1900: Steampunk Divergence [AH][OOC-OPEN]

[Novacom]

Reservation

Nation Name: Al-Andalus
Territory: The Iberian Peninsula, the bits of Morocco that aren't French, Algeria, as well as parts of current southern France that don't belong to RP France
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

As a heads up, the Iberian Peninsula has Active Reservations.

[Tracian Empire]

Reservation

Nation Name: The Huleguid Caliphate/The Ilkhanate
Territory: Persia, Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, Transoxiana, Khorasan, Baluchistan(lemme know if this conflicts with anything!)
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

Transoxiana and Khorasan might clash with the Russian claim, but I do think that the two of you could easilly come to an agreement and divide the -stans between the two of you.

If you can't, then perhaps we can compensate the Ilkhanate with territory in some other regions.

But accepted!

[Obrela]

Reservation

Nation Name: Al-Andalus
Territory: The Iberian Peninsula, the bits of Morocco that aren't French, Algeria, as well as parts of current southern France that don't belong to RP France
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

I am sorry but we already have two separate claims for Iberia.

Just changed it, is that better?

[Tracian Empire]

Reservation

Nation Name: Al-Najd
Territory: Eastern Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

Kuwait is what I am uncertain about since it might clash with the Ilkhanate depending on the definition of Mesopotamia, so if Upper Magica had Kuwait in mind also then that would be his.
The rest of the claim is accepted however.

[Arvenia]

Reservation

Nation Name: Russian Empire
Territory: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

Heyo, if you're in the discord I'd love to discuss our two nations shared history, if you're not in there we could do it here instead.

I'll be on Discord when I get home.

[Khasinkonia]

Reservation

Nation Name: Great Qing
Territory: Qing 1820 borders (Outer Manchuria included, but not Sakhalin or the Central Asian territories)
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations

[Tracian Empire]

Reservation

Nation Name: Russian Empire
Territory: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

Accepted, but without Outer Manchuria. You did technically reserve it first, but Manchuria is the homeland of the Qing and I think that a Qing claim should have priority there.

Mongolia also, since it was never a Russian territory.

But the rest is alright, accepted

Reservation

Nation Name: Great Qing
Territory: Qing 1820 borders (Outer Manchuria included, but not Sakhalin or the Central Asian territories)
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations

Accepted

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Reservation

Nation Name: Kingdom of Japan
Territory: Japanese islands; colonial holdings across the Polynesian and Oceanian islands; Java, Lesser Sunda Islands, Banda Arc, North Maluku
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

[Chedastan]

Reservation

Nation Name: The Pearl Necklace Country, or País del Collar de Perles
Territory: Macau, Southeast New Guinea, and Goa
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

[Tracian Empire]

Reservation

Nation Name: Kingdom of Japan
Territory: Japanese islands; colonial holdings across the Polynesian and Oceanian islands; Java, Lesser Sunda Islands, Banda Arc, North Maluku
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

Reservation accepted, colonies are a mess in process of being sorted

[Tracian Empire]

Reservation

Nation Name: The Pearl Necklace Country, or País del Collar de Perles
Territory: Macau, New Guinea, and the Bismarck Archipelago
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

With the notion that specific SEA colonies will be discussed, accepted

[Reverend Norv]

Confirming my reservation:

Reservation

Nation Name: The United States of America
Territory: The continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, most central Pacific islands not yet claimed.
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*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

[Tracian Empire]

Confirming my reservation:

Reservation

Nation Name: The United States of America
Territory: The continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, most central Pacific islands not yet claimed.
#AltDiv (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)

*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

Reservation accepted

The Pacific is a mess, trying to get it sorted

[The V O I D]

Full Nation Name: The Most Serene Republic of Olympus
Territorial Core: Olympus is not a terrestrial nation; rather, through the combined efforts of the Eastern Roman Empire, another nation, and some corporate entities from the United States of America, Olympus is a floating, somewhat mobile city-state in the skies. The Olympian government only makes claim to airspace within five miles of its edges, and even then, only when it is otherwise not in the airspace of another nation. It executes control of this airspace through its own Air Navy.
Territorial Claim: N/A.
Capital City: Olympus is a city-state; it is its own capital.
Flag: The Olympian Flag is a simple white banner with an eagle in its center; the eagle holds an olive branch and a scroll. The otherwise white background is to represent its neutrality, whilst the eagle represents its noble origins and the nobility of humanity. The olive branch represents peace, whilst the scroll represents business and diplomacy.

Demographics

Majority/Official Culture: Due to its investors, Olympian culture is influenced by both East-Roman, American, and other values.
Other Cultures: From immigration and trade, Olympian culture has some influences from other European states.
Majority/Official Religion: The Grand Charter of the Most Serene Republic of Olympus protects freedom of religion in theory. However, a majority of those it interacts with, and those who become citizens or are citizens, belong to a Christian Church; particularly, they belong to the Roman Orthodox Church.
Population: 1.5 million souls call Olympus their permanent home; many of them aging members of the first people to come to live there, but almost a quarter or more of the population are natural-born Olympians.

Governance

Government Type: Constitutional parliamentary semi-directorial republic with technocratic aspects.
Government Ideology: Olympus is a true believer in the ideals of capitalism and free trade, and tries to act on these bases when interacting with other nations. It attempts to embrace its neutrality for such purposes.
Head of State: The Consulate is a triarchic council that acts as head of state collectively, in order to represent the interests of Olympus. One Consul, John Roberts, is directly elected by the people; he is a member of the First Olympian Party [FOP]; to represent the people's interests, needs, or otherwise the people's feelings. He has more weight to his words as head of state, when functioning as such in diplomatic ventures, but otherwise shares his powers to control the Consulate with the other two.

The second Consul, Alexis Metaxes, is elected by the Council-Assembly; the legislature of Olympus, and he is required to be unbiased and non-partisan. Due to the structure of the Council-Assembly, Consul Metaxes represents the City itself, more than its population, and helps oversee the City's operations. He is more symbolic as head of state, but has some function.

The third and final Consul, Antony Russo, is appointed by the Olympian Trading Company's Board of Directors - ex-officio Chief Executive Officer of the very same Company, Russo represents Olympus' economic interests and helps work out trade or economic deals that could benefit the City.
Head of Government: The Archon, as appointed by the Council-Assembly, is Theodore D'Ambrosio.
Government Description: The Grand Charter of the Most Serene Republic of Olympus is simultaneously its Constitution and, theoretically, what protects its neutrality in terms of international law for all nations willing to do trade with Olympus.

The legislative branch of Olympus, established by the Grand Charter, is known as the Olympian City Council Assembled, often shortened to Council-Assembly for practical purposes, and is unicameral in nature. There are thirty (30) members of the Council-Assembly. Fifteen (15) Council-Assembly members are directly elected by the populace, in a proportional representation system for political parties. Universal Suffrage is guaranteed via the Grand Charter, making Olympian elections rather open and free, as well as progressive, for the time period. Council-Assembly members can serve as many terms as they can hold the minimum electorate required to have a seat.

The other fifteen (15) Council-Assembly members are appointed by the Olympian Engineering Corps [OEC]. The OEC is, effectively, a body created and controlled by the various Engineers that keep the City in full operation and oversee its major systems, ensure all factories can operate, oversee radios, engines, factories, etc. within Olympus to ensure all machines are operable and the City won't fall from the sky. The OEC often cooperates with the OTC, due to their mutual interests in the City's operations and associations.

The Council-Assembly drafts and passes all legislation, as well as debates possible chartered courses for Olympus to move through, etc. The Council-Assembly appoints an Archon to act as head of government and one of the three Consuls as head of state. Both are required to be non-partisan, and so usually are selected from the OEC-side of the Council-Assembly to represent this fact at least in theory; however, to ensure a show of unity in the Council-Assembly, the OEC member in question in practice is usually a member of the largest party in the elected section
of the Council-Assembly.

The Archontate is one half of the executive branch; it is headed by the Archon, the head of government, and sees to the day-to-day operations of the City, both in terms of its Engineering Corps. and various economic enterprises as well as all ministries that are needed to have a functioning government. The Consulate is the other half, formed by three Consuls; one directly elected by popular vote, to represent people's interests, one elected by the Council-Assembly to be a non-partisan and clearheaded individual at least in theory, and one to represent the Olympian Trading Company to represent the economic interests of the City.

The Consulate represents the City abroad; the elected Consul oversees political matters, the Council-Assembly Consul oversees treaties that would affect City operations, and the OTC Consul oversees economic treaties or deals. All treaties or deals are presented to the Archon, who in turn presents it to the Council-Assembly for approval. Consuls elected by the people serve for single five-year terms and are usually former minor political figures promoted by a Party. Consuls appointed by the Council-Assembly serve until the next Council-Assembly's elections/appointments, usually every five years, after a new Council-Assembly is sworn in. The Archon is often in a similar position. Consuls appointed by the Olympian Trading Company serve at the pleasure of the Board of Directors.

The Grand Charter establishes the Supreme Tribunal of Olympus as the ultimate judiciary authority. The Supreme Tribunal is split into three lesser Tribunals. The Tribunal of Civil Affairs oversees all cases involving civil matters in the City, usually through lower Judges until appealed to this Tribunal's six-Magistrate council. If there is a tie vote, the Justiciar of the Tribunal reviews the case in question and the reasoning of both the Magistrates that ruled for or against a defendant or plaintiff. The Justiciar then makes his ruling, and this ruling is deemed final due to being considered the word of the Supreme Tribunal. The Martial Tribunal oversees all trials involving the Olympian Air Navy, the Olympian Engineering Corps, or those involving Treason against Olympus. It is similarly made of six Magistrates, and headed by a Justiciar, with similar procedures to the TCA. The Public Tribunal oversees all final appeals for criminal trials that have been ruled on by lower Judges. The six Magistrates review the case and make a vote in a closed trial, based on available evidence and the reasoning for a Judge's ruling. If they cannot decide or tie a vote, the Justiciar makes a final ruling, as is normal.

The three Justiciars that form the Supreme Tribunal act as a council to vote on matters regarding questions of constitutionality of laws, as well as if a case has any crossover between the three Tribunals they oversee in some fashion or another. Each Tribunal's Magistrates are appointed three-by-Consulate, three-by-Archontate whilst consulting judiciary peers and ministers of justice. The Justiciars of each Tribunal, however, are appointed by the Council-Assembly's Judiciary Affairs Committee (itself formed by two elected Council-Assembly members, two members from the OEC, and headed by a Chair appointed by the Consulate). There are nine General Judges who are lower Judges than each Tribunal that oversee all appeals before it goes to a Tribunal, for all cases across the City.

