Your Nation's Fact of the Week

[Frokolia]

Frokolia in NS RPs is different from Frokolia in our regional RP

[Zhouran]

Being a highly innovative-driven country that is very painstakingly meticulous and rigorous about science and technology, and with semiconductors set to become the new oil, Zhouran has been the leading nation in designing and manufacturing semiconductors since the late 1960s and is a powerhouse in semiconductor technology as the country leads in highest number of annual semiconductor patents and has the largest number of integrated device manufacturers out of any countries, dwarfing even the total number of IDMs in Japan, South Korea and the US combined. Given the ever-increasing digitalization of modern technology, the Zhouranese see semiconductors as the newest strategic-resource, placing it on the same list as other strategic-resources within the country such as oil, natural gas, rare earth metals, uranium, and other highly-valuable precious commodities found across Zhouran.

A close-up of a 16Mbit integrated-circuit chip from Zhouran Instruments

As of 2020, the average Zhouranese semiconductor company is fully-capable of producing 5 nm semiconductor chips, with Zhouran Instruments, Zhouran Intech, and Zhouran Dynatronics already producing 3 nm semiconductor chips and have already completed a full roadmap for 2 nm semiconductor chips that will begin by 2023 at the latest and a roadmap for 1.4 nm semiconductor chips by 2025 at the earliest.

The interior of a clean room inside a semiconductor factory owned by Zhouran Dynatronics

[Molopovia]

Molopovia has a separate and fully-functioning Galactic Government - formed to manage the national space program.

[Republica Federal de Catalunya]

In 1991 We put our first satellite in orbit.

ACE my space agency is integrated in the ESA (European Space Agency).

[Fjaldar]

Fjaldar is the only Catholic-majority nation in the Nordic world.

[Alaska Hawaii and the Aleutes]

Alaska is currently (regional RP is canon) in an agricultural crisis because of events that happened half a year ago

[Greater Angelus]

The Angelan Nationalist Revolutionary Organization does not officially recognize factions within the party. Rather, such divisions tend to be based on loosely affiliated parliamentarians and their supporters which function as de facto ideological groupings within the ANRO-dominated People's Council. The largest of these, called National Concord, is centrist in nature and led by supporters of President Ami Delmaré and controls a majority of seats in both parliament and the ANRO parliamentary group. National Concord is largely backed by members of the bureaucratic establishment, in particular the State Security and Defense ministries, opposing political and economic liberalization, supportive of the status quo welfare state, and generally friendly to WA integration to varying degrees. The Reform Bloc, led by supporters of former president Adrianne Raimilia, are considered to be friendly to not just WA integration, but international economic integration as well. The Reform Bloc is also supportive of a mild political opening, sensitive to outside criticism of Angelus's alleged authoritarianism. A third major faction, the Catrionan Advancement Conference, are considered to be ethnic nationalists, though the faction officially denies this. Instead, the Conference supports measures to promote Catrionan ethnic interests in the country and across the diaspora, and is the most outwardly vocal on territorial irredentism. A small far-left faction, the Revolutionary Association, remains within the ANRO despite most members having defected to the Communist Party in the 1980s.

[Zhouran]

The "Jumping Tanrong Experiment" is a conspiracy theory that revolves around a Zhouranese warship unintentionally teleporting as part of a covert weapons experiment done by the ZPA Navy. The story first appeared in 1993 from letters supposedly written by a veteran who had partaken in the experiment. The Jumping Tanrong Experiment is widely seen as nothing but a hoax; the ZPA Navy has stated that no such experiment was ever conducted and that the alleged claims violate all known laws of physics.

According to the letters, the writer is said to have been a junior officer in the Navy who partook in what he refers to as the "Jumping Tanrong Experiment". In this experiment, the writer claimed the Type 1968 Kelian-class guided-missile destroyer Admirable Courage of Vice Admiral Tanrong Bulundan served as a testbed for the testing of an experimental pulse-powered plasma-railgun sometime around November 22, 1990.

