Tales from Yohannes the Continent

[Yohannes]

______________________________________________

Note One: The Immigrant
______________________________________________

The second anniversary of the Nineteen Countries’ withdrawal from International Incidents was celebrated in Halsten by three minutes of silence and a night of binge-drinking. But the binge-drinkers on that day, which was a Monday, confined themselves respectably to the central business districts and to the university grounds, and only mild cases of drunken tomfoolery were found on the streets of the nation.

I will always remember those three solemn minutes on that Monday morning. I saw him then — the boy I had been looking for and never hoped to see again. He appeared on the balcony of the building where the Collegian Lord Chancellor, the Earls and Margraves, and all the parliamentary members of the realm stood in frozen rigidity; and bewilderment was in his eyes. He ignored the nervous twitching of the Speaker’s pale hand, and came and leaned against the railing.

No one moved, but from the corners of their eyes they glared at him.

He stood looking out at the navy officers on the esplanade in front of us — neatly drawn up on their bulky physiques, swathed in blue and rigid as stones. They stood in the setting of a crowd as motley as the colours of their dress: brown Yohannesi, white Yohannesians, and non-Occidentals whose slanting eyes, small physiques and unattractive pale yellow skins according to the Yohannes First lead member of parliament Nickel Fallage stood awkwardly as symbols of recent immigration policy. At that moment there was a rush to greet their Emperor, Her Majesty Garnet Til Alexandros the Queen of Alexandria, as the Collegian Lord Chancellor walked past, the procession of dignitaries following behind, including the young boy, him.

But I stood still, overcome with emotion, hesitating to approach the one whom I long to see.

He was a reflection of my old self, slanting eyes and yellow skin. Just like him. Just like the Navy officers. For him, for me, it was once so simple. I feared my ancestors while loving them. I came to terms with exile on this continent of people who will never accept my kind as one of them. I loved my parents and admired my teachers, even if those same teachers always strapped my back every morning when I was young because I could not recite the Sixth Introductory Principles with a Yohannesian accent.

I was a believer, as they say. And if I had questioned my culture at all, it was only for fear that it might not be sufficiently perfect. As for my place in my adopted country, my aim in an ephemeral life — I had no doubts on that score. I was up to man, as Saint Maxtopia’s creation, to make the multiverse more welcoming. To bring redemption closer. Wasn’t this inordinately ambitious? So what?

For us, in the Diaspora, being a non-Occidental meant bridging the summit and the abyss — reconciling the worst torment with the most sublime hope. Imprisoned up there in divine time, Confucius could expect deliverance from none other than man below. Although a work of Saint Maxtopia, Confucius himself was not within Saint Maxtopia’s grasp; those who study it, and they alone, are qualified to interpret the Holy Book. Do these seem dangerous paradoxes? For us, life itself was a paradox, and danger did not frighten us who had immigrated into this land in search of a better life.

In those days I simply could not conceive of a non-Occidental who did not define himself through his culture.

Non-Occidentals had the choice: loyalty or denial. A lost, ‘fully integrated’ non-Occidental was a renegade, outlawed from the community of his kin, therefore despicable. And dangerous, for I had read enough on the subject to know how much distress was caused by renegades — the coons, those who turned their back on their own kin and sold out. They were to be found up there, standing with the boy and with the rulers of this land. They denounced open immigration of people who look, speak, and smell like us. They denounced our language; their own language. Their daughters had abandoned their lineage while their sons had resigned to be left out as second rate citizens. “It’s alright. So long as I am the House Chink, I can watch the plantation labourers outside.”

If you had asked any non-Occidental mother, fresh off the boat, what she most wished for her children, she would invariably have replied: “All I want is that they grow up to be good non-Occidentals.” What, precisely, did being a good non-Occidental mean? It meant taking upon oneself the entire destiny of the non-Occidental people; it meant living in more than one period, listening to more than one discourse, being part of more than one system; and it meant accepting the teachings of Confucius, and following his teaching to ‘keep calm and carry on in spite of discouragement and adversity.’

It meant summoning joy on festive days and being ready to accept discrimination quietly without complaining, knowing that eventually your hard work and perseverance will pay off.

[Yohannes]

---

______________________________________________

Note Two: The Lawyer
______________________________________________

What is ‘the law’? What do these words mean to you?

The man in the street will give you answers ranging from “rules and regulations” to “justice” to “the police officers”. For me, it can be said that the law gives people certain rights and powers, and imposes on them certain duties and obligations. If ignorance of the law is said to be no excuse, we must know the full extent of our legal rights and duties. But this is a herculean task — even a lawyer or a judge cannot hope to master every detail of the law. However, we should all be keen to know something of those parts of the law which are most likely to affect our day-to-day private and business lives.

So, do we need law? Some may say that it is the law which, by lacing unnatural restraint on our freedom, is the cause of all the trouble in this international community of nation states and regions. However, most of us by nature seem inclined to step on each other’s toes, and some system of law and law enforcement is essential to keep us away from our neighbours’ toes, or throats, literally, and to see that we all have our fair shares of justice and peace. Liberty — not tyranny. Nation-states, too, would be better off living under ‘the rule of law.’ But, alas, no satisfactory system has yet been worked out, either by the World Assembly or by its predecessor that shall not be named, to diminish International Incidents and allow nation-states to live together in the sort of peace we are used to on the Yohannesian continent. Well, about Yohannes; where did the law of the Nineteen Countries come from?

The Nineteen Countries is what is known as a unity law system, descendants of the common law legal system of the Empire of Maxtopia and the distant land of England. Therefore, our system had its distant origin in medieval England, and was introduced as a matter of course into our land by the first wave of non-native Yohānnesi settlers from Urth and beyond. Another great system of law based on a written code, Civil Law, was developed by people of a distant land called ‘the Romans’ over centuries back. The Romans and England were located in a distant land beyond the terra incognita with the name of Europe.

It was natural that the European states in their early years should look to Civil Law as a ready-made and well-tried system upon which to base their own legal systems. England, however, existed to a large degree in splendid isolation. Before 1066 each little community had its own local customary laws. The conquest by another people called ‘the Normans’ brought with it a line of kings who were determined to transform the island into a strong, unified nation-state. Despite their European background, the Normans chose not to enforce their own laws on the people, but rather to develop and unify the customary English laws of the different earldoms. A system of courts known as the Common Law was established, and the judges, for some time at least, based their decisions on the customary laws.

During the days of the Founding Monarchs, the Nineteen Countries had enacted the Justices of the Peace Act 1787 to create a judicial branch in Yohannes along civilised, Occidental line. Its foundation over the next two centuries ultimately concluded the fact that Yohannes has become an independent sovereign entity, with its own important legal history and unique tradition. The present legal system is, then, a mixture of common law principles, including rules of equity, and legislation or by statutes. Common law based on precedents still forms the fabric of unity law, but more and more threads are being woven into it by parliament’s Acts. Some of these codify parts of the existing law, while some merely fill gaps or correct anomalies.

Further, in a Yohannesian Model nation-state, much of the legislature’s time is spent on what is sometimes called ‘social legislation’; that is, creating and extending the range of social services, tax laws, and other equality and welfare measures. Our system of justice may not be the best beyond the International Incidents, but all things considered it is fair. We do not have to look very far into the past to find a time when a man could be hanged for stealing a jug of ale or an immigrant deported for theft of a loaf of bread.