The General Judges are similarly appointed by the JAC. The General Judges, in turn, can recruit those with a degree in matters of civil or criminal law to assist them as Associate Judges to ensure the workload of the judiciary is not overtly intense. To ensure non-bias, cases appealed under the purview of one General Judge's Associate Judges will go to a different General Judge for review, before a final appeal to the appropriate Tribunal or else, if the case is deemed ambiguous in nature, to the Supreme Tribunal itself.

All rulings by a given Justiciar when acting as head of a single Tribunal are final, and since there are only three Justiciars, all votes that result in a ruling are considered final when made by the Supreme Tribunal when acting in such a fashion. All members of the judiciary serve until recalled, until resignation, or until death.

Economy

Economic System/Ideology: Olympus is a capitalist state, and indeed, the Olympian Trading Company has a near-monopoly on its goods and services for its citizens and in terms of trade with foreign powers.
Major Production: Olympus' most important production, by a wide margin, is its specialized factory-vacuum system used to take gases from clouds and other higher-atmosphere places to create what they call “Olympian Gas.” Olympian Gas is a specialized gas that allows Olympus to float even easier than initial costs imagined, and is able to allow vehicles to have an easier time floating more generally. Olympian Gas is able to be combined with steam-engine technology to make steam engines more efficient by virtue of having less weight to lift or push. Since Olympus is the first Air City, it has a near-monopoly on this gaseous substance that it sells. Olympus also has a handful of factories for more general production, usually utilizing raw materials traded or purchased for the gas, that it then can trade mid-journey between stops at Air Ports for maintenance or trade.
Economic Description: See above, for the most part; however, the Olympian Trading Company has a near-monopoly on all factories and business within Olympus. Only around 15% of all business on Olympus has no ties to either the OTC or the OEC, and these usually get their supply much easier or faster from the OTC/OEC themselves.

Conversely, the OTC sets its prices for Olympians to be rather affordable given average wages for Olympians, as most of their profit comes from trading the goods and services they produce or else from Olympian Gas being sold in bulk to various nations or corporations. However, this benefit is extremely artificial, and is seen as worth the price of avoiding labor strikes or other internal issues.

Military

Army Description: The Olympian Army is, essentially, a well-equipped police force for internal policing; well-armed, well-armored, and somewhat disciplined, but some members are somewhat corrupt, especially those in higher positions of power due to ties to the OTC. The Army mostly protects the City from those who would land on it or attempt to attack it while docked at an Air Port. There are three thousand members of the Army, led by the Army Chief who serves the Archon and Consulate.
Naval Description: The Olympian Sea Fleet is, generally, a small fleet of sea-based ships that sail or float just above the water of the seas, beneath Olympus. Primarily, this is to deter any sea-based form of attack from below, and it is usually moderately successful. They are very well-armed in terms of guns and somewhat well armored, and handsomely paid by the OTC to ensure little to no outside interference. Headed by the Sea-Admiral, answerable to the Archon and Consulate. Five thousand seamen work for the Sea Fleet.
Air Force Description: The Olympian Air Navy is the bulk of the martial force of the City. Olympus boasts around a dozen sky-ships, all incredibly well armed and well armored. The Olympian Air Navy's sky-ships are also somewhat large, because of having a personal supply of Olympian Gas set aside for their ships. As a result of both of these factors, the seven thousand airmen who serve aboard the sky-ships or else in sky-skippers (airplanes) do so with a fearsome reputation. However, if the OAN were ever somehow wiped out, the City's comparably poor Army and Sea Fleet would leave the City effectively defenseless. Headed by the Lord Admiral of the Air Navy, and answerable to the Archon and Consulate.
Further Military Description: N/A.

History and Aspirations

National Goals: Publicly, Olympus wishes to continue touting its neutrality and upholding its central status as the premier place to receive Olympian Gas and other Olympian goods. Much of its leadership particularly have this wish in mind, and they wish to expand its import as a sky-based trade hub. To that end, the Olympian Trading Company often works with land-based companies to assure that appealing view.
National Issues: A Policy of Neutrality: Olympus has to enforce its own neutrality, even upon itself; thus, it finds itself primarily trading in the skies of the North Atlantic, for now, due to the lack of potentially friendly Air Ports elsewhere in the world. Nonetheless, some among the OTC wish to expand operations somehow.

Connections to Privateers: In order to try and increase sky-based trade, and thus its own import as a hub to dock with in the skies and do trade with, and carry trade across the Atlantic or the continent, some among the Olympian Trading Company's leadership have assured Company property is “stolen” by privateers - or, rather, pirates, to instigate a new Age of Piracy on the high seas.

To make matters more complicated, some in the higher echelons of the state apparatus and organism are at least vaguely aware of these operations and do not discourage them. The populace at large is, of course, unaware. All in all, compounding its balancing act for neutrality and ambitions to expand its routes, the Olympian Trading Company is entirely reliant on no one looking too closely at the occasional “thefts” of Olympian Gas or weapons by pirates who use such things on the high seas.


The Question of the Skies: In spite of claiming airspace when in international airspace, there is the question in international law on how to view air cities, with Olympus being the first air city ever constructed and launched. Generally, due to its neutrality, such is respected, but this brings into question where national airspace ends and international airspace begins, and this is a problem that deeply concerns Olympus' leadership.


Maintenance and Engineering: Because Olympus is the pinnacle of human engineering, it requires maintenance once a year at a proper Air Port whilst docked. During this stage, it can sometimes be vulnerable, especially if it decouples and each individual airship-section is being inspected.
History:

• 1870-1880: Engineers sponsored by the Eastern Roman state, various early US corporate entities, among other sponsors begin construction of Olympus: the first city in the skies, the pinnacle of human engineering in the age of steam-power. After five years of construction, immigration for some workers' families is allowed to begin, as well as various wealthy injecting themselves and others still who wish to live on Olympus once it is airborne. The City is made of numerous specialized live-in airships, alongside factory-equipped airships and vacuum harvesters after the discovery of Olympian Gas by a handful of airships.
  
• 1880-1890: After ten years of construction, all of Olympus' distinct pieces are launched and airborne. They proceed to dock and merge, locking together into one great air city, within the ensuing days. On February 1st, 1880, Olympus is declared complete, with any further additions or upgrades to its technology being floated by airship and added whilst the city remains airborne. On August 1st, 1880, the Most Serene Republic of Olympus is proclaimed, in an agreement with the East Roman state, to be a sovereign and neutral body, to sell Olympian Gas and conduct other industrial trade for the modern era.
  
  Over the course of the following decade, Olympus drafts various trade-based policies and treaties with as many nations as it can, in order to have its self-proclaimed neutrality respected. As well, to secure itself against airship-based assaults by air-pirates, the Olympian Air Navy is grown alongside the Olympian Trading Company and the Olympian economy. The Olympian state apparatus, though only partially elected, is suitable for the populace that lives and works on Olympus. The Olympian Engineering Corps., as a bloc of power within Olympus, begin installing any new advancements when possible, to ensure Olympus is never out of date and to ensure proper maintenance.
  
• 1890-Present: Over the course of the last decade, Olympus has grown in importance as the first major sky-based trading hub, along with its major product in Olympian Gas and any other industrial goods it can produce for trade whilst docked at Air Ports or else over the Atlantic for airships that wish to conduct trade in international airspace. Some of this growth is natural; however, especially in recent years, the leadership of the Olympian Trading Company among others within the state apparatus of Olympus have begun to try to enhance this growth artificially.
  
  Whilst the Olympian government officially decries it as thefts of Company property once it is offloaded and begins distribution in various countries they trade with, some within the Olympian state - and, possibly, elsewhere - are uncertain of the veracity of such claims. Nonetheless, as there is no official tie or collusion found as of yet, it does indeed seem incidental that the rise of Olympus brought with it the rise of a New Age of Piracy on the high seas. Time will tell if Olympus succeeds at becoming the City of the Skies, the City of the Future, that its leadership wishes it to be.

RP Sample: Been here before.

#AltDiv (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)

[Sao Nova Europa]

DELETED

[Revlona]

Edit: Gone, reduced to atoms

[Reverend Norv]

Confirming my reservation:

Reservation

Nation Name: The United States of America
Territory: The continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, most central Pacific islands not yet claimed.
#AltDiv (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)

*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

Reservation accepted

The Pacific is a mess, trying to get it sorted

My apologies for the difficulty; my reservation is withdrawn.

[Obrela]

Complete!
Full Nation Name: The Emirate of Al-Najd and its Dependencies
Territorial Core: Eastern and some of central Saudi Arabia, as well as Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE as dependencies. Essentially the territory of the Emirate of Nejd, but with some to the north connecting to the Levant, if that's ok.
Territorial Claim: The rest of the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant and North Africa.
Capital City: Riyadh
Flag:

Demographics

Majority/Official Culture: Arabic

The nation prides itself on their very traditional Islamic values, and holds fast to them in this changing and fast moving world. The Emir is a big advocate for staying true to the roots from which they came, and promotes the traditional ways as the official culture of the nation. It focuses mainly on the Islamic religion and the importance of staying close to Allah and following his laws.

Other Cultures:

Though the Emir tries to spread the culture of Islam across the nation, there are still minority groups of people that follow other cultures, such as nomadic tribes that move around the nation's deserts and rural areas.

Majority/Official Religion: Hanbali school of Islam

The official religion as proclaimed by the Emir is the Hanbali school of Islam, a form of Sunni Islam. It is a strict and traditionalist school of thought, focusing mainly on the importance of the Hadith and the precedent set by the earliest Muslims.

Population: 2 million people

Governance

Government Type: Emirate
Government Ideology: Islamic Conservatism
Head of State: Emir Sheikh Abdullah bi Khalin al-Qawasim
Head of Government: see above
Government Description:

The Emir
Emir Abdullah holds all of the desicion-making power, and he is the only one who can decide on laws and legislative action across the nation. However, he is often advised strongly one way or the other by his inner circle and Council, who may use that to their advantage.

The Council of Ministers

The Council of Ministers is a group of high-ranking Najdian men who advise the Emir on desicions that affect the country at the moment. He trusts them completely, and often bases his desicions purely on their judgement.