The Type 1968 Kelian-class guided-missile destroyer Admirable Courage of Vice Admiral Tanrong Bulundan conducting a naval patrol in the southeast Atlantic on October 13, 1978

The clandestine experiment was allegedly conducted by the ZPA Navy with scientists from the Scientific Military Research Bureau overseeing the project. The experimental pulse-powered plasma-railgun, referred to in the letters as "The Alihabianhulu" (named after a type of Zhouranese medieval artillery cannon originating from the late 13th century), was designed to act as an anti-ballistic missile direct-energy weapon capable of firing high-speed plasma-based projectiles towards ICBMs. According to the writer, a highly-sophisticated high-powered pulsed-power generator was utilized for powering the plasma-railgun. During the testing of the weapon, the plasma-railgun was able to successfully fire a highly-accelerated magnetized plasma ring, but in just just half a second after firing, the warship had instantaneously disappeared from the area in a bright flash of blue light. The airborne target, a ZPAAF Jian-19 fighter jet converted into a remote-controlled target drone, was quickly destroyed as a doughnut-shaped ring of plasma and ball of lightning violently exploded the aircraft with devastating thermal and mechanical effects, producing a pulse of electromagnetic radiation that could scramble electronics. The writer claimed that the ship remained gone for two minutes before ultimately reappearing back to the site it had originally occupied. According to the letters, the personnel onboard Admirable Courage of Vice Admiral Tanrong Bulundan claimed to have been teleported to the Arctic Ocean the moment they fired the plasma-railgun and that they were in the Arctic for only a quarter of a minute before teleporting back despite the ship having been gone for two minutes. The letters also add the exterior of the ship was found to have a dangerously-high level of radiation yet none of the crewmembers had any dangerous radiation on them. The plasma-railgun, despite having been successful in firing a projectile, was found to be destroyed with its two long parallel electrodes, used for accelerating the hot ionized gas-like plasma, having been melted and fused together into a radioactive metal slab, while the high-powered pulsed-power generator was discovered to be destroyed as well. Like with the plasma-railgun, the capacitor banks and magnetic coils of the pulsed-power generator had melted and cooled into radioactive metal slabs, however unlike the weapon, the generator was found fully frozen with a temperature of around -121.5°C, making it even colder than dry ice.

Declassified image of a powerful experimental high-energy pulsed-power research device operated by the ZPA Ground Force for magnetized target fusion research, taken somewhere in 1981

The ZPA Navy has denied the existence of the experiment, calling it a "mere hoax". To prove to the public the falseness of the conspiracy, the ship's log for Admirable Courage of Vice Admiral Tanrong Bulundan from November 18 to 25 of 1990 was publicly released on May 15, 1998, which showed that the warship was partaking in a naval patrol in the Indian Ocean and thus the experiment could not of happen during this time.

The ship Admirable Courage of Vice Admiral Tanrong Bulundan, having been commissioned into service on July 24, 1975, was decommissioned on December 8, 2003 and sunk by AShMs during a naval exercise on August 16, 2005. Many variations of the hoax still circulate in fringe online communities from time to time, including claims of the ship going through a wormhole and interacting with extra-terrestrial beings from other dimensions.

[Republica Federal de Catalunya]

There are still slightly over 1100 of the endangered catalan donkey (Equus africanus asinus) of those around 10%-20% of those "jacks" are registered as "privates" as they are owned by military. The military collaborates in the conservation, breeding and also trains them.
As they are large, resilient and are very useful in rough terrain were they can handle heavy cargoes in areas not always suitable for motorized vehicles or helicopters.

Also the same applies to the Majorca donkey the other endangered auctoctonous breed. Donkeys are endangered as their use fell since the 1900s with the migration from the countryside to the cities and mechanization of the agriculture and transport.

[The Gallian Principality]

Gallia is famous worldwide for it's baked goods, sweet confections, peaceful towns in the countryside, scenic grass fields full of lion's paws, cutting edge aeronautics industry, policy of heavily armed neutrality, attractive looking female soldiers, universal conscription, the highest per capita ownership of small arms and military-grade armoured vehicles, and so much ragnite that the rest of the world foam at the mouth in envy.

[Gandoor]

Early design concepts for the GameKon X (originally known as the GameKon 3D System) featured both a CD-ROM drive and a cartridge slot, with the cartridge slot meant for smaller games that would not utilize the larger storage space made available via CDs and to facilitate backwards compatibility with its predecessor, the GameKon II.

When the GameKon X was finally released in October 1995, however, it only included a CD-ROM drive, with GameKon having ultimately dropped the cartridge slot (and backwards compatibility) due to concerns over the increased cost of cartridge-based games compared to CD-based ones because of the increased manufacturing costs of cartridges.

It was stated by GameKon that, while they could expect CD-based games to retail for no greater than 39.95 GDY, the cheapest estimates for cartridge-based games was for them to retail for 59.95 GDY.

[Philosocom]

The leader's only title is "Mr."