Our present, modern legal system sniffs out discrimination, ensuring that in the long run, each and every Yohannesian’s hard work and perseverance will pay off.

[Yohannes]

---

______________________________________________

Note Three: The Economist
______________________________________________

Internationalisation, the endless discovery of new nation-states and regions which are then integrated as parts of the international community, poses new and important challenges to a nation-state’s identity, and it requires for new innovative forms of political leadership.

The Nineteen Countries Digital Service recommended to the Executive Council in 2015 that if the Nineteen Countries does not seize the opportunities of the knowledge economy, it will survive only as an amusement park and holiday land for the citizens of more successful developed economies. The growth of a modern economy in an internationally competitive background calls for the formation and effective use of intellectual capital combined with financial capital and the support of physical capital.

The Realm of Yohannes is a trading nation in a modern environment, where growth will increasingly depend on information and knowledge. The abilities of Yohannesian businesses and legal persons to create, distribute and process knowledge will be crucial to ensuring their competitiveness. This reality presents important challenges for Yohannesian economists and politicians. As a comparatively safe, highly open nation-state with international trade acting as fulcrum for its growth, disengagement from the international community and to place the Realm in a closed-region situation will not be the right move to make in future.

Especially noticeable for a successful knowledge-driven economy is the acknowledgement that knowledge is most game-changing when it can be successfully shared, exchanged, networked and expanded within the nation. A knowledge-driven economy will have zero marginal cost, and the reason for this is because knowledge will not be lost when they are given away. For instance, to diffuse and network knowledge may in fact lead to their expansion; that is, the creation of new knowledge. As the wealth of a nation, knowledge could not be owned or monopolised under a single body corporate, legal person, or even nation. Therefore, if an enterprise in the Nineteen Countries want to effectively deploy knowledge, they will need to work with other enterprises — some of which will be located outside Yohannes.

As a democratic nation-state, the Nineteen Countries in particular is engaged in managing the contradictions of the knowledge-driven economy. It must secure the international capital and investment in order to realistically support economic growth and social redistribution. But, most importantly, it must maintain socialised conditions for the production of knowledge in universities and schools while also creating the conditions for the commercialisation of that knowledge to develop a competitive economic advantage beyond the International Incidents. There are advantages that can be had for nation-states which relied heavily on international trade in an increasingly inter-connected international economy.

First, from an economic perspective, this so-called borderless economy provides more opportunities for the Nineteen Countries to expand its market and increase economy of scale. It can access the same multimedia technology and international networks as other larger economies do. The Nineteen Countries is also more readily able to reinvent itself beyond the International Incidents and it has less to lose in the process than less trade-dependent nations. Second, the knowledge-based international economy rewards the often unique nature of trade-dependent nations and their products. Knowledge-based industries typically produce specialised goods and services that are priced on their brand sophistication rather than their lower raw cost based on mass production.

International market branding explicitly recognises the market value of diversity, including aesthetic, cultural, ethnic, lifestyle differences, and distinctive national and regional identities. While the advantages of openness for sustaining economic growth and prosperity in an increasingly inter-connected community of nations are clear, they require political leadership to be harnessed and leveraged for the nation’s benefit. Scholars of international business and political economy have explored concepts of leadership and key challenges for political leadership in an inter-connected, knowledge-driven international community. They suggest that there may be common leadership strategies among companies and nation-states.

In a knowledge-based economy, the traditional divides between business and political leadership are eroding. This is because knowledge-based international competition and the increased inter-connectedness of political and economic decision-making have a direct impact not only on macroeconomic management, trade and defence issues, but on the whole range of domestic policy issues public leaders are expected to take a lead on; for instance, education, employment relations, immigration, poverty and the environment.

The need to foster networks for sharing and synthesising information is the most crucial knowledge economy challenge facing business and political leaders in contemporary Nineteen Countries. Knowledge production is often expensive, highly uncertain, and quickly outdated. Networks for sharing knowledge can ameliorate these features of knowledge production and build the mutual capabilities of individuals and companies. The challenges for leaders over the next decades will be to speed the transition from the static boxes of the twentieth century value chains to the anarchic network of the twenty-first century model.

Without such a shift in practice — that would involve many more Yohannesian companies defining their international competitive edge, and exporting their goods and services outside the continent of Yohannes — the Nineteen Countries faces a future in which it will lose market access and thus be left behind by the more active players of nation-states diplomacy beyond the International Incidents.

[Yohannes]

---

______________________________________________

Note Four: The Politician
______________________________________________

Yohannesians, for the most part, have been quite casual about their politics. Their interest may be aroused by an Executive Council measure directly affecting them, or a sensational event transmitted via the press, radio or television. The vicarious experience of politics is more common, for it allows us to feel pleasure or dismay, and share these emotions with other people, usually of a similar inclination, in a purgative and mutually reassuring exercise.

The parliament of the Nineteen Countries in Yohannes the continent can be a grand stage — chock-full of comedians like Nickel Fallage, hopeless idealists like Emily Kirchweger, jaded cynics like Roeltsje Veldman, or downright lunatics like Ronald Chump — and while the actors upon it are normally subject to professional directions, there are moments when spontaneity works its magic, expectations are upset, and a predictable sequence of scenes is transformed. When the unexpected happens, an audience will rediscover its primitive ‘startle’ reaction, as when balance is suddenly lost. It is only when control has been restored, and the momentary surprise has passed, that tension has eased. The game commences once more, and thus democracy reigns supreme.

The importance of politics in twenty-first century Yohannes is not in dispute: the growth in size and functions of the state; the power of political institutions; and the immediacy of political personalities as communicated through the mass media ensure that everyone acquires a political identity as they develop and mature. The necessity to understand clearly the role and power of government, to consider the range of activities undertaken by the agencies of the state, and to penetrate the complexities of partisan political conflict is unarguable. To the common Yohannesian voters, however, politics starts and ends at the imperial (i.e. the Executive Council) and national (i.e. national governments) level.

Almost always, most voters don’t even know half of their elected Councillors, which is ironic when we consider the cliche that local government is ‘closer to the people’, and in some way more directly a part of the democratic process than the ‘more remote’ government at the imperial level. Most people Yohannes, sadly, find local body politics boring and trivial. Participation in local elections in the Nineteen Countries is much lower than in parliamentary elections, and involvement in local government tends to be provoked only when an essential service fails to be delivered, often to the detriment of the relevant suburbs and communities’ innocent ratepayers. Organised involvement can be stimulated by amalgamation initiatives, or ‘reforms’, not because of any interest in the possibility of renewed municipal governance, but out of a mixture of electoral anger and financial anxiety over the possibility of higher rates, i.e. taxation of property.

In describing the political and constitutional framework of the Nineteen Countries, therefore, certain characteristics are especially prominent: (1) the absence of an elaborately written constitution; (2) the creation of a set of ‘introductory principles’ as low-quality alternative to a written constitution; (3) the absence of a proper bill of rights; (4) the creation of an alternative amendment model based on the original six introductory principles; (5) the de facto existence of a unicameral legislature; (6) the strong influence of the centralised judiciary in the political process; and (7) the existence of nineteen countries with a strong government at the imperial level, realised through the shared goal of ensuring prosperity and stability in Yohannes the continent.