Economy

Economic System/Ideology: Mercantilist
Major Production: Steel, textiles
Economic Description: Al-Najd makes most of it's money out of trading products native to their region such as steel and textiles like cotton and wool. The steel heartland of the nation is in and around the city of Damman. It exports most of its steel to make money off of trading goods with other countries, but also keeps some to produce their steampunk weapons and transport. The country has gotten rich off of it's steel exports and has started developing their own technologies using this money. They aspire to become one of the superpowers of steampunk engineering and technology.

Military

Army Description:

The Army of Al-Najd is known as The Steel Wall to the common folk, standing proud and strong to defend their nation. It practises nationwide mandatory military service, meaning that before the age of 30, all able bodies men must have completed 1 year of military training and then at least a 3 year stint in one of the armed forces. On paper, the army is small, reaching around 85,000 men. They are organised into companies, each consisting of 125 men. These then form battalions, a group of 4 companies, or 500 men. These form brigades, which consist of 2 battalions or 1000 men. Then finally come corps, consisting of 5 brigades or 5000 men. There are 680 companies, 170 battalions, 85 brigades and 17 corps.

The main doctrine of the Al-Najd army is a "Lightning War" tactic, which takes advantage of the small and mobile force they possess, and uses their cutting edge steampunk teachnology effectively. It was shaped by the need to take territories swiftly and decisively during the formation of the nation, and has stayed as the military's main doctrine for centuries.

The doctrine is mainly characterised by the taking of towns and land quickly, with little harm to civilians or friendly forces. They do this by sending in steam powered airships first to drop clockwork bombs on the enemy, then come the steam-tanks, which are more agile and faster than the tanks we know today. Finally, the soldiers advance, gunning down any remaining enemy troops and securing the city.

The army can be recognised by their distintive uniform, a fusion of traditional Arabic garb and steampunk technology. Since they are used to fighting in desert or semi-desert conditions, it is optimised for that. It consists of a long, cream coloured robe made of cotton, tied at the waist with a leather ammunition belt. Over that is a metal chestplate reinforced with steel and they wear a special metal helmet fitted with cinder goggles for protection from sandstorms and a filter to prevent breathing difficulties from all the sand. The weapons they use are mainly pneumatic, steam-powered rifles and dynamite guns.

Naval Description:

The Sea Navy of Al-Najd is a very small force due to the only body of water they have access to being the Arabian Gulf. It mainly consists of small destroyers and cruisers, equipped with steam powered pneumatic cannons and guns, which use pressure to fire the projectiles. They are made of reinforced steel native to the heartland of Al-Najd, and fitted with powerful steam engines which allow them to move quickly though the water. Due to the force being small, only about 20 ships strong, and said ships are mainly used to patrol up and down the Arabian Gulf, rather than engage in actual warfare.

The Navy has only 18000 personel to sail, repair and communicate with the ships. The uniform is very similar to the army's a light, breathable robe but with a leather breastplate instead of metal to prevent the sailors from getting too hot on the water.

It is organised firstly into the whole navy, known as the fleet. Then there are 4 flotillas, each consisting of 5 boats each.

Air Force Description:

The Air Navy of Al-Najd, as it is known, is the most technologically advanced of the three. It consists of an assortment of blimps and dirigbles, along with lighter, mor manouverable biplanes and gyrocopters for air-to-air combat and reconnaissance missions. The dirigibles are equipped with sophisticated navigation and communication tech, and powerful engines. They look like boats with a massive balloon hanging above them, keeping them up. They are heavily armoured on the hull, though the reinforced canvas balloon is large and easily punctured, making it quite an easy target. The smalled gyrocopters and biplanes look luch like today's planes and helicopters, but with steam powered engines. Of course, all of these craft are equipped with pneumatic and dynamite guns for defence.

All in all, there are around 140 assorted big and small flying craft and 13000 men to fly, man and repair the aircraft. The uniform is similar to thenavy's but with 40's style leather flying helmets and a parachute of reinforced canvas strapped to the back of the breastplate.

Further Military Description :

History and Aspirations

National Goals:

Arabic Unity
Due to controlling most of the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf states, Al-Najd wants to expand its sphere of influcence by taking control of the entire Arabian Peninsula, the Levant and North Africa, or at least be able to exert some control over it all. The Emir believes that all people of Arab descent should be united under one flag and one leader, and so he seeks to control all Arab nations around Al-Najd and help its influence grow.

Economic Development
While Al-Najd wants to stay true to its Islamic values, the Emir cannot deny that they are moving into a modern age, and the economy has to move with that. They are focusing more on exporting steel instead of the textiles they've exported for so long, and developing new and cutting edge technology to fit in and keep up with the big players in Europe.

National Issues:

The Future or the Past?
As Al-Najd moves into the modern age, there are some among the nation and even the Emir's own Council who believe that embracing a new age of technology is not a good idea. They think it will destroy the Islamic values that Al-Najd stands for, and are firmly against the Emir and the members of his Councils that influenced him to make his decision.

Growing Trouble in the East
The Gulf dependencies on the eastern edge of Al-Najd, who have been only been part of the nation for less than a decade, are threatening to defect. They are unhappy with the Emir's rule, but loosing them would mean gaining rather powerful rivals, not to mention cut off access to the sea and valuable trading routes. But the Emir must tread lightly, to avoid angering the people and triggering civil war, or avoid another brutal Age of Repression.

History: 800 AD - A powerful Muslim warrior known as Aslam al-Zafar broke away from the Abbasid Caliphate that ruled the region at the time. He united the nomadic tribes living around the Al-Najd region in central Saudi Arabia. After some bloody wars with the Abbasid Caliphate, now known as the War of Najdian Freedom, he established Al-Najd as an Emirate, and became the first Emir.
900-1200 AD - The new nation experiences a period of economic growth, trading with other Arab nations around them and discovering steel on their land, which lead to an economy boom.
1200-1500 AD - After the passing of Emir Ahmad Al-Farooq in 1209 AD without an heir, the country was thrown into chaos. The rising power of the Ottoman Empire surrounded them while they were at their weakest. While the Council of Ministers scrambled to find a blood heir while also fighting over how to rule the country itself, the nation was briefly taken as part of the Ottoman Empire, before fighting the (creatively named) Second War of Najdian Freedom under Emir Mufeed al-Reza, the former Emir's distant cousin, in 1534.
1744 AD - The first Saudi state was formed to the north of Al-Najd, which lead to some strained relations on the Peninsula. The Saudi state was determined to take Al-Najd back under its control, but the nation resisted and after a few small border disputes, the Saudi army decided to let Al-Najd stay as an independent nation to their south.
1801-1818 AD - The Saudi state weakens and collapses, and Al-Najd take take advantage of that, gaining huge swathes of land to the north and east, allowing them to expand their sphere of influence.
1824-1891 AD - The newly captured regions are volatile, with many nomadic tribes and various emirates trying to spring up and take the land as their own. Al-Najd crushed any rebellions in a brutal period that became know to some as "The Age of Repression."
1891 AD - Emir Sheikh Abdullah bi Khalin al-Qawasim comes to power. He begins to unite the regions in a more peaceful and democratic way, and also fights The Gulf Wars in 1896, leading to the capture of Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE as dependencies of the nation. These new nations are angry at their annexation though, and he must tread with caution to avoid another Age of Repression.
RP Sample: (I am new, so I will write one here)

Emir Abdullah sat at the head of his table in the Murraba Palace, watching his guests eat. This was an important meeting between himself and the leaders of the dependencies. He had to make sure he had their support for trading. They know how many wars we have had to fight. He thought to himself, Their countries saw the Age of Repression first hand. Do they really want something like that to happen to them? To their people?
"Gentlemen." He addressed them both, "Thank you for taking the time to come to Riyadh and meet with me today. I truly appreciate it. I wanted to talk about the peace between our two regions."
"Peace?" The leader of Qatar, Khaalid al-Salame, put down his spoon and stared intently at Abdullah, "You truly believe there can be peace among our nations, oh great Emir? Well you thought wrong. Qatar is a pround and independent nation, and we do not appreciate the arm of Al-Najd being extended to control us."
Abdullah gave him a stern look, but Khaalid did not back down, "Let us all be calm now gentlemen." He went on, "I'm sure we can find a way to settle this diplomatically and peacefully."
The leader of Bahrain, Qutb al-Sabet, also stood, glaring at the Emir, "And let me tell you, there will be no diplomacy until you stop supporting those Crimson Hawks! I didn't believe it at first, but the evidence is there. You support a terrorist group in your own nation. What kind of leader can you be if those claims are true?"
Abdullah stiffened when the man mentioned the Hawks, "What evidence do you have to say that I do support the Crimsons? They stand against everything we stand for. Can you truly say to my face that I support a group that wants to tear down the foundations of our country, of all our nation stands for?"
Qutb drew himself up to his full height, towaring above the Emir, "There is no our nation, great Emir, and there never was."
Turning away, he strode out of the room, the leaders of Qatar and UAE in tow. Abdullah sank back into his chair, exhausted. If he couldn't even keep his country together, how would he unite the whole Arab lands?

#AltDiv (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)

[Revlona]

I withdrawal my reservation for poland.

At the same time.

Reservation

Nation Name: The United States of America
Territory:The continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, unclaimed pacific islands
#AltDiv (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)

*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

[Alt Div Admin]

I withdrawal my reservation for poland.

At the same time.

Reservation

Nation Name: The United States of America
Territory:The continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, unclaimed pacific islands
#AltDiv (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)

*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

Accepted

[Tracian Empire]

WIP
Full Nation Name: The Emirate of Al-Najd and its Dependencies

#AltDiv (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)

I usually let people finish their apps before I review, but there are some thing I need to point out:

• Islamic in and of itself isn't a culture, much like how an European nation wouldn't be Christian only. Your culture would likely be Arabic, and Islamic influence and Islamic culture would play a role into that.
• I don't particularly think that there would be any Jews in such a state. While there are Jews and returning Jews in the Roman Levant, I don't really see why they would jump and move into an Islamic state.
• 41 million is way too much. Your territories would likely have around 2, maybe 3 million people at most.
• Makkah is not in your claim, as that's in the western Saudi Arabia.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

Reservation

Nation Name: Norden
Territory: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland in accordance with their 1870 borders, South Jutland north of the Eider, and the Scottish Northern Isles.
#AltDiv (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)

*Note: Reservations will last for 72 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

Commonwealth of Northern Socialist Council Republics
Nordiske Socialistiske Rådsrepublikkenes Samveldet

Beyond the hills, in Same-land, where roads do fade to trails,
One finds a peak all topped in white where windy music screams.
There in the North, where trees are old and streams so clear and fresh,
No others walk: I stand alone before Almighty God.
- Aleksis Lönnrot, unpublished poem, c. 1850

Territorial Core

The territory of the Commonwealth consists of much of Northern Europe. On the mainland it includes Fennoscandia, up to an eastern frontier that runs across Karelia and to the west of the Kola Peninsula, the Jutland Peninsula north of the Eider River, as well as all the minor islands off the shores of these territories. Norden also includes, on the Baltic Sea, the Danish Isles between Jutland and Scania, Bornholm, and the Åland islands and, on the North Atlantic, the Orkney, Shetland, and Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and Svalbard.

