Full Nation Name: In the official languages of the country, its formal name is
Konfederacio de Hyperboreorespublikoj (Esperanto-B),
Sambandsríki Norðurlýðveldanna (High Scandinavian),
Nordisk republikkenes samfundet (Low Scandinavian), and
Pohjoismaiden neuvostotasavaltojen (Finnish). No official translation into non-Hyperborean languages exist, with many different adaptations into English being accepted.
Short Nation Name: The common name of the country, again in its official languages, is
Hyperboreo (Esperanto-B),
Norðurland (High Scandinavian),
Norden (Low Scandinavian), and
Pohjoismaat (Finnish). Again, no official translations into non-Hyperborean languages exist, but
Hyperborea,
Norden, and the
Northern States are all commonly accepted English translations.
Flag / National Symbols: The banner of the Commonwealth of Northern Republics is an emblem of one colour consisting of a stylised motif of a swan inscribed in a circle formed of a sickle on its lower hoist side and one-half a gear in its upper fly side laid against a plain background of another colour. The two dominant traditions for colour are blue-white or white-blue more commonly used for civil-national purposes and the yellow-red more commonly used for state or military purposes, with black-white coming a close third, but no colour scheme is formally defined and more exotic colours (including Bergen City Hall's purple-lime that everyone agrees is a nightmarish eyesore) are both perfectly acceptable and can be frequently seen. The insignia of the Commonwealth is the same, except that the background is circular and not rectangular.
Government Type: Norden considers itself a
Sambandsríki, often translated as Confederation or Commonwealth. In practice, the country is a liberal republic of sorts.
Official Political Ideology: Norden has no official political ideology, and feels no strong ideological affinity to any foreign state. In practice, Norden is a fiercely nationalistic and communal state.
Head of State: No individual human being is recognised as the head of state of the Northern Commonwealth. The Hyperborean Constitution states that supreme authority is invested in the
State and People of the Hyperborean Lands.
Head of Government: In practice, the day-to-day affairs of State are managed by the Lord High Justiciar of the Realm, (Esperanto-B:
la Intendanto de Hyperboreo; High Scandinavian:
Ríkismaður Norðurlands; Low Scandinavian:
Nordens Rigsdrost; Finnish:
Valtakunnandrotsi), the office of which is held by "Skogens" Rayner Kastarsson av Trondhjem as of 1631 Nuclear Era.
Government Description: Hyperborea is definitely a republic in practice as well as in theory and it has many features of a liberal state, with the Rights and Liberties of the Citizen being extensively entrenched in the culture of the nation, a sort of independent and very fair if sometimes unforgiving judicial system overseeing a stable rule of law, and a relatively trustworthy society where efficiency is valued and corruption, especially when compared to its neighbours, is at a minimum. Notably, however, this liberalism is largely limited only to Norden's own citizens; the Rights of Liberties of the Citizen is very much
of the Citizen and not of Man in general, and slavery in the form of nerve-stapled drones still exists for prisoners of war and other such captured foreigners. Furthermore, because the Hyperborean so-called "State" is a jumbled mess of Councils and Assemblies, Departments and Bureaus, Municipalities and Counties, Syndicates and Labour Divisions, Commissions and Special Districts of all sizes, structures, and varieties, only some of which hold formal public elections, most of which have esoteric rules of succession, and the relationship between which are constantly in flux, it is difficult to say whether Hyperborea is a democracy and, indeed, it is difficult to say anything meaningful about the Northern system of government at all.
Territory: The territory of the Hyperborean Confederation consists of Jutland north of the real-life historical southern border of the Duchy of Schleswig, Fennoscandia east of the real-life pre-1917 eastern border of the Grand Duchy of Finland, the Danish and Baltic islands in between, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and all the small subsidiary islands in their respective coastal waters. The concept of "international waters" has long been lost to history, and as such the Hyperborean Confederation also considers the nearby waters to be an integral part of its sovereign territory. A map may be found
here, with currently-controlled land territories in light colours, territorial ambitions in light gray, and land of no interest in dark gray.