There are few formal impediments to the exercise of executive authority in the Realm of fiords and mountain. However, a strong set of written constitutions does not provide guarantees that they will be observed. Some of the more elegant, libertarian documents have been very elaborately written for Hispanic-themed republics whose governments have shown remarkably little hesitation in disregarding their provisions.

While the Yohannesian Model is a simple, convention heavy one, there is little that is inherently desirable about having a complex and too elaborately written constitution. That the nineteen countries would benefit economically from having the Electoral College returned to its old glory days, or a state to federal jurisdictions model closely resembling that of the United States Supreme Court, has yet to be demonstrated. Persons asserting that the Nineteen Countries requires an elaborately written constitution alongside a formally embedded bill of rights are often motivated by the political passions of the moment.

If a constitution in Yohannes the continent were to have the effect its proponents ascribe to it, namely, to protect the citizen against the enlargement of executive power at the imperial level, and to safeguard basic rights which majorities ought not to disregard, then some form of judicial authority would need to be given power to interpret constitutional provisions on a case-by-case basis, which the nineteenth Chief Justice of the Peace the Right Honourable Olivia Christensen had specifically ruled out in September 2017.

She said, “One of the effects of more direct intervention might be to lower the public regard for courts in the Realm of fiords and mountain. Certainly, courts in the far away country of the United States of America are subject to more partisan attack because of their heavy involvement in the making of what are, essentially, extremely complex and controversial policy choices.”

I personally disagree with the Chief Justice of the Peace, for I believe that greater attention would be paid in the nineteen countries to the appointment of justices of the peace, their backgrounds and education, and the processes by which they arrive at a destination; transparency in good governance, something which the very much inactive Nineteen Countries in future will especially need to compete on an equal footing with the more active players of nation-states diplomacy beyond the International Incidents.

[Yohannes]

---

______________________________________________

Note Five: The Feminist
______________________________________________

When I came out for the first time, I wanted to become an obstetrician. But one of the main reasons why I was unsure of pursuing my dream was because I was not straight — I was a lesbian.

This was a few years ago.

Why as a medical practitioner I must make hard decisions about my job just because of my sexual identity is one of the important questions we must answer as a civilised society today. Paid employment and people’s sexual identities should have been separated, with sexuality a part of a person’s private life and being just that — private. However, in the Yohannesian medical communities, both gender and sexual identities will influence the experience of being a doctor, and for that reason identities relating to occupation, to sexuality, and to gender are all connected.

Medicine as a profession is especially important I believe, because of the long-established masculine tradition which has for long supported the profession, and some types of medical work involve what is known as ‘body work’, or work that requires the touching of parts of bodies that are deemed private. Working with patients’ bodies involves sensitivity and understanding to ensure that in the practice of medicine what are personal activities are not viewed as sexual activities; one obvious example being the gynaecological examinations of women.

If gender diversity is not embraced by medical practitioners, then the probability of the industry being responsive to diversity within the communities they are meant to help will be small. What is more likely to be seen is an increasing lack of respect in the relationship between practitioners and their patients. Welcoming and fully understanding the collective experience of lesbian women who are practitioners provide us with awareness of the situation facing lesbian women and most women practitioners generally.

All women practitioners have seen some examples of gender discrimination. If I have to say, being honest, I don’t really like hearing the word lesbian, and I am sure that is partly because it was used as such a derogatory term most of the way through my youth. I probably like the word gay more, because it’s more gender neutral. And I guess I am a believer of the ‘don’t need labels’ theory, though I am sure part of that is a hangover from, you know, when you first came out. If I was forced to reveal my sexual identity I would probably choose the word ‘gay’, for it’s a more equal and nice word. Finally, I am proud to be a ‘gay’ doctor, though I cannot accept the fact that the medical norms conform to the dominant or ‘hegemonic’ form of masculinity.

The requirements for a doctor to be competitive, decisive, fast, objective and physically and mentally strong are all associated with this form of masculinity. A comparison of historical practices had demonstrated that until recently medicine was a sexist, male-dominated profession. For instance, women surgeons in some nations may still find that there are no changing rooms for them; not only may they be expected in a discriminating way to change in the nurses’ changing room, they may also have to wear the same scrub gear as nurses, making it difficult to mark themselves out as different from nurses and equal to the men surgeons.

Within medicine, women are marked out as ‘other’, and this categorisation applies to all women — not just women who identify as lesbian.

The problems being explored here are the problems of sexuality and the pervasiveness of the masculine society’s expectations of women doctors. This is showcased by the way in which many authors who talked about women doctors had focused on the inevitable problems they face by managing work and family responsibilities at the same time. A recent Yohannesian collection published by the quarterly magazine The Talker and Listener — which speaks about the day-to-day experience of women in the workforce — showcased at least 100 accounts by women doctors; edited by general practitioner Werner Preissner, who’s ironically a straight middle-aged man himself. Each account starts with the doctor’s employment history and is followed by her marital and family status, without any regard to their sensitivity, with at least 37 of these women described as ‘divorced’. This is clearly sexist, for the same discrimination would never be directed towards men doctors. Finally, entry to medical education has long been very competitive and once a student is in training the competition appears to continue.

A feature of this competitive culture may be a lack of recognition of diversity. In the nineteen countries, while there has been attention to increasing first the representation of women — and more recently the representations of historically underprivileged ethnic groups, there does not seem to have been a similar focus on the need for sexual diversity. Any support group that have emerged for lesbian and gay medical students or doctors seem to have been initiated by the individuals themselves rather than the institutions, and this is clearly unacceptable if we want the Nineteen Countries on the Yohannesian continent to be a nation-state worth inheriting for our future generations.

[Yohannes]

---

______________________________________________

The Yohannesian Model: the importance of policy cycles

______________________________________________

The nation-state officially named the Lyran Protectorate, or popularly known today as simply Lyras, is known for its military model: ‘stratocracy’ or ‘stratocratic’, ‘military democracy’ or ‘military state’, ‘Longsword diplomacy’, ‘insert varying name here Arms’, and many other things inspired by the impressive Lyran legacy from late 2008 to early 2013. Without the Lyran Protectorate, there will not exist some of the most well-known nations of today; or, of course, the Hundred Days War and slavers’ wars through the years; or, of course, the Yohannes of today.

The successive governments of Yohannes have since 2010 looked up to the Lyran Protectorate, or Lyras, as their source of inspiration. But if the Lyran Model was to be known for its military, the Yohannesian Model must make its mark somewhere else; something more inclusive, and perhaps more peaceful. The Bank of Yohannes; VMK manufacturing; Royal Beaufort overseas shipyards; foreign investment; internationalised manufacturing; shared wealth and prosperity with other nation-states — the economy. But they all did not come about historically from nowhere. Successive governments of the Nineteen Countries have since the early nineteenth century emphasised the importance of policy cycles to build the Yohannesian Model of today, just as the Lyran Protectorate did eventually complete its Lyran Model in 2010.

How should we explain the policy cycles which can be observed through the Nineteen Countries’ eight historical periods, and what is their relationship to the dynamism of the brand of capitalism known as the Yohannesian Model? It is easy to explain the effects of a nation’s historical economic policies (e.g. the nation of Testlandia was an agrarian, uncivilised nation in 1900, but it industrialised to eventually become a rich, developed nation today in 2018), but much harder to explain what inspired the policies themselves (e.g. how did the nation state Testlandia achieve this; what were the internal and external forces which influence and affect these economic changes; how did the government of Testlandia formulate its policies).