Except in Denmark, where centuries of land clearances dating back to the mediaeval era transformed much of the country into arable plains, much of this territory is rough terrain. Greenland and Svalbard are both dominated by glaciers and permafrost. Norway and the other islands of the North Atlantic mostly consist of hilly country, with Norway especially being dominated by a tall mountain range, the Scandesryggen, running north-south across the length of the country. Sweden and Finland, except for their most populated regions, are heavily forested and the forests of Savonia and Karelia, especially, are infamous for being wetlands divided by long, twisted lakes.

Through her allies in the Socialist International, Norden also indirectly controls much of northern North America, some islands in the Caribbean Sea, and a stretch of the West African coast.

Capital City

The Commonwealth has had no legally defined capital since 1872, with the capitals of each of the four SRs in the Commonwealth having equal legal status, but does have a de-facto capital in Copenhagen where the Nordic Council assembles and the Nordic Socialist Party is headquartered.

Flag

The flag of the Commonwealth is legally defined as follows: on an undivided red field, in the upper hoist a golden emblem of a hammer overlaid with a stylised stalk of wheat and across the lower length a white bar immediately above a navy barrulet.

Demographics

“The Commonwealth of Nordic Socialist Council Republics shall represent the interests of all citizens equally without differentiation between citizens of Nordic nationalities and citizens of national minorities; the authorities of the State shall create conditions enabling the Sami people and any other national minorities as may be recognised by Act of the Nordic Council to preserve and develop their respective languages, cultures, and ways of life.”
- Article 108, Nordic Constitution of 1872 (article added in the 1892 revision)

Majority/Official Culture

Nordic identity itself is a civic identity, overlapping with several different cultural and ethnic identities. Nordic society sees Scandinavians (76.1% of the population) and Finns (18.7% of the population) as the integral and ‘proper’ Nordic cultures, although Finns do face a small inconvenience in the form of having to learn Scandinavian since most politics and commerce at the Commonwealth level is conducted in that language.

Other Cultures

Political borders usually don’t separate cultures very cleanly and Norden is no exception; its border territories contain minorities belonging to the primary cultures of neighbouring states. These Germans (1.7% of the population), Frisians (0.1% of the population), and Russians (insignificant, less than 5,000 individuals) are tolerated but not accepted, facing constant suspicion of being unfaithful traitors, their divided loyalty evident from their refusal to adopt Nordic culture and customs.

At the northern fringes of Nordic territory, the Sami (0.5% of the population) and the Inuit (0.1% of the population) live basically separate and independent lives. The Nordic government has been making aggressive efforts to integrate these minorities into mainstream Nordic society, but due to various chauvinistic attitudes within the government the approaches have been very different. Whereas the Sami have been offered carrots, in the form of political autonomy and the protection of their way of life within Nordic society, the Inuit are being forcibly integrated into Nordic society by having their children conscripted into residential schools.

The other cultural minorities in Norden’s population consists of immigrants, attracted by the free and progressive academia of Norden’s intelligentsia or seeking shelter from war or persecution at home, and the descendants of such immigrants. The most prominent category here are Jews (0.1% of the population), but together these immigrant minorities make up about 2.8% of the Nordic population. On one hand, these immigrant minorities face little discrimination, although they do face the usual difficulties of adjusting to life in a new country with different social norms, but on the other hand they are also thought of as not being properly Nordic in the public consciousness.

Norden has little in the way of racist attitudes and sees culture as being what a person does rather than who a person is, which is reflected in Nordic census guidelines judging a person’s culture on the basis of their primary language rather than their ancestry or appearance. Nonetheless, and despite all citizens of the Commonwealth being nominally equal under the law, cultural discrimination at varying levels of officiality is very prevalent in Nordic society, something that had only been exacerbated by the socialist movement absorbing Norden’s various nationalist and proto-fascist movements after 1872. The country has relatively strict citizenship requirements, with citizenship being heritable only if at least one parent is a Nordic citizen and the child was either born or grew up on Nordic soil.

Majority/Official Religion

Anti-clericalism has long been a key tenet of the Nordic revolutionary movement since its earliest days, from the Scandinavian Revolution of 1789 and its humanist churches and cults of reason to the Socialist Commonwealth of 1872 onwards and its militant atheist movement. As a result, Norden is one of the most secular societies anywhere in the world, no longer has an official state religion, and the previously-dominant religious institution, the Church of Scandinavia, had been steadily losing influence and followers for two centuries with the loss only accelerating over time.

The Nordic census registers 47% of the Commonwealth’s population as ‘nonreligious’, meaning people who do not belong to an established religious organisation, but because of that wide definition this includes a wide spectrum of belief from spiritual people who belong to religions that aren’t organised, such as traditional Sami shamans, across people who are nominally Christians but practise their faith privately or don’t consider religion an important part of their life, to the actual agnostics and atheists. The other 53% are church-attending Protestant Christians in the Church of Scandinavia.

While there are some religious minorities that belong to neither category - independent Lutheran or Calvinist churches, Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic Christians, Jews, organised Neo-Pagans, Mohammedans, etc., they are statistically insignificant and add up to a total of well under 1% of Norden’s population.

Population

With its territory straddling the marginally hospitable boreal forests at the northern edge of Europe, Norden never had a population density comparable to the more hospitable countries to its south and west. While its population has grown dramatically with new farming techniques and the industrialisation of agriculture in the 18th and 19th Centuries, so has the population of all of its neighbours, and today’s Commonwealth still has a small population for a country of its stature.

The Commonwealth of Nordic Socialist Council Republics has a population of 12.90 million residents and about that many citizens, with the numbers of Commonwealth citizens living abroad being similar to the number of foreigners living in Norden. By geography, this breaks down to 3.89 million in SR Denmark, 3.88 million in SR Sweden (including 0.02 million in Åland), 2.57 million in SR Norway (including 0.08 million in Iceland, 0.07 million in the Northern Isles, and 0.01 million in Greenland), and 2.56 million in SR Finland.

Through the Socialist International, the Commonwealth has varying degrees of influence over eight other nominally independent states. These states have a combined population of 10.27 million: 4.63 million in SR Asanteman, 2.07 million in SR Canada, 1.57 million in SR Leifsbugten, 0.89 million in SR Vinland, 0.66 million in SR Helluland, 0.24 million in SR Markland, 0.18 million SR Cascadenland, and 0.03 million in SR Vestindien.

Governance

“The Commonwealth of Nordic Socialist Council Republics is a free, independent, indivisible, and inalienable realm; its form of government is a democratic and proletarian commonwealth of republics. Our values will remain our humanist and Nordic heritage; this constitution shall ensure a democratic regime, a state based on the rule of law, and the human rights of the people. Sovereignty is inherent to the people of the Commonwealth; it is vested in the Nordic Council for its organised exercise.
- Articles 1 to 3, Nordic Constitution of 1872

Government Type

Norden is a constitutional, unitary, and socialist semi-representative democracy.

Head of State

The head of the Nordic state since 1897 is Juho Savolainen, Chancellor of the Commonwealth. The Chancellorship is an almost entirely ceremonial role and the title is often used to honour outstanding achievements by Commonwealth citizens, in this case Juho Savolainen’s scientific discoveries as a travelling biologist and physician in the High Arctic. His term will end in 1904.

Head of Government

The head of the Nordic government since 1892 is Dag Svensson, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. With a diplomatic background coming from his long service in the Foreign Office, the Nordic Council hopes that having him as the de-facto leader of the Nordic administrative apparatus will help the country navigate these uncertain times. His term will come to an end with the inauguration of the Nordic Council of 1900, but given the results of the 1899 elections it is expected that he will easily secure another term which will last until 1904.

Government Description

The Commonwealth has a formal written constitution: the Nordic Constitution of 1872, last revised 1892. It outlines the official status of the polity, the overall structure of its regime, the foundational rights of its citizens, and the process for amending itself.

There is no constitutionally guaranteed separation of powers as is often found in other democratic states: sovereignty is vested by the people of the Commonwealth in the Nordic Council, the main legislative body. All regional and local government authorities, the judicial system, and all ministries and departments of the Commonwealth administration serve at the Nordic Council’s pleasure and exist at the Nordic Council’s suffrage. The four SRs of the Commonwealth largely exist as historical and cultural artefacts that by 1900 no longer retain any meaningful administrative significance.

The Nordic Council has 201 members who are nominally selected through regular elections, but the actual elections have essentially been reduced to political rituals. The Nordic Socialist Party directly nominates 101 candidates, has veto power over the remaining 100 nominated by the country’s trade unions and professional associations, and while it is theoretically possible for voters to vote against the nominated candidates in practice it is very rare that a candidate nominated to the Nordic Council then fails to win their seat. The competitive democratic process thus occurs well before the actual elections, in the process of selecting candidates for nomination. Registered members of the Nordic Socialist Party collectively decide, through a fairly convoluted primary election system, on the candidates directly nominated by the Nordic Socialist Party while the members nominated by the trade unions and professional associations are chosen by the elected leaders of those organisations.

While this may seem like a minor quirk, the fact that the actual democratic competition occurs during the primary process is extremely important for the roughly 2% of adult citizens who theoretically have equal political rights but are not registered members of the Nordic Socialist Party nor members in a trade union and thus have very little actual influence in the electoral process. The registration process into these organisations is nearly automatic for populations that are well integrated into broader Nordic society, so this has often been criticised as a form of discrimination against cultural minorities.