Territorial Ambitions: The Commonwealth has always desired a shorter and more defensible eastern land border, which may be achieved by annexing large parts of what used to be northern Russia and moving the frontier to the Neva and Svir Rivers, and further desires to control the vulnerable supply lines between Iceland and mainland Scandinavia by conquering the Scottish islands. The Commonwealth also claims as its territory almost the entirety of the Baltic, North, Norwegian, and Arctic Seas as well as substantial portions of the North Atlantic.
Capital City: The capital city of the Northern States is
Soundstead (Esperanto-B), also called
Sundstaðr (High Scandinavian) or
Sundstad (Low Scandinavian). It is said that many hundreds of years ago, the districts that today form Soundstead, such as Copenhagen, Lund, or Malmø, were once separate cities of their own right, which over time merged into what is today the largest and most populated city in all of Hyperborea. Unlike many other cities of its size, Soundstead is fairly lightly defended, having only a basic complement of anti-aircraft artillery and no walls at all, and instead relies on its defensible location, with one half being on an island and the other half being separated from the Old Continent by sea, to defend itself.
Population: According to the Great Census of 1630, the total population of the Northern States is 25.45 million residents, of which perhaps two-thirds are citizens, one-twelfth are free alien, and one-quarter nerve-stapled drones. By Republic, this breaks down to 7.68 millions in Denmark, 7.31 millions in Sweden, 5.46 millions in Finland, and 5.00 millions in Norway. The population density roughly follows latitude, being highest in the southernmost regions where the largest cities are located and thinning out further towards the north.
Majority/Official Culture: According to the Great Census of 1630, Low Scandinavian (39.8%, among citizens) is the most widely spoken language of the Confederation of Hyperborean Republics, but the primary language used in governance, administration, high finance, and diplomacy is High Scandinavian (19.9%). Finnish (19.7%) and Esperanto-B (14.3%) are also officially recognised and all State institutions are required to accommodate speakers of these languages everywhere in the Confederation. Karelian (2.5%), Pan-Saxian (2.1%), Sami (0.4%), and Thulean (0.3%) hold some degree of local or regional recognition, but are not nationally recognised. Smaller minority languages exist, but they are not recognised. Free aliens in the Confederation speak mostly Albionic Celtic, Kalevan, or South Baltic if they have not yet been integrated into one of Hyperborea's own cultures, although since the Census does not ask for the primary language of non-citizens it's hard to know exactly what proportion of free aliens speak each of these languages. Nerve-stapled drones have no free thought and thus no culture, and are trained to speak whatever Northern language is convenient to the citizens around them.
Majority/State Religion: The Northern Commonwealth does not recognise an official State religion. The dominant majority of Hyperboreans are either nonreligious or follow some kind of local polytheistic or animistic folk faith, but organised religion is not completely absent from the country: the Nobelian Church has a considerable following primarily in the major cities.
Major Industries / Economic sectors: Norden's economy is diverse and it's difficult to point out any particularly significant industries, but compared to its neighbouring states Norden does have an unusually large resource extraction industry due to its somewhat extensive territory as well as its surrounding oceans giving it a far larger area to exploit than other countries of comparable strength and stature.
Amount of Industrialization: The Northern Commonwealth has a highly-advanced, post-industrial economy,
Economic Description: The economy of the Northern Commonwealth could perhaps be called state-capitalistic, although given the convoluted and devolutionary nature of Northern governance it is often difficult to say where State institutions stop and the private economy begins. Like any other country large enough to do so, Norden runs its economy largely as an autarky, with very little in the way of foreign trade and most of that being natural resources or luxuries. As a result, the country is significantly poorer than its very high level of infrastructural and capital development might otherwise suggest. Economic thought in the country is primarily nationalistic, with the idea that the productivity of a country's citizens ought to, above all else, support the strength of the nation against foreign aggression. Surprisingly, this thought does lead to a fairly egalitarian economy with solid investments into public health and education with the idea that a free, healthy, and intelligent citizen is a more capable soldier than a peasant.