The Founding Monarchs and the early nineteenth century Yohannesian modernisers saw the regular ups and downs of the business cycle, generated by the Anglo-Saxon capitalist system of the thousands of World Assembly nations which dominated the international community, as the pump which supplied the system’s dynamism by confronting entrepreneurs with continually changing problems and opportunities. Have policy cycles performed that function for the Nineteen Countries in Yohannes the continent, as it slowly modernised since the late eighteenth century to finally take its place as an industrialised, civilised nation-state today in 2018? With that question in mind, we will first review the eight periods, and then analyse some characteristics of the policy choices and the external and internal forces which made them.

It is convenient to anticipate one analytical device here, in order to streamline the historical review process. The numerous policy measures employed from time to time on the Yohannesian continent can be broadly separated as falling into two generalised classes, which we will call ‘policies for growth’ and ‘policies for efficiency’. Policies for growth are chosen when Yohannesian policymakers identify certain bottlenecks; that is, particular scarcities which limit the achievable rate of growth of the economy as a whole. Policies are then designed to improve the supply of the scarce resource — whether education, foreign exchange, raw materials, technology, a road or rail network, or, most importantly for an uncivilised, primitive, underdeveloped, or developing nation-state, capital. Policies for efficiency, meanwhile, aim to improve the efficiency with which available resources are being used. They may allocate resources between firms and industries, encourage or discourage competition, alter patterns of corporate size and market strength, or they may switch some resources to welfare services or income transfers. Many of the cyclic changes come about as bureaucrats switch from one approach to the other, or look for the right mix of the two. Some advocates of the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism would assign redistributive and welfare policies to a third category of ‘policies for welfare’, but even among the more enlightened World Assembly nation-states, policies of these kinds were comparatively rare until recent decades; and they were regarded as policies of efficiency in that they were designed to improve the working of the productive system by reducing conflict and improving co-operation. Yohannesian policymakers believe that the productive system itself is the main source of the people’s welfare; that is, without a strong economy, there will not be strong provisions for the welfare of the people.

We will now summarise the stages of development in the Yohannesian Model’s road to industrialisation from the Yohannesian nation-state’s starting position in the early nineteenth century as an uncivilised young nation: to eventually catch up economically with Automagfreek, Knootoss and the rest of the older occidental nation-states beyond the International Incidents.


1786-1871: the Second Amendment period

The Founding Monarchs and early Yohannesian modernisers aimed to give the Nineteen Countries the roads and bridges, postal services, government offices and educated population, and infrastructure and starting capital which would identify the nation-state as an independent and civilised modern society; and to equip and finance the Yohannesian institutions and people by building and supplying a centralised, modern navy — the Commonwealth Navy. The efforts to industrialise were mainly by means of (i) building infrastructure; (ii) intensive foreign study of the more industrialised and civilised World Assembly nation-states from the Occidental communities and by adopting their technologies; and (iii) the creation of government-owned industrial enterprises (e.g. executive council body corporates, nation state owned enterprises). All three were policies of growth — to supply the economy with the infrastructure, technical knowledge, and entrepreneurs that it lacked. The eventual enactment of the Second Amendment in 1871 marked the end of this period in Yohannesian history.


1872-1900: the Wilhelmine Restoration period

The Wilhelmine Restoration Period, where legislative power slowly shifted from the Realm Parliament to the Electoral College (until it would be reversed once again in later periods), and the centralisation of policy decision-making from a confederation of nineteen monarchs to a federation with one elected emperor, was a period where successive Yohannesian governments and nation-state modernisers learnt from the mistakes of their predecessors. Financing infrastructure and government enterprises by printing money had been inflationary; and the Sixth Christian Democratic Executive Council finally deflated the currency, the Quertz russling, in 1872. The Bank of Yohannes, with its public ownership of a number of strategic banks, was finally amalgamated, and a centralised banking system based broadly on civilised, occidental foreign models created, but with very strong bias towards industrial rather than other uses of savings. Plenty of technologies continued to be imported from the old world nation-states, but for economic philosophy and policy successive Yohannesian governments turned chiefly to its own creation — the Yohannesian Model.

Authority enterprises, nation state body corporates, and public industrial enterprises gave way to aids for citizen sector enterprises and the predecessors of today’s nation-state owned enterprises alongside the infrastructure, some non-tariff protective measures, government procurement (especially of naval supplies) at the imperial and national level, and a financial system to generate capital and credit for private industry and for a strong navy. The trunk lines of the government-financed Imperial Railway Corporation attracted citizen sector investors to build local rail networks, but the main stimulus was indirect: the developing infrastructure improved the conditions for profitable citizen sector enterprise. The short-lived authority companies and nation-state body corporates had bred some entrepreneurs. Mass education improved the quality of labour available to them — human capital. The eight leading public and private universities in Yohannes the continent equipped and encouraged their graduates to supply modernising leadership in government throughout the late nineteenth century; they filled the offices of the executive council, the hallowed halls of parliament, and the sacred benches of the justices of the peace. They sustained the expanding branches of the banks as well as the manufactory and merchant shipyards. They made possible the institutions of a confident, partially civilised young nation-state. The switch from government to citizen sector industrial management was a policy of efficiency; most of the others were policies of growth.


1901-1914: the Foreign Investment period

Economic policy moved from being domestic to being expansionary as the Nineteen Countries started to expand its banking and manufacturing presence outside the continent of Yohannes while militarily it kept itself at bay from the many International Incidents and harmful nation-states diplomacy. The Nineteen Countries strictly limited its involvement to supplying and financing the war efforts of other nation-states (for their imperialistic goals) with financial credit, industrial and military goods, as well as war and merchant ships. Domestically, the nineteen countries concentrated on increasing navy and merchant navy procurement (e.g. merchant ships to carry Yohannesian goods around the oceans and warships to guard their trade convoys), public investment (e.g. quangos), and citizen sector industrial development. Together, these had a number of effects. Imports increased substantially, which produced a trade deficit. In 1903 the then Christian Democratic executive council responded by restraining government investment at the imperial level, and so in due course infrastructure provision lagged behind growing demand. Urban slums spread, labour began to resist harsh working conditions, and until 1908 employers resisted government efforts to introduce the first collection of labour statutes in Yohannes the continent.

Industrial growth was accelerating in a self-sustaining way and was reaching the scale in which it began to have appreciable effects on mass beliefs, lifestyles, and consumption patterns on the continent. The executive council encouraged the transformation from the imperial level, but it led to over-exploitation of land, forestry, fishing and other natural resources, and to increasing resistance and protests by the losers of industrialisation: the artisans and the specialised craftsmen (there were very few craftswomen in this period due to shameful sexism and other forms of gender discrimination). Successful growth policies, especially the restraining of government investment and imports, were creating an increasing need for policies of efficiency, including some which promised improvements in the field of social welfare.