Aside from the Nordic Socialist Party, specially enshrined in the 1872 Constitution as the central vehicle for the expression of the democratic will of the Nordic populace, the 1892 revision of the Nordic Constitution also grants constitutional protection to a handful of special interest organisations. These are the Junior Division of the Nordic Socialist Party, representing Nordic citizens aged 12 to 17, the Sami Council, representing the Sami minority of northern Fennoscandia, and the Overseas Citizens’ Council, representing Nordic citizens who do not reside in Norden. Each of them may nominate two observing members to the Nordic Council with voice but no vote in Council debates.

The Nordic Constitution of 1872, following in the tradition of the Constitution of 1848 and the Constitution of 1793, also guarantees to the Nordic population a wide array of democratic rights. It includes the usual right to conscience, expression, and association, the right to education, the freedom from arbitrary arrest or punishment, the right to a fair trial, the prohibition of slavery, the freedom of movement, et cetera. Unusually, the Constitution of 1848 also guaranteed public access to government documents and defined the right to life as prohibiting capital punishment, provisions which have been carried over to the Constitution of 1872. The Nordic Constitution of 1872 further expands on the rights already defined in 1848 by including the right to healthcare and a healthy environment, the right to work and subsistence, and protections for the dignity of children. By and large the rights and freedoms laid out in the Constitution have been respected by Nordic society and government, although there have been the occasional scandal and creative interpretation over the years.

The Nordic regime is, furthermore, very open to populist movements. Since sovereignty is, constitutionally, not held by the government but instead invested in the Nordic Council by the citizenry of the Commonwealth, the natural and inherent right of that citizenry to override the decisions of the government is guaranteed. Any popular initiative that receives signatures from 50,000 adult citizens in good standing must be put to a popular referendum and the Nordic Council must implement any initiative that earns the approval of the majority in these referendums as law. Because of the highly corporatist nature of Nordic society, with a population well organised into interest groups ranging from the highly political, such as trade unions, to the highly mundane, such as sports clubs and pub communities, this is a well-established procedure in the Nordic political process and there are almost always several initiatives on referendum every year.

This corporatist nature extends to the administrative apparatus of the country itself, with the Nordic Council having passed legislation that established a wide array of state-owned enterprises funded by not managed by the central government in Copenhagen to oversee the provision of state services.

Norden is also the leading state in the Socialist International, the membership to which consists of Norden and her former colonies that were transformed into Socialist Council Republics of their own in the 1870s. While the Socialist International maintains that all of its member states are fully independent, in practice the Socialist International represents the continuation of the former Scandinavian colonial empire, with Norden controlling the entire bloc’s shared foreign and defence policies as well as enforcing a socialist form of government and economic organisation among its members. In recent years, increasing tensions between Norden and the more independent-minded member states of the Socialist International has been a subject of considerable concern.

Economy

“I have seen the future in the manufactories of Bergslagen, so I am entirely confident that my defeat provides the crowns of Europe with merely a temporary reprieve from the cause of liberty. Industrial mass production means the homogenising organisation of skilled and educated men and is therefore fatal to all forms of despotic and autocratic power. A regiment doing the same work on identical machines demands a different kind of social order than a journeyman and his apprentice.”
- Jens Rasmussen, in his memoir published January 1821

Economic System/Ideology

In terms of structure the Nordic economy is a decentralised socialist economy composed of an eclectic mix of workers’ cooperatives, state-owned enterprises, and communes, all embedded in a framework that is still broadly market-based. In the cities and the towns, infrastructural projects like harbours and electricity, foundational industries like steel, and essential services like education are dominated by state-owned enterprises that prioritise reliability and access over profitability concerns, running at a loss that is made up for by public resources. Most industries are owned and controlled by the labour union to whom their workforce belongs and these workers’ cooperatives are the most common form of industrial organisation in the Nordic economy. The services, on the other hand, are dominated by a large number of small independent enterprises, each owned by the professional who works in them but largely managed by professional associations that regulate each speciality. In the countryside, however, the absolute majority of economic enterprises are communes. While agricultural workers are also organised into labour unions, these labour unions neither own nor control the country’s agricultural industries. Rather, the farms and pastures of each small town or village are directly and autonomously owned and managed by the people in that town or village.

The Commonwealth is a pioneer in the field of labour rights and industrial regulations. Work hours for nonessential occupations had been capped at 48 hours per week since 1872, then reduced to 40 hours in 1889. It also has stringent regulations protecting the safety of both workers and consumers, as well as a fairly sophisticated regime of environmental and pollution controls to preserve the habitability of the population’s living spaces. Consequently, its industrial productivity is choked by all of these regulations and Norden has middling, perhaps even slightly below-average per-capita incomes by Western European standards despite being one of the more heavily industrialised countries on the continent. On the other hand, those same labour rights and stringent regulations mean that what income the country does have is distributed relatively evenly, albeit with considerable rural poverty that a quarter century of policies aimed at reducing the urban-rural economic divide has failed to fix.

Major Production

Norden’s large and sparsely-populated territory means that the country is unusually heavily dependent on natural resource exports for a country at its standard of industrialisation and technological development. It exports meat and leather from Jutland and Scania, timber from the Fennoscandian forests, iron, copper, lead, nickel, chromium, and other industrial metals from Bergslagen and the Sami Territories, and sulphur from northeastern Finland. The country notably lacks sizable sources of energy, however, and Norden imports vast amounts of coal from the Rhine Region and Upper Silesia as well as some petroleum from the United States.

In addition, the strength of its academic and research institutions combined with an pluralistic political system receptive to urban concerns has also advantaged the country in developing a strong manufacturing sector, especially in heavy industries. These industries are often positioned to take advantage of the country’s abundance of natural resources, with woodworking industries in Finland and Northern Sweden, to minimise transportation costs from the forests of the region, steel and motors around Stockholm to take advantage of Sweden’s iron deposits, food processing and preservation next to Norden’s most productive farmlands in Denmark, chemical processing in Norway close to the mineral resources of the Scandesryggen, et cetera.

Economic Description

Norden’s industrialisation began very early, arguably as early as the late 18th Century, but progressed relatively slowly throughout the political upheavals of the 19th Century, leaving the country well but not exceptionally well developed by European standards in 1900. The combination of the Commonwealth’s relative diplomatic isolation in the 1870s and early 1880s followed by the normalisation of the country’s relationships with its neighbours later in the 1880s has left Norden with a heavily industrialised and highly diversified economy, albeit on quite dependent on natural resource exports, that is being increasingly integrated into the Central European economic sphere. Norden maintains a market-socialist economic structure and is struggling, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep the economies of her allies aligned with her own.

Norden’s dependence on foreign energy imports has been identified as a serious national security threat, especially given the deterioration of Nordic-American relations in the past quarter century. Consequently, in recent years the Commonwealth government had attempted to achieve a measure of energy independence by investing in electrification by taking advantage of Scandinavia’s significant hydropower potential as well as developing oil fields in Canada and Helluland to secure a more reliable energy supply. Both efforts have been met with significant success, but full energy independence is still a very long way off, if it is possible at all.

While the incompatibility of Norden’s socialist economic system with the capitalist systems of its neighbours mean that the country is neither a significant provider nor significant recipient of foreign investments, it is nonetheless heavily integrated into the Central European economic sphere and Norden both exports to and imports from this market a diverse array of manufactured products.

Except in the most densely populated regions of Sweden and Finland, Norden’s railroad network is surprisingly underdeveloped. Neither the Danish islands, separated by the sea, nor Norway’s mountainous terrain is easy to build ground-based transportation infrastructure on, and Norden’s large territory means that large lengths of rail are required to connect her cities. Instead, Norden takes advantage of its population being concentrated on the coast with strong maritime traditions and well-developed harbour infrastructure to connect its industrial centres to each other and to the world. She also has one of the most sophisticated networks of passenger airships found anywhere in Europe. This, unfortunately, has the effect of bifurcating Norden’s passenger transportation system into the cheap but slow seafaring option and the fast but much more expensive air option. An underdeveloped rail network also means that inland bulk cargo transportation is quite cumbersome, something that the Swedes especially are quite unhappy about.

The Nordic economy still has strong ties with the economies of her former colonies SR Asanteman and SR Vestindien, with Norden playing a mercantilist role in importing various natural resources, notably coffee, rubber, natural dyes, cotton, and sugar, from them and exporting manufactured produce to them.

Norden’s economic ties with her allies on the North American mainland, on the other hand, are much more tenuous. Much as the Nordic economy has drifted into the Central European sphere, whereas the economies of the North American SRs have to a large extent been drawn in by the sheer economic gravity of the United States and her vast industrial productivity. SR Canada, SR Leifsbugten, and SR Cascadenland, especially, have been heavily integrated into the American market. In recent years Norden has made an effort to realign the economies of her allies in the Socialist International back towards herself, largely without success.

Military

“From now until the day when the enemies of liberty are expunged from the Republic’s sacred soil, all Scandinavians are permanently conscripted for service in the Army. The young men shall fight, the married men shall craft arms and organise the supply trains, the women shall sew uniforms and nurse wounds, the children shall solicit donations for the war chest, and the old men shall take their voices to the streets to inspire bravery in our soldiers and denounce the evils of crown and church.”
- Declaration of National Mobilisation, 16th August 1793

Army Description

The Red Army practises universal conscription of all able-bodied men, who must serve one year in training and active service at the age of 18-19, spend five more years in the army reserve with annual refresher trainings, and are then assigned to the paramilitary Home Guards where they will serve until the age of 40. The Red Army, an unusually large force for a country of its stature, has a paper strength of 600,000 personnel. This is organised into 60 divisions of 10,000 nominal strength apiece. Each division is largely independent with their own logistical and command structure, which makes the Red Army incredibly resilient to disruption or disorganisation but also makes it relatively inflexible outside of its established doctrine. The number of men eligible for military service under Norden’s heavy conscription regime somewhat exceeds this number (and the 21,000 personnel demanded by the Red Navy), with the surplus being reassigned to public works or being discharged in educational and cultural deferments. To this, the Home Guards add somewhat shy of 1.2 million reservists.

Total Defence, the primary military doctrine of the Red Army, had been shaped over the past 30 years to respond to the perhaps unique defensive situation that the nascent Commonwealth found itself in during the 1870s. It is a doctrine very unlike those endorsed by the great military powers of Europe, in that it de-emphasises the traditional Clausewitzian focus on territorial control dismantling the enemy’s ability to continue making war and thereby achieving victory. Total Defence, rather, focuses on achieving victory by inflicting costs on the enemy and denying them a quick victory, in order to exhaust the will of the enemy to continue waging war. It seeks to do this by accelerating the decay of the enemy’s offensive force through the natural friction of war and then by ensuring that adversaries cannot translate their military success and territorial control into the achievement of their political aims, which is envisioned as the conquest or subjugation of some large part of Norden’s population.