Technological Level: With regards information and communications technology, Hyperborea and its predecessor states have made very slow progress since the dawn of history, with desktop computing and a primitive intranet - so far only connecting government, military, and educational institutions being connected - being the height of technology in this regard. The same goes for energy, with Hyperborea being largely dependent on hydrocarbons scraped from the seafloor to sustain its burgeoning economy. In terms of biotechnology, robotics, and materials science, however, the country has advanced significantly even during recorded history, with innovations such as gene therapy, nano-plasteel, and cybernetic implants being commonplace and even more futuristic advances starting to materialise on the drawing boards of engineers. (So basically, 1980s information technology, post-modern-tech energy technology, and everything else is future-tech.)
Magic and other shenanigans? (If any exists): None.
Military DescriptionArmy: Unlike many other armies of its time and its world, the Northern Army has only a very small force of armour, and even that's mostly light armour at that. Rather, the country relies on its Hunters (Esperanto-B:
Ĉasisto; Low Scandinavian:
Jæger), heavy infantry armed with bolt rifles and clad in power armour, as its elite shock assault force, backed by artillery support and a far larger force of light infantry holding needleguns and protected by blunt jackets. The Northern Army, like the other two branches of service in the Northern Armed Forces, is a force that definitely prioritises quality over quantity, and has an apparently small force that can punch far above its weight. The Army fields 15 Hunter Corps, each 3,000 troops, and 20 Infantry Divisions, each 12,000 troops, for a total paper strength of 285,000. This is supported by a reservist National Guard of about 80,000~100,000 personnel.
Navy: The Navy consists primarily of three components: its Strike Fleets, mostly a force of battleships and heavy cruisers supported by destroyers, its Rapid Response Squadrons, which consists of one light cruiser with a screen of destroyers and submarine support, and its Coast Guard, which consists mostly of corvettes and patrol boats and is mostly engaged in coastal defence as well as nonmilitary search and rescue work. There are four Strike Fleets, the Baltic, North Sea, Norwegian Sea, and Arctic Fleets, and a couple dozen Rapid Response Squadrons in the Navy. The Navy does not field carriers and prioritises surface ships over submarines, making it a tool of crushing victory in the immediate waters surrounding the Commonwealth's territory, as opposed to being a tool of force projection or skirmishes. All in all the maritime forces of the Northern Armed Forces employees a nominal 94,000 personnel.
Air Force: The Northern Air Force are organised into Air Divisions, each of which contains on paper a total of 200 aircraft, or ten squadrons of 20. In reality squadrons are rarely precisely 20 aircraft and Air Divisions that have a couple fewer or more squadrons than the organisational chart states are not uncommon. There are Fighter Air Divisions, which consists of fighter-interceptors, ground support, and tactical bombers, Bomber Air Divisions, which consists of tactical bombers, strategic bombers, and heavy fighters, and Naval Air Divisions, which consists of fighter-interceptors and naval bombers. All in all the Air Force fields five Fighter Air Divisions, three Bomber Air Divisions, and two Naval Air Divisions, for a total theoretical force of 2,000 aircraft and 60,000 personnel.
National Goals: Alt for Norden! The Hyperborean Confederacy desires two things. First, to defend itself from foreign aggression, to protect its liberties and unique way of life from the threat posed by overseas perfidy and totalitarianism, and to defend the lives, prosperity, and happiness of its citizens. Second, to aggress against foreign defence, to subjugate and enslave foreign populations for the glory of Norden, to build a sphere of influence around itself, and to hear the name of its great citizens whispered in awe and fear alike in all corners of the world!