1914-1925: the NSDP period

The period of NSDP, which stands for ‘nationwide social development policy’, was a period largely dominated by policies for efficiency. Successive governments of the Yohannesian nation-state continued its policy of isolation from International Incidents as the nation continued to patiently build its economy by supplying overseas nation-states with financial and material resources. In this period the (still) industrialising Nineteen Coutries was able to take over some markets from the older occidental nations, become an independent shipbuilder and oceanic merchant carrier, and turn the trade deficits of the previous decades into acceptable export surpluses. Late in this period, price inflation provoked urban riots, as the proletariat demanded higher pay and the increasingly confident middle class demanded more representation in the seats of government; then the first of many such notable trough periods in the twentieth century brought about rural distress in the heartland countries (e.g. the Kingdom of Burmecia, Grand Duchy of Dali), and labour unions and politically left oriented organisations and parties (even more radical than the Social Democratic Party) sprung up throughout the continent. The Social Democratic executive council of the day responded by suppressing Leftist opinions and organisations, but diverted some government investment to improve urban and rural life. This was the economic expression of the NSDP period (the main political achievement of which was universal suffrage in parliament).

Once a newly elected Christian Democratic executive council assumed power in 1918, public investment towards facilities for industrial development once again became the focus, resulting in the creation of large early twentieth century industrial sites. The nation’s natural resources and industrial capacity were surveyed, and a modern system following World Assembly recommendation and civilised Occidental line set up to monitor them. From 1923 the then Christian Democratic executive council stepped up public investment in industrial transport as well as urban and rural infrastructure as a full employment strategy while extending its financial and banking control to channel government and citizen sector lending into heavy industrial development. With these policies, and increasing material imports from more trade partners overseas, the Nineteen Countries had been able to develop respectable self-sufficiency in first steel, then machinery, and then chemicals and finally arms manufacturing. There were thus three phases of policy making in the NSDP period: policies of efficiency from 1914 to 1917; a return to policies of growth from 1918 to 1923; and the reflationary full-employment culmination of the previous two phases which doubled as policies of efficiency (to employ all existing resources) and as policies of growth (to improve material standards of living while increasing nationwide military capacity for the future).


1926-1932: the Enabling Act period

In developing and managing the merchant navy and trade-dependent economy, the bureaucracy brought its decades of collective experience and institutional apparatus to bear, and added considerably to the expansion of Yohannesian oceanic and merchant trade presence outside the continent. In supervising the expansion of overseas financial networks, manufactory and shipyards, and connecting them with the Yohannesian metropolitan economy; conscripting the citizen sector munitions industry managers to equip the Commonwealth Navy with its trade convoy formations; developing publicly franchised and directed but citizen sector owned and managed power, coal, petroleum and transport enterprises; sponsoring and controlling cartels in the citizen sector; coordinating the predecessors of the large nation state owned enterprises of today; and exercising overall control and allocation of scarce materials, the bureaucrats extended their skills and institutional repertoire. They were also led to reflect on perfecting the working principles of the early Yohannesian Model economy, and possible non-socialist alternatives to the predominant Anglo-Saxon capitalism model. Thus equipped, the younger ranks of nation-state modernisers were able to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of nation-state bureaucrats to create the backbone of self-sustaining human capital for an industrialised, modern Nineteen Countries. This period culminated in the passage of the Enabling Act 1933.


1933-1945: the Third Industrial Growth period

As older nations and others discovered the gradually expansionary Yohannesian economic presence, there was a need to appease the older powers by giving out some concessions, lest their wrath be invited upon the nineteen countries. These half-hearted measures of appeasement were done under the guise of various reforms (e.g. economic liberalisation, land, labour and trade barrier reduction, commitment to international anti slavery cause), with the older generation of nation-state modernisers making way to the new generation of nation-state bureaucrats to lead the largely policies for efficiency period. This younger generation of economic policy makers and administrators used their extensive powers to oversee the third industrial growth period, which was marked by increasing concentration of available resources in the coal and steel industries, with assistance from a newly reformed Bank of Yohannes.

The successors to the Wilhelmine Restoration period oligarchs conducted another census of the nation’s productive resources, set up a comprehensive statistical system at the imperial level, and in 1941 (a good year for Yohannesian terms of trade) published the government’s first monthly parliamentary analysis archive report, which has since then continued to summarise the state of the Nineteen Countries economy. The yearly Monetary Target Consensus (MTS) and monetary policy report was published in 1945, with principles which held up to the present day; namely, that the nation-state of Yohannes and its administration in the international community was centrally an economic task (not military); that the government as embodied by the executive council of the day must unite and lead the people in that task; and that it should plan and guide the continuing expansion of the economy through international trade. The principles have held, but their application changes with the stages of growth. During the first four years of the period, the executive council issued its ‘recommendations’ for various leading domestic citizen sector financial and banking players to allocate their capital and productive resources to designated industries.

Over the next four years the Nineteen Countries slowly worked to break away from older nations’ strict anti-slavery policy by conducting profitable trade with infamous slaver nation-states of the international community (e.g. the Scandinvans, or Ralkovia, which was condemned by the World Assembly in 2012), while it tried to appease the old powers by generously funding such international organisations as CAPINTERN and the World Anti Slavery Organisation. The Nineteen Countries also worked to circumvent more established nations’ market presence by focusing potential export industries to produce large, strong, cost-competitive exporters in a few select market it knew it could compete in. The profit from financing and supplying various anti-slaver wars of friendly and allied nation-states were channeled to select industries and firms, which further increased market presence for the Nineteen Countries outside the continent. The ultimate objective of the Yohannesian government had changed from “being recognised as an equal, civilised nation-state by the older nation-states” to “becoming independent of western nations’ aid and procurement.”


1946-2016: the Economic Miracle period

The executive council’s aim was to have the economy grow as fast as the balance of payments allowed. To achieve that, the Bank of Yohannes and other financial institutions were used to subsidise imports,and the exchange to buy them were rationed through the newly created Alleswerken trade agreement model to feed potential export industries as far as possible. Borderline unlawful (by World Assembly and conventional standards) extensive ‘stop-go’ macroeconomic efforts to restrain imports and excessive investment by dampening domestic demand were also undertaken covertly. The unexpected level of growth for much of this period allowed the policy emphasis to shift from import restriction to freer trade and foreign exchange and more reliance on export growth through the latter part of the period. The continually expanding Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade and its quangos (e.g. Bank of Yohannes, VMK, Royal Beaufort) assisted designated industries and enterprises with subsidised information services, import licenses, financial resources and credit, and action to reduce excessive competition by generating very large ‘allied’ companies or cartel arrangements. These interventionist measures encouraged over-investment and surplus capacity which, however, may have stimulated innovation. Also, citizen sector entrepreneurial energy was so extreme that governments at the national level often found themselves trying to restrain investment, and directing foreign exchange to material imports for existing plant and technologies when investors would rather have spent it on new equipment and technologies.

Meanwhile, inflation was restrained by sometimes tense combinations of fiscal expansion for growth with monetary deflation for stability. For those and other reasons there is disagreement about the actual importance of the executive council contribution; in other words, what the likely rate and direction of growth would have been without it. Both the public and private sector may be criticised on two other grounds. The executive councils of the day did not require and the then leading citizen sector players did not apply reasonable environmental care. And although achieving full employment and reducing wage differentials as far as was practicably possible were the explicit aims of policy in this period, when they were achieved government at the imperial level and business leaders had failed to update or improve social welfare and environmental conservation programmes as far as they could have realistically done. It was only in the latter years of the period that the principle of growth with environmental care in mind would be adopted, and a wide range policies of efficiency implemented to lift up social welfare standard to keep up with growth.