The doctrine envisions the relatively weaker Red Army making a fighting retreat away from the border as the superior force of the adversary invades Nordic territory. This creates a space, between the front and the border, which is inhabited by a friendly population (because they are Nordic citizens) and in which the invaders could not have made any logistical preparations (because the invaders would not control the space until after the war has already begun). In this space, Total Defence demands that two kinds of unconventional warfare be executed.

The first kind of new warfare envisioned by Total Defence is resistive warfare. Total Defence defines resistive warfare as the struggle, not just military but also paramilitary and political, conducted by irregular forces, including civilians, in an occupied region against their armed occupiers. The objective of resistive warfare is to create a kind of defensive force that invading adversaries cannot use their advantage in indirect firepower to destroy and to prevent the acquiescence of the local population to subjugation by rendering the enemy unable to politically de-mobilise the population. It is also hoped that resistive warfare will demoralise the enemy by denying them a secure rear from which they can recover and organise.

This may include sabotage of key production facilities and infrastructural centres that facilitate enemy offensives or their war effort, strikes and work-to-rule protests to prevent the effective use of what cannot be so destroyed, the formation of underground administrations and institutions to continue to the provision of state services and economic activity in occupied population centres, the transfer of actionable intelligence on the enemy from within the occupied regions to the Red Army, as well as terroristic violence against support and administrative personnel introduced by the enemy.

One of the functions of the Home Guards is to have all of these measures prepared ahead of time and be well versed in the doctrine of how they are intended to function, so that in the case of invasion Norden will be able to conduct resistive warfare in a systematic, coordinated manner instead of as a mob of civilians lashing out against the enemy. Total Defence also believes that Norden is advantaged in this kind of warfare by its social structure, which is centred around the self-organisation of its population into various interest groups such as sports or hobby groups, activist organisations, trade unions, and enthusiast associations in the arts, culture, and craftsmanship, which have in the past been politically mobilised in response to natural disasters and may be similarly mobilised in times of war.

The second kind of new warfare under the Red Army’s doctrine is asymmetric warfare. Total Defence defines asymmetric warfare as fighting under conditions of local superiority and avoiding battles that are evenly matched or favours the adversary. In order for this to be possible the Red Army and the Home Guards must have a greater freedom to position troops than the adversary has. In the initial phase of invasion, the purpose of asymmetric warfare is to inflict unpredictable chaos on the enemy and thereby prevent the enemy from executing whatever well-organised plan for the invasion of Norden they are trying to follow. Across the broader length of the war, it is to create engagements with favourable casualty ratios to ensure an advantage in attrition rates. The necessity of creating this greater freedom of positioning dictates several elements of how the Red Army and the Home Guards are organised and armed.

The Home Guards are the local reservist branch of the Nordic armed forces, whose primary duty is to garrison their home city or province, conduct asymmetric warfare should the enemy reach that home, and, when that home comes under full enemy occupation, to continue asymmetric warfare if possible and resistive warfare if not. Not only does the intimate familiarity of a region of the kind that only a local can have allow the Nordic armed forces to take efficient advantage of terrain and the layout of local infrastructure, but the command structure in the Home Guards is even more devolved than in the already quite decentralised Red Army, making this force extremely adaptive to changing circumstances.

A logistics system developed in tight cooperation with local authorities allows Norden to maintain force densities in harsh terrain or climate, especially in its own territory, that other powers cannot match. This is further accentuated with an Army Air Corps of light airships whose primary function is not aerial combat, but the transportation and supply of troops as well as raiding the enemy to prevent the transportation or supply of the enemy’s troops. Furthermore, both the Red Army and the Home Guards are equipped with logistics in mind, to minimise the quantity of supplies that they need to function and maximise the length of time that they can function without it.

The lack of a diversity of supporting arms means that the mission profile for Nordic infantrymen is significantly wider than the mission profiles of their counterparts in other countries, which accounts for the relatively high number of specialists and the quality of their equipment. The Jørgensen-Stauning line of heavy battle rifles are considered some of the finest in the world and the average Nordic infantryman is well trained in the use of survival equipment that is issued as part of the standard Red Army infantry pack. Meanwhile, the Scania-Bofors “Archer” tankette is a highly mobile, highly modular (and therefore adaptable), but not particularly powerful or well-armoured one-size-fits-none solution to all of the Red Army’s field artillery, anti-armour, anti-airship, and occasionally coastal defence needs.

Because the Red Army is trained, armed, equipped, and prepared to exacerbate the natural difficulties that its adversaries will face in any offensive campaign into Nordic territory, it performs extremely poorly against enemies that suffer little from such natural difficulties. Specifically, the Red Army will likely find it difficult to cope with its inferiority in indirect fires in infrastructure-dense fronts, permissive terrain that allows easy movement, areas without friendly populations, or regions where its knowledge of the local geography is rudimentary.

Of course, campaigns where Norden is on the offensive into the homelands of its enemies is likely to be all of these things, which is why Total Defence is explicitly framed as a doctrine of territorial defence and it is generally understood that the Red Army is anaemic on the attack. Several of these factors also apply to South Jutland, Norden’s border territory facing Central Europe, which is one of the many reasons why Nordic foreign policy is so keen on the development of cordial relations with Central European states.

Naval Description

The Nordic disadvantage in demographic and industrial power compared to its main adversaries is even more pronounced out at sea where, unlike the Red Army which enjoys the cover of rough terrain and the support of friendly populations, the Red Navy must face the enemy in the open. Pressures by the Nordic academia to put their so-called ‘innovative ideas’ into practice as well as the necessity of competing with the great powers on the resources of a secondary power induced the Red Navy to develop not just its doctrine, but also its armaments in a radically new direction.

The broad principles of Nordic naval combat remain the same as for ground combat: find ways to threaten the adversary’s costly and heavy assets with much cheaper and lighter countermeasures and, whenever possible, draw fighting towards locations where adversaries have difficulty operating. The Red Navy is built with Norden’s long and vulnerable coastlines in mind; considering the impossibility of seizing control of the sea from adversaries that can afford to spend both more manpower and more resources to a high seas fleet, it seeks to protect Norden against amphibious invasion and shore bombardment by denying the use of the sea to everyone by making it dangerous for the adversary to operate in it. While Norden’s dependence on maritime trade and supply routes and the inability of the Red Navy as it currently exists is a concern, the dominant opinion is that the resources to adapt the Red Navy towards their protection and still achieve its other aims simply do not exist.

Most notably, after 1880 and certainly after 1885 the Red Navy practically abandoned progress in gunnery-based armoured battleships, favouring naval warfare centred around mines and torpedoes, launched by either lighter and faster ships that can outmanoeuvre the enemy or by submarines protected from conventional gunnery armaments, both defended by a light battle line of coastal defence ships specialised for shallow draft coastal seas.

Consequently the Red Navy, large for a country of Norden’s stature even if still smaller than the navies of its adversaries, is very light in what other navies would consider capital ships and what few exist are all ageing, technologically obsolete craft. Its 21,000 personnel man a fleet of 4 outdated battleships from the 1860s and 1870s, 24 coastal defence ships relying on a mixture of minelaying and gunnery, 99 light ships relying mostly on torpedoes, and 130 submarines split roughly evenly between minelaying and torpedo submarines.

Air Force Description

Norden does not have an independent air force and does not have doctrines of strategic air power. Instead, both the Red Army and the Red Navy have attached Air Corps. In neither case is much air-to-air combat envisioned and in both cases these attached air units exist to serve a purely supportive role for ground and naval combat. The Red Army Air Corps contains mostly fast-moving light airships for reconnaissance and deep raiding purposes alongside somewhat heavier transport craft for logistical support and the transportation of special forces. The Red Navy Air Corps, even smaller than its army counterpart, consists solely of scout craft for reconnaissance purposes.

Further Military Description

Although Nordic foreign policy for the past twenty or twenty-five years have been aimed at the maintenance of peace between Norden and her neighbours, its internal politics as a revolutionary socialist state is inherently suspicious to the less progressive regimes of Europe and the country considers it important to be able to defend itself against its neighbours. All of these neighbours have larger populations and thus larger industrial capabilities than Norden does, which is a significant disadvantage in an era where new advances in technology has made warfare fantastically expensive. Strategically, operationally, and tactically, the Red Army is built around the assumption that it is pointless to compete with the great powers on big, expensive prestige armaments and around the necessity of dealing with the dramatic disadvantage in indirect firepower that the Red Army is placed in by its reluctance to spend resources on such armaments.

The Red Army, the ground forces of the Commonwealth, responds to this challenge by the mass mobilisation of Norden’s population and by pioneering innovative theories of asymmetric warfare and civil resistance. It seeks to leverage the harsh terrain and climate of Nordic territory and the determination of a politically mobilised population to compensate for its disadvantage in indirect fires. Consequently, compared to its potential adversaries the distinction between combatant and civilian is very weak in Nordic society and the basis for the organisation of the Red Army remains the principle that all members of a free society have an obligation to act in the defence of their collective liberties.

The Nordic public education system also instructs young women in first aid, fabric crafting, and other such useful wartime activities. While women do not serve in the Nordic armed forces, in times of emergencies unmarried women of between 18 and 24 years of age are nonetheless eligible for conscription in these non-military wartime duties.

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[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

Commonwealth of Northern Socialist Council Republics
Nordiske Socialistiske Rådsrepublikkenes Samveldet

History and Aspirations

“The world is changing, my compatriots, changing so rapidly that old men can scarcely recognise the home of their youth! Steam in the airship that ply Norden’s skies, steam in the clockwork factories that produce her wealth, steam in the seafaring vessels that tie the country together, steam, steam everywhere! The great works of literature, of philosophy, and of classics, if they were written before the age of steam then they are fit only to feed a fire, yes, my compatriots, to feed a fire!”
- Stanisław Havel, upon his dismissal from Lund University in June 1894

National Goals

Norden possesses a robust academia that produces, among other things, incredibly optimistic visions of progress. Her philosophers and social scientists dream of radical redefinitions of morality and forms of social, economic, and political organisation that had never been seen before to push forwards the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity to their logical extremes. Her military scientists, thoroughly detached from the old realities of war by half a century of peace, dream of new doctrines, new systems of armaments, and new ways of using the latter for the former that range from brilliant to unhinged. Her natural scientists and engineers, in the meantime, sit in the planning offices of state-owned enterprises dreaming of majestic factories towering towards the skies. The primary political objective of the Commonwealth government is to balance the idealism of these academics, progressing Norden forwards towards the bright socialist utopia that it believes to be its destiny, with the cynicism and world-weariness of their own political careers, ensuring that the country that they had worked so hard to build does not fall apart in the process of getting there.

