

I must ask, how popular is the show in which quotes from my nation are broadcast?

It's more popular than Maraquean Idol which itself averages a billion viewers a week.