[Zhouran]

Zhouran has a long list of various ace pilots from different time periods. During the Zhouranese Civil War, the Zhouranese Imperial Army Air Service and Zhouranese Imperial Navy Naval Air Service as well as the People's Front created a massive roster of several hundreds of various aces, both male and female, with the higher-scoring ones having kills within the hundred range. This is all thanks to Zhouran's highly-rigorous highly-competitive technical-oriented military education and rigorously-methodical military training, along with the practice of having military personnel serve numerous tours of duty in order to become well-experienced and battle-hardened. Since the People's Front grew to massive sizes due to ZIA and ZIN personnel defecting, the People's Front also had its own large roster of ace pilots since these individuals were basically ZIA and ZIN pilots who defected to the People's Front.

Following the end of the war and the establishment of the People's Republic of Zhouran, all the pilots of the now-disbanded ZIA Air Service, ZIN Naval Air Service and the People's Front, including the ace pilots themselves, were integrated into the newly-formed Zhouranese People's Army Air Force. Many of the higher-scoring ace pilots would become commanders of various units and formations in the ZPAAF while the lower-scoring ones would become instructors and military advisers. With the creation of the ZPA Naval Aviation in the late 1950s, pilots in the ZPAAF who once served as naval pilots in the ZIN Naval Air Service during the civil war were moved to the naval aviation branch of the ZPA Navy, thus becoming naval pilots once more.

Since the 1960s, the Zhouranese have created a massive list of numerous supersonic fighter-jet ace pilots, and even with the end of the Cold War, both the ZPA Air Force and ZPA Naval Aviation still continue to produce ace pilots to this day. ZPAAF and ZPAN fighter pilots are known for their highly-impressive combat experiences compared to foreign counterparts, in fact the Zhouranese have highly-excellent track records with extremely lopsided kill ratios favoring Zhouranese fighter pilots against foreign counterparts. As a result, Zhouran currently has the highest-scoring supersonic fighter-jet aces. Zhouranese combat pilots serve multiple years of numerous tours of duty abroad in other countries, actively engaging in various combat operations as well as partaking in military exercises and simulated war games. Because of this, the average Zhouranese fighter pilot has the battle experiences and know-hows, and since they are commissioned officers, this is backed by five years of highly-rigorous highly-competitive technical-oriented military education in Zhouran's various military academies.

For Zhouranese fighter pilots including ace pilots, their impressive record is not only due to rigorously-methodical military training and meticulously-complex military education along with being battle-hardened and highly-experienced, but it is also due to the nation's massive technologically-advanced military-industrial-complex and highly-robust R&D. The ZPA Air Force and ZPA Naval Aviation both operate the most advanced fighter jets in the world as well as the largest fleet of combat aircraft in total. In the late 1970s, the Zhouranese People's Army Air Force became the first in the world to operationally use fully-commissioned fighter jets equipped with passive electronically scanned array (PESA) radars, giving PESA radar-equipped fighter jets such as the Jian-20-1-0 and Jian-19-0-1 an advantage over rival fighter jets equipped with standard pulse-Doppler radars such as the US Navy's F-14A Tomcat and the US Air Force's F-15 Eagle. Not only that, since the mid-1980s, the ZPA Air Force was the first in the world to operate fully-commissioned fighter jets equipped with thrust vectoring engine nozzles, giving supermaneuverable fighter jets such as the Jian-21-2 and Jian-18-2-0 a dogfight advantage over rivals. The Zhouranese currently operate a wide array of various highly-sophisticated fighter jet designs including the Jian-25-1-2 gen. 4++ fighter jet, Type 114-900 gen. 4++ carrier-borne fighter jet, Jian-24-3-0 gen. 4+++ fighter jet, Type 116-200 gen. 5+ carrier-borne stealth fighter, Jian-30-1-0 gen. 5++ stealth fighter, and Jian-31-0 gen. 6+ stealth fighter, all designed for maximum full-spectrum total air-dominance over friendly and hostile skies. The effectiveness of both Zhouranese fighter pilots and fighter jets is so high that there are actually debates regarding maximizing the effectiveness of Zhouranese fighter pilots. The controversial close-knit group known as the Boys in Blue (Putonghua: 蓝衣人), consisting of military officers from the ZPA Air Force and ZPA Naval Aviation along with civilian defense analysts and military researchers, use past and present combat experiences of various Zhouranese fighter pilots for their arguments in favor of retiring all light fighters and dedicated CAS aircraft in exchange for more heavy multirole fighter jets, although not everyone shares their radical sentiments.

Zhouran is one of the few nations in the world where retired military pilots are hired by various airlines and become airline pilots. Many retired combat and non-combat pilots that have served in the Zhouranese People's Army Air Force are offered positions as airline pilots in numerous Zhouranese airlines, with most becoming airline pilots serving in Zhouran's six major national airlines while only a few small low-cost airlines in Zhouran would be lucky enough to have at least a handful of former ZPAAF pilots serving as their airline pilots.