National Issues

As a revolutionary state in a continent dominated by conservative monarchies, Norden is seen as an ideological threat to the more established regimes of its neighbours and her foreign affairs are consequently rather brittle. In particular, with rising tensions between the United States and the Commonwealth in recent years, the Commonwealth government’s largest foreign policy objective is to defend the territories of North American SRs in the Socialist International and its ability to conduct maritime trade through the North Atlantic Ocean from American hostility. Amity and peace with her European neighbours is important to that end. Therefore, perhaps surprisingly given its obsession with all forms of progress, Norden also maintains a fairly conservative and reactive foreign policy. The objective of Nordic engagement with the world, as the Commonwealth government sees it, is to advance Nordic domestic politics by securing for the country the security and prosperity that its futurist utopia requires. There is no room for military adventurism or wars of aggression within that framework.

Of course, far away from the innovative thinkers of Norden, the less technologically advanced, more grounded-with-reality governments of the other members in the Socialist International have different visions of the future. The discord, not just in social ideals but also in pragmatic interests, between Norden and her allies in the Socialist International poses another serious foreign policy challenge that Norden will have to overcome in order to prosper.

Asanteman

The primary issue which concerns the government of Asanteman is the disparity between the Scandinavian colonial population, well organised through the Socialist Party of Asanteman, and the West African natives who form the vast majority of the population but whose interests are often marginalised in both politics and the economy. The highly cynical and deeply authoritarian Socialist Party of Asanteman spends much of its time defending their exploitation and repression of the native population from the occasional passing interest that the much more idealistic and liberal Nordic press and intelligentsia show in the colony.

Canada

The most populous SR in North America is also the SR with the greatest dependence on the American market as well as the best diplomatic relations with the United States. Much of Canadian politics, and thus much of the political initiative of its government, is aimed at resolving the tension between its domestic policy, where there is considerable fear that the creeping influence of American capitalism would reduce the liberated working class of the SR back into servitude, and its foreign policy, where Canada’s identity as a North American polity first and foremost influences the SR to see the United States as its ally and protector against European, and especially Nordic, influence.

Leifsbugten

As the SR that was the most successful at resisting Nordic interference in their internal politics in those chaotic years immediately following the 1871 Revolution, Leifsbugten runs a mixed economy dominated by its private sector rather than its state-owned enterprises, of which there are just a few in critical industries, or its workers’ cooperatives, of which there are almost none. Consequently, Bay politics lean heavily anti-Nordic. It is looking for a way to free itself from Copenhagen and renounce its socialist form of government without arousing the ire of its neighbours, especially SR Canada through whose waterways much of the Bay’s trade with the United States flows.

Vinland

Covering the territories of what were once Scandinavia’s oldest colonies in the New World, many of the inhabitants of SR Vinland can trace their ancestry back to colonists arriving in North America in the 1700s or the 1600s. Consequently, Vinland is the SR with the most developed sense of national identity in the Socialist International - not Nordic, not North American, not even socialist, but Vinlander. Domestically, Vinland is theoretically organised as a market-socialist economy not dissimilar from Norden herself, but in reality much of her former colonial institutions survive. In terms of foreign policy, Vinland seeks to play the rival powers of the United States and Norden off of each other to secure true independence for itself, under the influence of neither power.

Helluland

With a population composed mostly of socialist-leaning, ideologically-motivated Continental European immigrants who migrated to Helluland to escape from political oppression at home and live free in a socialist state, Helluland is the SR that is the most fanatically devoted to the preservation of the Socialist International and the maintenance of Nordic influence over North America. Internally, Helluland pursues a radical form of libertarian socialism that verges on outright anarchy and its government is busy dissolving itself into a network of cooperatives and syndicates.

Markland

With a small population that is tightly integrated into Norden’s economic, social, and cultural influence, Norden’s political issues are Markland’s political issues and the small SR has very little in the way of independent politics to speak of.

Cascadenland

Much like Helluland, SR Cascadenland has a population that is mostly composed of ideologically-motivated immigrants from Continental Europe and their descendants and therefore also has internal political ambitions that border on the anarchic. Unlike Helluland, however, Norden’s economic and cultural influence is light on this side of the Rocky Mountains and the SR’s reliance on the American economy for trade and investment is only second to that of SR Canada. Consequently, Cascadenland’s foreign policy over the past decade has consisted mostly of desperately trying, in vain, to repair the deteriorating relationship between the United States and the Commonwealth.

Vestindien

SR Vestindien’s population is dominated by dark-skinned plantation workers who were given ownership of the plantations on which they worked in the years following the 1871 Revolution. Unlike Asanteman, where a tiny minority of Scandinavian colonials rule over the natives, SR Vestindien is a democracy in reality as well as on paper and it is Vestindien’s black majority that actually controls the government of this SR. Being more heavily integrated into the Afro-Caribbean and the South American cultural spheres than the Nordic or even European one, the population of Vestindien is broadly content and has little interest in broader world affairs, with a foreign policy aimed mostly at soliciting more investments from wealthier SRs in the Socialist International.

History

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their conditions is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of the vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”
- Karl Marx, The Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843

Age of Feudal Barbarism

Despite having a legendary history going back to the 4th or 5th Century, formal written history in Northern Europe begins with Christianisation in the 10th and 11th Centuries, during which the region rapidly consolidated into the three Kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The Northern Crusades, which saw Finland being brought under Swedish control and German influence extending over much of the southern Baltic coast, also resulted in the increasing influence of German merchants in the North Sea and Baltic commercial spheres that Scandinavia had traditionally dominated. A series of strategic marriages aimed at creating a unified Scandinavian front against this German influence culminated in the formation of a personal union, known as the Kalmar Union, between the three Scandinavian Kingdoms in the 14th Century.

The 16th Century saw the Kalmar Union transition into the Early Modern Era, with the Protestant Reformation spreading across the country and failed peasant revolts under heightened royal power breaking down the traditional four-estates system of Christian Scandinavian governance. Mass literacy brought about by religious education and the consolidation of political power in Copenhagen at the cost of Swedish and Norwegian nobility saw the Kalmar state become heavily centralised and highly efficient in comparison with its neighbours, instituting a provincial reservist system in the early 1600s and conducting the world’s first modern national census in 1749. Consequently the Kalmar Union was able to mobilise state resources comparable to the other European great powers and became the dominant power of the Baltic region despite its small population and relative poverty. Its armies played a large role during the wars of religion of the 1600s and dominated the battlefields of Eastern Europe with its innovative shock infantry tactics even in an era where battles were increasingly decided by firepower, while its fleets planted its flag on colonies and trade outposts from North America to China.

The First Scandinavian Revolution of 1789

A highly efficient state in the 18th Century, however, meant privation and humiliation for the peasantry and citizenry, with the Kalmar state extracting taxation, forced labour, and conscripts with brutal inhumanity. The same robust educational system that made the efficiency of the Kalmar state possible also allowed the lower orders of Scandinavian society to self-organise and be politically active. The later decades of the 1700s was defined by the increasing conflict between these two things, as the educated men of Copenhagen University debating increasingly radical philosophies even as blood flowed in the streets of the mediaeval city with increasingly depressing regularity.

The crisis came to a head on the 14th of July 1789, when King Christian VII Oldenburg of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway ordered the arrest of the Reform Club of Copenhagen University on charges of sedition, severely overestimating his own authority. The regiment ordered to perform the arrests instead stormed Trekroner Fortress alongside the students of the university, seizing its cannons and demanding constitutional limits on the monarch’s power. The king and his loyalists responded with force, plunging the realm into civil war. Taking advantage of deep anti-royalist resentment in Scandinavian society and having turned much of the army to its side, despite the king calling for intervention from his foreign allies, the self-proclaimed Radical forces captured the king and emerged victorious in the civil war by the autumn of 1791. While the Radicals were initially divided on how the new regime ought to be structured, it was found that even after the end of the war the king was continuing to invite foreign intervention. The Committee of Public Security, in a twist of irony, found the king guilty of sedition and executed both him and Queen Caroline on the 21st of September 1792, founding the Scandinavian Republic.

The next two decades was characterised by a series of wars between the new Scandinavian Republic and varying coalitions of European great powers, with the Republic first desperately defending itself as the monarchies of Continental Europe sought to put an end to the revolutionary ideas spreading out from Copenhagen, and then, under the leadership of the legendary general Jens Rasmussen, trying to reform Continental Europe to its vision of a Scandinavia-led republican European order. While the Scandinavian Republic achieved some significant early victories, two decades of constantly ongoing war thoroughly exhausted both the will and the resources of the small Scandinavian population and with Russian troops landing in Stockholm in 1814 the Scandinavian government tendered its unconditional surrender. These wars came to be known as the Scandinavian Revolutionary Wars.

The terms of peace were harsh. The Scandinavian Republic was put to an end and the country was dissolved into its constituent parts, with foreign puppet monarchs being installed in each. The reformed kingdoms had to cede all of their territories on the southern Baltic coast, something which was especially harsh on Sweden which saw itself lose its Pomeranian gateway to Central Europe, the large trade entrepot in Riga, the mouth of the Neva River, and others. The Scandinavian East Indies Company was to be disbanded, with all Scandinavian holdings in East Africa and Asia ceded to the Coalition powers. The successor kingdoms were also to shoulder significant war reparation payments, with Coalition troops occupying their internal fortifications until the reparations could be paid.

It seemed the flames of revolution were doused… for now.

The Second Scandinavian Revolution of 1821

The humiliation inflicted upon the Scandinavian people by the terms of the 1814 settlement as well as incompetent and autocratic governance by the new royal houses of the Scandinavian kingdoms outraged burghers and peasantry alike. The peace established in 1814 did not even last a decade before the banners of revolution were raised over Scandinavia’s great cities again, led by the increasingly nationalistic intelligentsia of Scandinavia’s many universities and aided by populists demanding liberalisation.