By the 1970s and 1980s, pollution brought about radical environmental reforms (e.g. Resource Management Act 1973), and by the 1990s the Blackhelm Confederacy series of oil shocks and oil conflicts (e.g. invasions of Blackhelm corporate assets by the old powers of the region of Nova, smoke on the water) prompted a radical review of growth policies. Although there were emergency administrative measures to cope with the extended period of oil shock, the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade acknowledged that the area of market allocation had greatly expanded and administrative guidance should henceforth be confined to areas of serious market failure. A systematic shift in the Yohannesian Model towards a more laissez-faire approach was temporarily adopted in this period, ironically kick-started and most ardently enforced by the successive left-leaning Social Democratic executive councils of the period. It was followed later by the sale and privatisation of authority companies and nation-state body corporates, including the Imperial Railway Corporation and Imperial Coal and Steel. The liberalisation was party to reduce ever-increasing executive council spending on its organisations and quangos, and partly to balance appropriation proposals put before an increasingly budget sensitive parliament in the face of lower economic growth.

By the 2000s, many executive council organisations had been slimmed and reorganised where public activities were deemed unnecessary. The Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade was cut down in size considerably, in comparison to the previous century, and a less direct, less coercive mode of indicative planning as well as set of guiding economic and monetary principles adopted by both the executive council and Economic Palace. They proposed that future growth should be in clean, knowledge-intensive industries to improve both environmental quality and working conditions. Broadly, that has happened as recommended. Some heavy and polluting industries — mainly those located in the heartland countries — began to decline and some left the Yohannesian continent to set up shop elsewhere. Some were helped: as the newly elected Social Democratic executive council in 2010 had intensified its nation-states gunboat diplomacy and International Incidents participation, the Commonwealth Navy warships and other military procurement from its expeditionary force (i.e. land branch) and air operations outside the continent of Yohannes consumed an unprecedented level of citizen sector production previously targeted for the non-military sector of the economy. The invasion of Osthia in 2011; invasion of the slaver state Greater Tedzrian by Lyras; Imperial League crisis; Incursus conflict in 2011; invasion of Hippostania in 2013; or the brief ACA crisis — from 2010 to 2014 the Nineteen Countries violated its strictly economy-focused nation-state management principles. Under the Social Democratic executive council of the day, the nation-state had acquired vast colonial outposts and direct territories, but it also lost the reputation of armed neutrality and non-direct military diplomacy it had built for so long since the beginning of its foundation as a nation-state.

The Economic Miracle period ended with the arrival of the disastrous Gholgoth crises in 2012 and 2013, and subsequently the extended economic trough hitting the Nineteen Countries in 2014 and 2015. Although the previous Social democratic executive council was replaced by the Thirty-sixth Christian Democratic executive council in 2014, it was not until late 2017 that the effects of the newly elected government’s wide-ranging policies of efficiency were felt. They implemented extensive economic and fiscal reforms (e.g. Budet Reform Act 2017) and reintroduced and extended the Yohannesian nation-state’s policy of armed neutrality by passing the Exiting International Incidents and Nation States Gunboat Diplomacy Act 2016.


2017-present day: the Economic Rebuilding period

Much of the gains and momentum from the previous period of Economic Miracle were lost when new powers beyond the International Incidents started to rise to take the mantle of leadership. From the military powerhouse nation-states of DEUN, SACTO and other like-minded alliances such as IFC, to the religious and alternative socio-political non-occidental powerhouse of Greater Nifon and the military giant of Pharthan as well as other equally fast growing powers such as Ghant and New Edom making their own mark beyond the International Incidents, new external forces have been created while some from the old generation have become more threatening. Through it all the Yohannesian nation-state has, perhaps, found itself as but just one small wheel playing its (perhaps briefly historical) role in the continuously evolving and exciting realm of NationStates diplomacy and International Incidents.

The introduction of new external forces and growing threats to Yohannesian trade had shaped new policies and had terminated old ones. There is general privatisation of partial nation-state owned enterprises (e.g. Bank of Yohannes); growth can be left to the market for the time being, as the Thirty-sixth Christian Democratic executive council concerns itself with growing external forces and new threats, and with underlying rather than immediate welfare questions (e.g. social investment). As the old problems of the Yohannesian nation-state’s late-developing economy with meagre capital, resources and technology had receded into past history, questions of ‘policies for allocation and efficiency’ have reappeared to claim a high priority in the government’s nation-state planning.

There were the beginnings of new consensus among the Yohannesian Members of Parliament about new policy aims: the Nineteen Countries should respond to the aging of the population by continuing its recently introduced merit (point) based immigration policy (from non-occidental nation-states and others) and expand that policy further over the next few decades; search for safer supplies of oil and energy to avoid the debacles of the Blackhelm Confederacy-ODECON-Nova Crisis years; formulate responsible domestic and international policies in support of the World Assembly and passed WA resolutions, now that Yohannes has achieved its financial and industrial goals; and further improve the quality of life of the Yohannesian people while ensuring that the Commonwealth Navy and its merchant navy ships are used strictly to protect Yohannesian trade — not for aggression or to participate in International Incidents abroad. These are things the current generation of Yohannesian bureaucrats will have to avoid if they want the Nineteen Countries on the Yohannesian continent to be a nation-state worth inheriting for our future generations.

[Yohannes]

---

______________________________________________

The Yohannesian Model: public and citizen sector partnership

______________________________________________

When World Microcredit Foundation analysts study the importance of policy cycles that can be observed through the Nineteen Countries’ eight historical periods, there will come the unavoidable questions of: “What were the reasons for the periodical changes of direction? And what were the factors behind the consistency and effectiveness of these policy cycles?”

One possible answer to that question is the important role of successive executive councils through the years in realising the celebrated partnership between the public sector and the citizen sector to lead nation-state development in the desired directions. This was very important in creating the Yohannes of today. However, it is important to remember that nationwide causation, especially when applied so broadly, is usually very complex.

The Yohannesian nation-state is a complex being. For one, it comprises more than a million individuals (e.g. what household A wants is different to what the neighbouring household B wants). And even among the different government apparatus at both the imperial and national level, there have been clashes through the years, as differing factions emerged to prioritise their own goals over those of the other factions (e.g. the Ministry of the Commonwealth Navy wants the Executive Council to prioritise budget for naval spending over corporate subsidy or the welfare of the people).

Another important thing worth reminding is that the course of Yohannesian Model industrialisation started in the late eighteenth century; that is, it took more than one hundred years for the Nineteen Countries to arrive at its current destination today. In the government’s economic role as a whole we can see a few constants, however, and a collection of policy components and alternative actions which change, or the applications of which change, with changing economic and political purposes, external conditions, and stages of growth.


Prioritising the economy

Throughout the history of Yohannesian industrialisation, successive executive councils have aimed at nation-state strength and independence, and they have sought nation-state strength by economic development. They have worked hard to create and encourage consensual support among leading players of the citizen sector towards a single goal for the nation to aim for, and economic means of achieving them. Generally, governments at the imperial level have propelled economic growth by three means: (i) by proposing nation-state economic strategies and creating business confidence in them; (ii) by public investment in educational, institutional and physical infrastructure; (iv) by creating nation-state owned enterprises and their predecessors, the authority companies and executive council body corporates at different times; and (v) by assisting, guiding, rationing, and regulating resources to enterprises of the citizen sector.