[New Goldman]

The first person to step on the Moon since 1972 was a Goldmanian, John Wallace, in September 2006. He was one of 3 astronauts aboard the "Mickey" Lunar Module designed by the Europeans and launched by the Americans. Technology was provided by the Japanese. All these together made up the "New Horizons" Lunar Program, the joint space program dedicated to lunar exploration under the guise of the Western Alliance.

A fun fact to note is that Wallace stepped foot on the surface only a few minutes before the Russian cosmonaut Alexei Petrenko stepped foot himself. The Roscosmos lunar mission, codenamed "Moskva", landed almost simultaneously with the Western mission, but took longer to prepare due to technical difficulties.

[Madrinpoor]

Madrinpoor is a city state!

[Greater Angelus]

The Ministry of State Security and Public Security (MSS-PS), along with the Ministry of National Defense, is a government ministry upon which the appointment of a minister is not dependent on legislative approval. Instead, the Director-General of the MSS-PS is is nominated by the ministry Secretariat and approved by the president. The Secretariat itself is led by the Director-General, underneath which are the two Deputy Director-Generals, the Directors of State Security and Public Security, with the rest composed of the heads of the various departments, including the directors of the Ethics and Internal Inspections Department, the Intelligence Directorate, the Special Operations Bureau, the Anomalous Incidents Department, the National Records Department (State Security) | the National Police, the Emergency Response Department (Public Security), among many others. Many departments within the MSS-PS are considered uniformed services, and thus are open to the national conscription system.

[Aikoland]

While they were printed (and in the case of the 500 and 1000 franc notes are still printed), no banknote valued above 100 francs has ever entered ordinary circulation. They were and are solely used for transferring large sums of money between banks.

[Jolantia]

Jolantian trains and ferries have a "quiet zone" where talking on mobile phones is forbidden. This is enforced by the use of signal jammers.

[Destyntine]

Alien wildlife is not permitted to enter the orbit of Earth without a galactic cargo license. Most alien wildlife is not adapted to the climate of Earth and cannot survive without special care.

[Estado Novo Portugues]

The Holy Catholic State of Portugal doesn't have tax treaties or information-sharing agreements with any nation. That's because citizens can't have foreign bank accounts, and foreigners can't open bank accounts in the Holy Catholic State.

[Lanoraie II]

The average workweek is 27.8 hours a week, with the vast, vast majority of jobs falling between 25 and 30, and yet productivity among Lanomirans ranks far above any Earthly nations. This is due to the fact that they finally realized that most Earthly people actually just waste almost all their day pretending to be busy without actually doing anything important. It is also required by law for every business to have paid lunch breaks that are a minimum of 30 minutes, and a 10 minute paid break every two hours. Many foolish business owners from Earth would think this would be corporate suicide, but alas, the exact opposite has been proven true time and time again.

Other facts about Lanoraie's work culture:

- Every working person is guaranteed 30 days of vacation, with 5 of those days being paid (the rest are unpaid unless the employer decides otherwise)
- The average start and end time is somewhat misleading to calculate, as up to 18% of Lanomirans work somewhere on the graveyard shift (9pm to 6am); however, the most popular shift is 10am to 4pm
- Jobs that require you to work more than 35 hours a week (such as a medical or academic position) are almost unanimously significantly higher paying
- The unemployment rate is currently sitting at 1.8%, not counting the disabled, students, or minors
- The minimum age for employment is 15, and anyone between the ages of 15 and 20 is not allowed to work more than 15 hours a week, unless they live alone or can provide a legitimate reason for needing more income
- Job hopping is uncommon, but not considered a bad thing; most Lanomirans stay with their post-graduate company for 12.8 years
- 79% of Lanomirans are very satisfied with their job; compare that to the Earthly Americans, who 77% are unsatisfied with their job
- It is illegal to work more than 55 hours a week, unless you are self-employed

In other words, they heard the song "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton, and they took that personally.

[Zhouran]

Robot Factory - Timesplitters 2

Zhouran is known for having the world's largest number of high-performance ultra-high-speed supercomputers out of any country ever since the nation’s entry into supercomputing began in late 1967. In particular, the country has the largest number of petascale supercomputers and is the first nation to build exascale supercomputers as well as having the largest number of exascale supercomputers. Zhouranese supercomputers are utilized for numerous different highly-intensive rigorous computational tasks including quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, weather forecasting, climate research, oil and gas exploration, molecular modelling, and physical simulations such as simulations of the early moments of the universe, airplane and spacecraft aerodynamics, the detonation of nuclear weapons, and nuclear fusion). Not only that, Zhouranese supercomputers have also been used in cryptanalysis, military networking, and even artificial intelligence.