Unfortunately, the results of putting hastily-armed student battalions against regular troops reinforced by Coalition garrisons was depressingly predictable and the Second Scandinavian Revolution of 1821 was crushed in the streets of Copenhagen in less than two weeks, leading to a bloodbath as the insecure monarchies of the Scandinavian kingdoms attempted to eradicate the source of the ongoing unrest from Scandinavian society in repression that was brutal, but ultimately ineffective.

The Third Scandinavian Revolution of 1848

The Scandinavian kingdoms continued to simmer under a revolutionary atmosphere in the 1830s and 1840s. The inhumane crackdowns after the failed 1821 Revolution pushed even the region’s moderates into the republican and Scandinavian re-unification movements, while the three Scandinavian kingdoms, although forced to be divided by the Peace of 1814, remained closely tied to each other economically, formed a shared cultural space based on the shared Scandinavian language, and continued to see themselves as one people, something which the end of the occupation in 1836 failed to calm down.

All of this underlying tension exploded in 1848, when ongoing economic difficulties caused by repeated crop failures spread another revolutionary wave across Europe in an event known as the Springtime of Nations. The social issues caused by urbanisation and nascent industrialisation that Scandinavia was undergoing at the time exacerbated the unrest.

The armies of the Scandinavian kingdoms, mostly drawn from rural populations that were in this time period increasingly organised into farmer’s associations with particularist and sometimes even anarchist leanings, was even less loyal to their respective monarchs than the Scandinavian Army of 1789 was to Christian VII. A broad coalition of trade unions, the petite bourgeoisie, farmer’s associations, and the regular armies of the Scandinavian kingdoms successfully seized the governments of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in short coups without protracted civil wars, with the monarchies’ foreign allies too distracted with suppressing revolt at home.

King Frederik VII Oldenburg of Denmark survived in no small part by immediately responding to a mob growing in Copenhagen by signing a democratic constitution into effect on the 21st of March 1848, accepting a nonpolitical role for the monarchy, an empowered legislature elected through universal adult male suffrage, and a broad range of guaranteed rights for the people. The Swedish and Norwegian monarchies, being foreign puppets with less domestic support and less flexible politics than the Danish monarchy, were overthrown in April. The Norwegian royal house was driven to exile in Britain while King Alexander Menshikov of Sweden was executed by the Stockholm mob. Both the Swedish and Norwegian revolutionaries would nominate Frederik VII of Denmark as the monarch for their respective countries under the same constitution which he signed into effect on the 21st of March, creating the Federal Kingdom of Scandinavia.

This new Federal Kingdom delivered rapid social and economic progress as Scandinavia’s liberal society and its long tradition of scholarship and academic excellence drew progressive thinkers from across Europe into its universities and the country’s growing integration into the global economy saw Scandinavia transform into a modern industrial economy. Yet, it was also this progress that increasingly split apart the revolutionary coalition that brought about the success of 1848 as political discourse in Scandinavia became increasingly dominated by economic rather than political issues.

The Fourth Scandinavian Revolution of 1871

Rapid industrialisation created a large industrial working class in Scandinavian society and the communist movement grew rapidly throughout the 1850s and 1860s on this fertile ground, offering a hard-left alternative to the traditional right-liberal/social-liberal divide of Scandinavian politics. After the 1871 elections, when the radical socialist parties of Scandinavia made an excellent showing, the Chartist Party, the largest political party on the centre-left of Scandinavian politics, declared that it would not seek a renewal of its coalition with its usual centrist partners and would instead seek to form a new government with the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the Communist Party, and the Black-Green Party. This terrified the traditional right of Scandinavian politics, which in trying to break up this coalition ended up causing the very revolution which they were terrified of.

Since 1848, it was customary for the reigning monarch to request that the party which won the election form a government. Despite the fact that the four parties in the left coalition collectively won 129 of the 201 seats in the Scandinavian Parliament of 1872, King Christian IX declared on the 18th of March that the Right-Thinking Electoral League have won the election on the grounds that it would be the largest single party in the upcoming Parliament and asked its leader, staunch conservative Arvid Posse, to form a government, to which he agreed and began to put together a minority coalition.

This began a series of escalating incidents between the political left and the political right, with the left agitating in response to what they saw as the king violating the Constitution of 1848 that held the monarch to an essentially nonpolitical role and the right responding in force to what they saw as a leftist attempt to overturn the results of established and legitimate electoral procedures by mob violence. Fearing the escalating violence as heated words turned to harassment then to a mutual campaign of armed intimidation, the outgoing liberal-conservative government requested three army regiments from the barracks at Helsingør to Copenhagen on the 26th of May to restore order and ensure an orderly transition of power. These orders, however, were intercepted by telegram operators loyal to the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which mistook the order as the sitting government’s attempt to crush the socialist movement by armed force and responded by mobilising its workingmen’s militias to the defence of the city. After several hours of confused fighting in the dark on the night of the 27th-28th of May, the requested regiments arrived at Copenhagen to find the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Communists already in control of all the capital’s civic spaces. By 9 o’clock in the morning of the 28th, the Communists forcibly obtained Christian IX’s consent to form a new government under the Socialist Revolutionaries and extracted from him an abdication.

Fearing the re-establishment of a revolutionary government in Norden and believing that the political situation in Copenhagen was likely to remain fluid until the 1872 Parliament took their seats, both the Central Empire and Russia committed to an armed intervention in Norden to re-establish the monarchy and restore Arvid Posse as the leader of the incoming 1872 government. The intervention began on the 19th of September 1871, with the Central Empire catching the border guards by surprise and achieving their first-day objectives of forcing the Eider River, whereas the Russians, facing more organised defences, struggled.

Contrary to the expectations of the intervening powers, both the generals and the rank-and-file of the Scandinavian Army proved willing to defend the country from foreign actors regardless of their opinions on the events going on in Copenhagen. The leftist coalition seized the opportunity to help consolidate their control of Norden outside Copenhagen by propagandising the intervention by drawing parallels with the foreign interventions of 1789. Despite the coalition making significant progress in military terms, seizing Kolding and Viipuri Fortress in October, as more and more Scandinavian forces were mobilised in response to the intervention it rapidly became clear that the ongoing political unrest had not diminished Scandinavia’s ability to defend itself. Assessing that achieving regime change by armed force would require more substantive forces than they were willing to commit at the time, the intervening powers began negotiations with the leftist coalition. By late November an armistice was in effect on most sectors of the contested fronts and a peace treaty was signed on the 28th of January 1872, with the intervening powers acknowledging the legitimacy of the incoming 1872 Parliament in exchange for the leftist coalition in Copenhagen reaffirming the territorial concessions made in 1814 and pledging that it would not support socialist activity abroad.

With many liberals and conservative members of the Parliament of 1872 fearing for their safety in so-called “Red Copenhagen” and refusing to come to the capital to attend sessions of parliament, the leftist coalition was easily able to secure a comfortable supermajority among the members actually present. The violent tensions of the preceding months sidelined the largely moderate Chartists in favour of empowering the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Communists whose militias did most of the fighting, and the new coalition government would spend much of 1872 putting together a new, socialist constitution, establishing the modern Commonwealth of Nordic Socialist Council Republics.

Such a drastic change, however, antagonised Scandinavia’s colonies in the New World and West Africa and it is the response of the new socialist government to these complaints that continue to shape Norden’s relationship with these outlying territories. Complaints from Vestindien, being the smallest and weakest of the Scandinavian colonies, was simply crushed with military force as the newly-organised Red Army forcibly collectivised the colony’s agricultural sector and arrested all of its landlords, to the celebration of its repressed, predominantly black workforce. The local elite in Scandinavian West Africa, reorganised into SR Asanteman, was reassured by guaranteeing them comfortable positions in the new socialist order and a reaffirmation of their authority over the natives if only they would at least pretend to be good socialists. The North American colonies, meanwhile, were placated by being awarded actual self-government and a devolution of powers to go along with their nominal independence.

A Socialist Commonwealth

Internally, the 1870s were characterised by sweeping economic and social reforms as the new coalition government shaped Norden to its vision. The 1872 Constitution reformed Norden into a single-party state, with no other political organisation outside of the newly-formed Nordic Socialist Party permitted to contest elections, and left the government wide open to populist engagement by greatly strengthening the reach and power of public ballot initiatives. Both industry and agriculture saw sweeping nationalisation and collectivisation virtually eliminating private ownership, something which outraged the United States as many American notables had invested heavily into Nordic industry in the preceding decades and now saw those assets evaporate. Public services were reinforced, as the existing educational system was built upon and a new system of national healthcare insurance was formed. The reach of Commonwealth democracy towards its marginalised citizens also widened over time, with Finnish being recognised as a state language and Finland as a separate SR in 1880, the passage of women’s suffrage in 1888, and the formation of the Sami Council in 1892.

The Nordic colonial empire was nominally dismantled, with all of its colonies being given independence and the Socialist International being formed as a supposedly voluntary international association of like-minded states. This change, however, often amounted to little more than polite political fiction, with Norden retaining a significant amount of influence in the governance of its North American ‘allies’ while Vestindien and Asanteman remained de-facto colonial possessions.

Externally, after the first few turbulent years Nordic leaders quickly recognised the extremely precarious diplomatic position that their alienation of the United States, until 1871 the Federal Kingdom’s staunchest ally, had put them in. The country made an effort to assert its strength and improve its military capabilities by embarking on extensive missions in the Arctic and Antarctic regions while reversing the professionalisation of the army and instead building the new Red Army by improving on the pre-1814 system of mass public mobilisation. Norden also made an effort to repair its relations with its neighbours, both through diplomatic reassurances, a strict policy of non-intervention in other countries’ spheres of influence, and most importantly through economic integration. The last policy, however, has in the 1890s started to tear the Socialist International apart, with the economy of mainland Norden being increasingly integrated into the Central European economic sphere while the economies of several North American SRs began drifting away from Europe in favour of greater integration with the American economic sphere.

The year is now 1900, and the Commonwealth concludes a century with a still-precarious diplomatic position, settling a wary, terrified, and perhaps resigned eye on American troops massing just south of the borders of her North American allies.

RP Sample

The previous Alternative Divergence roleplay, here

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[Novacom]

Reservation

Nation Name: India
Territory: India
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This is a 24 hour Reservation.

On behalf of a member as unable to log into the account