Changing components of policy

Policies for growth are very important components in realising prosperity for the Nineteen Countries. The establishment of the Justices of the Peace, the creation of the Tertiary Education Commission, the expansion of National Highway Three, and the tabling of the Broadband Universal Bill were four examples of policies for growth implemented at differing stages of Yohannesian history. Also, the amalgamation of the Bank of Yohannes; the decision of the Wilhelmine Restoration oligarch to centralise macroeconomic fiscal and financial policies; individualised planning by local and regional governments to convince citizen sector players that it is both patriotic and profitable, in the long run, to invest when required; collaborating with governments at the national level to improve the supply of whatever factors were limiting growth; and providing subsidies for the creation and expansion of industrial sites and services and urban infrastructures.

Policies for efficiency are also very important components in overseeing the building of wealth on the continent. Some examples of policies for efficiency are the establishment of government sponsored banks and the guidance of privately owned banks to allocate capital to its most productive use; financial assistance for designated industries and firms, including administrative allocation of limited raw materials (e.g. petroleum, rare earth), credit, foreign exchange and tax discrimination; measures to encourage or discourage competition, or to encourage rationalisation, takeover, or cartelisation in particular industries (e.g. Alleswerken import-export model); and distributional measures to influence wage and profit shares (e.g. public sector minimum wage mandate), or to provide welfare services and income transfers (e.g. interest-free student loan and student allowance).

When it has wanted to develop key industries, successive executive councils have at different times created authority companies and imperial body corporates (later reformed to be nation-state owned enterprises), and have assisted citizen sector enterprises with equity, loan capital and purposely built infrastructure facilities. Favoured access to limited raw materials and foreign exchange have also been given to important business players. Assistance to mergers, takeovers and cartels, as well as redundancy payment, re-training and relocation assistance for declining industries are some other examples of changing components of efficiency.

Finally, the ability of policy-makers to know when to actually stop is a very important — if sometimes forgotten — component in nation-state macroeconomic decision-making. When productive resources seemed enough, their supply and allocation must be left to the market. When their scarcity has limited growth, their allocation must be administered and guided. We must, of course, take into account the fact that significant changes of direction can, and will, happen at different times when least expected by policy-makers. Some can come suddenly because of external factors unaccounted for (e.g. military stand-off with a foreign nation, open conflict or war, recession or slump caused by events happening in important trading partners) by the executive council of the day. However, we know that policy-makers have succeeded in driving the economy forward when a cyclic or seasonally common pattern can still be traced to a certain extent despite these irregularities.

In the case of the Nineteen Countries, what promoted the changes of direction? To different degrees at different times, the following appear to have contributed to the government's thinking: (i) changing conditions; (ii) historical examples of stages of growth; and (iii) trial and error. Yohannesian policies have also responded to boom, depression, changing terms of trade, civil disorder, industrial strife, pollution and military demands, though by not as much as the first three factors.


Factors affecting changes in policy

The changing conditions included, at times, a ‘stop-go’ macroeconomic cycle, where executive council-led investment stimulated citizen sector activity up to when excess of imports led policy-makers to then restrain imports by restraining demand by restraining investment by nation-state bodies. Infrastructure development then lagged behind, unable to meet existing industrial and social need, until balance of payments recovered, or demand for infrastructure by businesses became of vital importance, or social unrest left no choice but for the expansion of public provisions. Secondly, Yohannesian policy-makers based their decisions on historical examples of stages of growth. For instance, by the beginning of the twentieth century, enough infrastructure and entrepreneurial activity existed for the then Christian Democratic executive council to switch from creating public enterprises to supporting those of the citizen sector.

Other instances were in 1939 to 1945 and 1990 to 2000, when policy-makers judged that the economy was rich enough to afford some more direct welfare benefits (e.g. trinket pension in 1941 and increases for work and income benefit and student allowance in 1996). Yet another example was in 1970 to 1975, when industry was generating enough capital and export-earned foreign exchange for the executive council to stop rationing raw materials and leave their allocation entirely to market forces. Finally, trial and error; that is, the public sector analysed all these historical examples and learnt from them, in the process replacing unsatisfactory policies with new ones.

For an economic model relying so heavily on partnership between the citizen sector and government, action to minimise private misuse of public provisions is especially important. A number of senior World Assembly academics believe that public regulation or assistance to enterprises in the citizen sector tends to divert business-resources away from productive use towards ‘rent-seeking’ efforts to profit through political patronage, protection or subsidy, with a general loss of economic efficiency. They believe that such freeloading accumulates over time wherever there is continuous stable government to become the main determinant of national economic growth or stagnation.

Realistically, such behavious had occurred in the Nineteen Countries, as in other economies. For instance, aids and forms of protection that had extended to growing industries in the third industrial growth period (1933 to 1945) were sufficiently misused by the start of the economic miracle period (1946), resulting in the creation of new pro-competitive and anti-monopolist reforms in the 1950s. But strong planning and watchful administration appear to reduce rather than increase rent-seeking opportunities of that kind.

In the Nineteen Countries, the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade’s departments have generally been served by fairly generous state-sanctioned provisions and remuneration programmes (e.g. the Fourth Amendment and the Administrative Financial Security Commission), resulting in mostly honest bureaucrats who have avoided corruption which sometimes links businesses and politicians. By the 1870s, therefore, Yohannesian bureaucrats were eager to reject western nations’ aid and dependence, which were naturally associated with obligations to comply with western nations’ demands. In other words, they were against nation-state dependency. Internally, they are aware that measures of industrial assistance can tempt the citizen sector to milk government for all its worth, especially through programmes which outlast their real need. Yohannesian bureaucrats and policy-makers have accordingly been alert in updating or discontinuing altogether programmes which have served — or failed to serve — their original purposes.

Therefore, we can say that in a Yohannesian Model economy, fairly frequent changes and the critical examination of subsidy use or misuse by industry seem to have dampened ‘rent-seeking’ to lower levels than those found in other advanced economies of the Anglo-Saxon capitalist variety. Some Yohannesian policy-makers also believe that changes applied somewhat regularly (e.g. Monetary Target Consensus) in the economic environment will stimulate citizen sector dynamism.

[Yohannes]

---

______________________________________________

Note Six: The Commander
______________________________________________

That T2009A4 San Silvacian, as a bigger version of myself which supports our platoon on the frontline, attacks the enemy by virtue of its combat ability, maneuverability, and protection potential. That thing can hold itself respectably against any other armoured target of its kind. It can support our assault of a well defended position. It has a big gun; it has a mortar; and it has a machine gun. It can cause trouble for enemy light armoured support and infantry. But most importantly, it can receive, process, and transmit real time information tactically and cooperate with other armed services on the field of battle.

Blitzkrieg of the Wehrmacht — to crush our enemy.