Highly-powerful 14.8 exaFLOPS supercomputer inside an underground environmentally-cooled facility located below the National Defense Complex in Ouyang, their purpose is unknown but many analysts within the country say they are part of the hardware architecture making up the hyper-advanced Type 2000 Integrated Military Command and Control System while others claim they are utilized for more-clandestine purposes

Zhouran is known for being a massive user of artificial intelligence to the point of being the leading nation in AI. Dumb AI is used in a variety of mostly-civilian roles such as managing the satellite-dish arrays of a radio-astronomy observatory, supervising a nuclear power plant, managing the railway-supervision and automated train signalling of a railway system such as the National High-Speed Rail Network and National Rapid Maglev Railway Network, and overseeing the entire infrastructure of a city. Meanwhile, smart AI is used for more military-oriented tasks such as managing the internal software of a fighter jet, overseeing the inner-workings of a guided-missile destroyer, and supervising the security and functions of a military installation.

A 1.42 exaFLOPS supercomputer utilized for powering the dumb AI that manages Anjing's entire city infrastructure, every single city in Zhouran such as Anjing are all classified as smart cities

In Zhouran, there are genuine fears regarding the heavy usage of AI and how that could possibly lead to the downfall of humanity, although the government has always assured the masses that this would never happen and that all AI in the country are kept on very-tight leashes with numerous fail-safe protocols put in place so that in the unlikely event an AI goes rogue against its human masters all AI would be hard-locked and forcefully shutdown. Despite these protocols, many of Zhouran's top computer researchers believe those are not enough to stop a possible AI takeover in the future.

[New Horissnia]

Magic-wielding in New Horissnia is fueled by injecting the liquid extract of crushed-up parasitic brain worms, unless you happen to be infected with the worms yourself.

[Republica Federal de Catalunya]

We currently replaced the M113 family in favour of various models. But, M113 was the bulk of our military armored vehicles during late Cold War.

During the Cold War We bought 2097 M113s of whom 514 M113C1 and C2 and 525 M765 AIFVs (M113 APCs derivatives) were built under license by Pegàs SA as main contractor during the 70s and 80s, A national lorry company under FMC license. Pegàs SA already had experience already building lorries, Scout cars and wheeled APCs from the Maulet series.

[The Enlightened Regenerationist State]

Despite ruling the largest Latin American country since the Great Depression, the Enlightened State is still considered as a rogue state by many countries, such as Mexico, Serbia, and France. This is due to the extremism of the Enlightened Regenerationist Movement. The Enlightened State sponsors several paramilitary units that intervene in the affairs of other countries, such as the National Artifact Retrieval Unit (UNRA), a paramilitary organization responsible for the "retrieval" of artistic, scientific, or cultural pieces from museums, private collections, and warehouses. The UNRA became famous during the Second American Civil War, in which various museums, such as the National Museum of Natural History, had pieces stolen by the UNRA. The unit successfully escaped despite the American Military Junta tracking them down.

Another unit is the Boogeymen (Bichos-papões), which seeks to eliminate the intelligentsia and other leading figures of "anti-human" peoples, which in turn would make such peoples weaker and more susceptible to be eliminated by stronger groups. Supported by the Vigilante Faction of the Enlightened Movement, they believe these populations have done more harm than good and for there to be order and peace on Earth, such groups have to be eliminated. These men (and women) are hellbent on causing genocide on a never-seen scale and some Vigilantists have created the Revolutionary Front Peace and Order (FRPeO), a terrorist group that causes havoc in other countries, although the terrorists were condemned by the Enlightened Movement and are not endorsed by the State in any form. Nonetheless, a few people in the government still have links to the FRPeO.

The most infamous unit sponsored by the State, however, is the Group For Immigration and Eugenics (GRUPIE), which roams the wastelands of war-torn countries in search of "men and women adequate for reproduction and bolstering of the Brazilian population". These people are kidnapped and sent to Brazil, where they would be "convinced" to reproduce with other people, be them Brazilians, immigrants, or even other kidnapped foreigners. The kidnapped can decide if they want to marry someone from their pool, or if they want to keep reproducing for the rest of their lives. Even though these foreigners are literally kidnapped from their homes, they are well paid by the government, they live in good apartment complexes (or even mansions!), and have the same liberties as other citizens, with the exception that they cannot vote unless they learn Portuguese. Government-sponsored breeders have one of the highest-paying jobs in Brazil and the act is not considered rape, since the government has developed special one-shot psychiatric medications. These meds turn the breeders into "love machines" that find every person attractive and will not care about having multiple partners, among other effects.