History: One day, the First Men of Earth detonated a nuclear explosive in a legendary, now long-lost temple named Trinity, thus ending the Age of Barbarism and beginning both history and civilisation. This is today considered to be Year 1 of the Standard Calendar. Not much is known about this earliest period of history, the records mostly being lost in the centuries since, but it is known that the Three Atomic Superpowers rapidly expanded across the surface of the Earth, conquering primitive barbarians who did not know the arts of nuclear fire. Certainly by 250 N.E., and in all probability earlier, the Earth was perfectly partitioned between the Three Atomic Superpowers, each of them too large to be conquered by the other two, locked in endless conflict with each other. The stalemate could only be broken by the cleansing fire of nuclear war, which finally purged the Earth of the endless war, the Three Atomic Superpowers who fought in it, and the vile Threeist faiths they served at 476 N.E.
The tribes that would one day go on to establish the Commonwealth of Hyperborean Republics emerged from the shattered ruins of what used to be the northern half of the North Atlantic Special Administrative Region, a province of the Atomic Superpower of Eurasia. The period immediately following the fall of the Three Atomic Superpowers is characterised by mass illiteracy, constant tribal struggle, and poor recordskeeping, so the historical record is neither clear nor precise, but strong hatred of indeterminate origin between the Prolen tribes, speaking High or Low Scandinavian, and the Parti tribes, speaking Esperanto-B, emerged, ending only when the Prolen fully subjugated the Parti and established their kingdoms across Scandinavia.
Stanislav II of the Iron Justicarium (today more commonly known as Stas the Conquerer) conquered Finland throughout the 790s and soon forced the Scandinavian kingdoms into tributary status, under threat of razing the region's cities and enslaving all of its inhabitants to be worked in the reclamation of the Central Asian deserts, and over the following decades they came to be more and more integrated into the Justicarium. The forced assimilation policies of Karin the Petran and Stanislav IV (i.e. Stas the Butcher), as well as the reign of terror of the latter, outraged Finn, Scandinavian, and Esperanto-speaker alike and lit the fires of unrest across the entire province, which not even the retributions of Stas the Butcher and subsequent Justiciars could suppress.
Eventually, the decadence of the Iron Justicarium's ruling dynasty caught up to it and, during the First Great European War of the 10th Century led to the widespread perception of the Justicarium's weakness, leading Soundstead's burghers to declare independence from the Iron Justicarium in 924 N.E. and the declaration was rapidly adopted by many prominent local merchants and industrialists across Scandinavia. After a hard fought war, which spluttered out rather than being concluded by a proper peace treaty but is nonetheless considered to have ended with the decisive Scandinavia victory in the naval Gulf of Riga skirmishes in 927. The slow decline of the Justicarium and its eventual collapse in the centuries after prompted the expansion of the Hyperborean State into Finland, even as the new country fought multiple low-intensity and ultimately indecisive wars against the Albionic kingdoms, Saxia, and the petty merchant republics of the Baltic Coast.
The necessity of raising popular support for these wars fought against much more powerful enemies, and the concession made to the mercantile and plebian classes by the royalty over these centuries, slowly but surely decentralised the Hyperborean State and is the origin of the byzantine system of governance that the Commonwealth has today. Eventually, the Reproductive Crisis of 1397 (about which the less said, the better) forced the abdication of the monarchy and the establishment of the modern Hyperborean Confederation.
Although the Hyperborean Confederation remained, as with the State that preceded it, locked in on-and-off conflict with enemies on all sides and these enemies continued to be far more populated and industrialised than the Hyperborean Confederation, the power and influence of the artisan, mercantile, and intellectual classes in the Northern Republics, which was far greater than those of their counterparts in the Commonwealth's neighbours, led to the Commonwealth's military holding a decisive technological and organisational advantage over its enemies. By 1631, when the Great Transition occurred, the country had already built for itself a sizable sphere of influence for itself across the Baltic Coast... and now, in this new world, it has every intention of replicating that feat. Or trying, at least.
#POD 3 (don't remove this!)