During my time serving with my platoon, I have been served well by that San Silvacian. The big beast dutifully travelled to its firing positions every single day without fail. Concentrating its firepower. Or fulfilling its forward field and reconnaissance support duty. Or ensuring the protection of our supply nearby enemy territory. However, sometimes I wonder if my time is up. To be honest with you I am a bit stressed out by the role the Emperor has given me. I have been the driver. I manoeuvre the beast to its intended post every single day without fail two years ago. And it could be very stressful at times. I was one of many of my kind who maintained the cooperation — both inside and out — of the San Silvacian. I contributed to formation maintenance. I ensured the beast’s arrival to its designated terrain when required. I maneuvered the beast through hidden objects, or minefields cleared by those obnoxious engineers. I did it all while facing enemy fire, through frankly terrible roads at times, and, more often than not, dodgy complex terrains.

Of course, I have also been the gunner of that big thing. I observed and searched for targets at the darkest of nights using the array of vision and electro-optical systems available to me. The easier times? Surely when all I had to do was to fulfill the typical gunner operation: stationary and covertly observing the enemy to bring in surveillance information. To discover main landmarks and targets. The harder times? When I had to search for a random, well designed state-of-the-art target and judge their properties while the beast moved at the same time.

As a gunner, I have destroyed many tanks. I’d say I have probably destroyed at least thirty by now. I have used Questaria and played around with its interfaces to identify, track, and aim at those uncivilised motherfuckers. The son of a bitch at the central com told me which one to destroy but to be honest with you I did not give a hoot. I set the firing data regardless and see through the automatic loading of the ammo to shoot those uncivilised motherfuckers down. With or without central com telling me what to do. In fact, I have more respect for the boys, for when they give me their information in advance and in real time, I know those information are going to be good. And I am going to get an easy kill on those uncivilised motherfuckers.

As a gunner I had to constantly judge, decide, and then kill the enemy while making sure that cooperation would still be present both inside the tank and outside.

And now, I am the commander. Well, at least since last month anyway.

I must make sure the boys communicate effectively. Tight lips mean lost victories. Aiming and tracking the uncivilised motherfuckers. Speed and control of the course and the terrain. I am the designator. I say what to target and I direct where to go. I make sure of effective firing command while the beast moves. Outside, I make sure me and the boys receive the information we need to survive and strike at the enemy hard. Battlefield situation. Combat mission. Tactical foresight from the son of a bitch at the central com. Location of the enemy and their characteristics. I receive from my superior and deliver to them. I ask for support and cooperate with our neighbours: integrated fire support and maintenance in times of emergency. I make sure we contribute and realise our part in keeping the formation intact. Infantry, fighting vehicles, tanks, helicopters, and electronic warfare — We cooperate to destroy the target.

Wehrmacht.

I make use of the electro-optical information warfare system of the beast to warn the boys. I suppress enemy surveillance with that nifty countermeasure interface. I destroy incoming threat. I block their range finding, their aiming, their interference, and their decoy. I put up smoke screen and ensure the beast manoeuvre evasively.

The central com keeps on telling me that we should move quickly to advantageous terrain and safe zone while being covered by smoke screen. And keeping close cooperation and wage electro-optical information warfare at the same time? Fuck that. Too much. Three people’s not enough for that? So I told them: Fuck you. And then I told the boys to move the beast up the enemy’s ass.

[Yohannes]

---

______________________________________________

Note Seven: The Conservationist
______________________________________________

To protect vulnerable flora and fauna localities as exemplified by the creation of new Sanctuary Regions (Realm Wild and Scenic River Areas Act 2018) is apparently too much of a burden for local government authorities striving for biodiversity conservation.

In certain local councils of the Kingdom of Alexandria, the implementation has produced complaints from nimbys that regional authorities are planning to force the sales of land underhandedly — in their words, “It is communism by stealth.” Sanctuary Regions are designated zones of noteworthy native plants and habitats for native insects and animals. They can be anything from a stand of Syrengården yews, to raider habitat for The Black Hawks in the form of native bush. The need to have Sanctuary Regions comes from a stipulation by the Resource Management Amendment Act 1987 that local government authorities must conserve biodiversity.

The common issues facing local governments across Yohannes’ second largest country is that much of the biodiversity earmarked for conservation is on private land. Some ratepayers are happy to allow local authorities to implement the mandate of the 2018 Act to protect native flora and fauna but others see it as infringement on property rights.

That was the issue in the capital city of Royal Alexandria last week, where the local government of Reichsgau (Unitary Authority) Höjdstigen chose to take a “soft” approach to Sanctuary Regions so it could work with large-scale ratepayers such as farmers and property investors. Forest Yohannes took Reichsgau Höjdstigen to court, which decided the local government was wrong not to include Sanctuary Regions in its five-year Local Government Plan.

That resulted in large-scale ratepayers accusing Reichsgau Höjdstigen of “infringing their land rights” by including pockets of regenerating bush and scrub in the five-year Local Government Plan. It left large-scale ratepayers possibly needing environmental permit to expand driveways or build dachas.

Most local government authorities have taken the approach of identifying potential Sanctuary Regions and collaborating with affected ratepayers to integrate their zones in the Local Government Plan. In the kingdom’s second largest city, Halsten, that approach has been proven to be a spectacular failure. An organisation founded as the United Ratepayers for Halsten has sought legal advice from eager solicitors and has been particularly forthright in their criticism of the Greater Halsten Authority.

It lodged a legal complaint against the greater authority in September with a wide range of accusations including the “inability to democratically engage” with ratepayers, giving “misleading” zone maps of where potential Sanctuary Regions would be, and proposing biodiversity conservation plans that “would stop” affected ratepayers subdividing their land. The community organising group maintained that the greater authority had overextended its authority and these stressful situations had especially affected “many superannuitant ratepayers who had been poorly prepared to challenge council injustice.” The organisation had forced the greater authority to look at other options such as restrictive covenant to implement its Sanctuary Region plan.

To make matters worse, a council analyst said some councillors were unwilling to attend United Ratepayers for Halsten meetings because of the “level of abuse and heckling” hurled at them that made rational discussion hard. “The greater authority chose to ‘individually address landowners and ratepayers’ issues — each one was unique and could not be treated with one swipe of a brush.” He noted that the Resource Management Tribunal’s ruling concerning Reichsgau Höjdstigen solidified the view that local governments had to include protected areas in their five-year Local Government Plan, and said the voluntary approaches for environmental policy had been a failure.

Forest Yohannes multi-millionaire conservation donor Thekla Rödl said biodiversity was vulnerable to climate change nationwide. Formed by the Eco-Sanctuary Administration and Preservation Amendment Act 1981, the state-owned enterprise had been part of a working group that included Chambers of Industry and Commerce Yohannes, National Alliance of Forest Owners, and the Alexandrian Wildlife Conservation Network. There was a consensus that a forward thinking policy framework was needed.

A four-year policy framework would finally become the overriding policy documents for local government authorities across the Kingdom of Alexandria in 2019. Minister of Agriculture and Resources Magdalena von und zu Schönbein said some local governments were doing a good job, but the four-year document would provide the framework to improve policy implementation on the ground to protect the environment in the Northeastern Nineteen Countries.

The resulting proposal Environment and Resource Management 2018-2022 Strategic Plan for Indigenous Biodiversity is currently being tabled by Von und zu Schönbein. Rödl knew getting such a wide-ranging group inside the beltway as Chambers of Industry and Commerce Yohannes and forest owners to agree there was a crisis was an achievement on its own.