Empires of the Ether: OCC/Signup [Suspended]

by **New Granadeseret** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 10:57 am

All nessicery credit to the Space:1889 game upon which the concept of this RP is based

What is the Ether? The Ether is a uniquely semi-solid, semi-plasmodious substance which fills all space, even the volume also filled by ordinary matter or otherwise devoid of it. It is the medium through which various forces are transmitted through space just as air is the medium through which sound is transmitted to our ears. The all-permeating presence of the Etheric field rolls and churns like an ocean, ironically providing the order within our wider galaxy. Without the Ether, the forces of gravity would be unable to jump across the intervening vacuum of space and maintain the mutual attraction between celestial bodies. Magnetism and electricity could not be relayed as they are, and the light of the Sun could not travel to space to allow our own existence, to say nothing of much of our modern scientific advances. Ether is, in summery, the foundation of our entire understanding of the universe and the young protégée James Maxwell's discovery of Unified Etheric Theory the most monumental event in human history save the birth of Christ (Or the Revelation of the Prophet, for our Mohammedan colleges).

Though even the ancient philophers wrote of an intangible substance which propelled the plants through their orbits, it was only with the rise of our enlighted era and the final triumph of the wave theory of light over ancient particale theory; demonstrated by Thomas Young's famous 1815 refractal experiments proving light must have a wavelenght, that the idea of the Ether was put under proper scientific scrutiny. Within the civilized framework of His and Her Majesty's Empire, theoriest would make leaps and bounds, but it was only with the publishing of Maxwell's series of mathematical proofs as part of his undergraduate theius (Driven, somewhat sadly by a desire to one-up his class rival and become valivictorian of his Cambridge class to spite the idea of God after having abandoned Faith during his studies) that there was not a separate ether for each energy type but, rather, all electromagnetic and optical phenomena were explainable and perfectly quantifiable in terms of their stress on one mutual ether. Since that day in 1850, the great engine of Progress has driven us forward into this brave new world, and shows no sign of slowing down or stopping.

Where the old world was powered mostly by muscle, the new finds it's fuel in the endless seas; liquid or Etheric. Great boilers; be they fired with coal or the magnified radiance of the sun itself, shine the blessing of science out on the people. The power of steam and lighting have been chained by piping and wire, acting as both a comfort in the homes of the well-to-do of the rising cities and weapons on the battlefields of modern war alike. As the sea of ignorance releases, the masses of Europe grow both educated and more productive... and more dangerous, as the spirit of inquisitiveness cause some to question weather the roles and values of the pre-industrial elite are as obsolete as their technology. The works of Charles Darwin and Henry Huxley calling for a "survival of the fittest", taken up by the greedy and coldly logical alike lay siege to traditional Christian society on one side, the writing is the newly-emerging "socialists" and old Republicans alike from the other, even as the Empires of Europe have begun reaching out behond their own shore. Driven on by their boundless energy, they seek to spread the gifts of European civilization to the poorer peoples of this world... and others.

The first explorations of space have brought the full force of modern society on the formally untapped soils of our solar system. Though the first interplanetary flight by Thomas Edison and his experimental Ether Flyer was but a scant 20 years ago, the steaming swamps of storm-swept Venus provide just as much danger and lure as the jungles of the Dark Continent... and potentially even greater riches to exploit. On Mars, the native Martians cling to their canals and crumbling city-states, living in a savagy strongly comparable to pre-Pharonic Egypt at best and cliff-dwellers at worst, aching for the guiding hand of humanity to restore some semblance of a quality of life their ruins show they clearly once had just as much as their Nubian counterparts on earth. To say nothing of the potential in our own moon and the endless asteroids of the Great Belt.

As the sun rises on the 1889th Year of Our Lord, there stands an Empire upon whom it had never set: Great Britain. From the icy mountains of Canada, to the steaming jungles of India and the Australian outbreak, the near-deified Queen Victoria reigns over nearly a quarter of the Earth's landmass, backed by an aristocracy and gentery born and breed in the values and natural leadership of the Anglo-Saxon race. Though built first and foremost as a commercial entity, a spirit of New Imperialism has a gripped the nation ever since the opening of the stars and the regulation of the middle class to its permenantly lower status: the natural superiority of Anglican culture and Church meaning London had a moral imperative to place her benevolent rule over the primative people's of the world. The Royal Navy is second to none; allowing her to both rule the waves and wave the rules of normal commerce as they see fit, and remains the largest industrial power in the solar system: the urban working class in Manchester and the other metropolios of Great Britain producing goods consumed across the world, and her merchant marine carrying back its wealth to fill the coffers of their owners and managers. With her power and wealth Britain can sit aloof off the Continent, like a queen gazing down from her throne, subtly manipulating affairs there, and has thus far managed to prevent any serious threats to here rule.

Yet, there are those who are strong enough to remain out of and even fight the grip the British have upon the world. Ironically, none do so more fiercely than the other great repository of Anglo-Saxon tradition: The United States of America. Echoing the words of the Magna Carta, the Parlamentarians and Puritians, Sea-Dogs and other Merchant-adventurers who rose up from nothing in English society, America stands as a testament to the path not taken by Britain, and has become a nation of contradictions as a result. A land without an aristocracy but much of its farmland controlled by corporations who number far less than the British gentry. Screaming the evils of colonization while stealing the land right up from under the Martians and Indians. Dedicated to democracy for all while maintaining near-dictatorial rule over the peoples of Dixie, who struggle in poverty under the duel yolk of Federal bayonets and the poor working conditions provided by New England-based titans of industry. Young, scrappy, and hungry, The United States seeks to spread her version of freedom to the rest of the world by whatever means nessicery... wether the locals want it or not.

The only older rival to British Hegemony, the Empire of the French, snaps angerly from across the channel: Emperor Napoleon IV finding it just as much of an unbreakable barrier as his illustrious Great Uncle. Though having long since beat the German states into submission and aligning much of Italy under her leadership, and leading the world in terms of high culture, materially the nation is always maddeningly playing second fiddle to her British rival. Consumed by jealousy, she seeks to undermine British power and upstage them at every turn, constantly on the search for a "French India" or outmaneuver her rival's efforts to keep her diplomatically isolated by backing potential rivals to her dominance in western and centeral Europe. A nation in constant flux, both diplomatically and between the power of the Emperor and Imperial Senate, French ambitions certainly keep the world affairs section of the paper exciting to say the least.

Like the Oriental merchant of the pulp literature, the House of Osman stands between the poles of the two rivals: acting as a mediator, partner, or rival depending on the profitability of the moment. Unlike the brown men of theory, however, the Ottoman's ability to thrive and compete just as well as its European and North American counterpart provide an uncomfortable exception to the "White Man's Burden" concept. From their powerful position at the core of global commerce and the world, Ottoman merchants and adventurers spread the influnce of her civilization into the heart of Africa and East Asia, carrying the words of the Prophet and the laws and interests of his successor, the Sultan-Caliph in Constantinople. Taking a uniquely Eastern approach to Imperialism, the Ottomans trumpet their spiritual and commercial authority despite the limited range of their military force... but as an alternate becon for the hearts and minds of uncivilized people can provide the decisive weight in a crisis when she decides to throw it around.

The dawn has set your solar boilers to steam, sovergein. Start your engines, and race off into the limitless adventures of a new day.

Nation List

Hegemon
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States)

Great Powers
The Empire of the French: New Neros
The Sublime Caliphate of the Ottomans: New Granadeseret
The United States of America: Reverand Norv
OPEN

Secondary Powers
The Kingdom of Sweden-Norway: Plzen
Russia/Holy Rus: Kievian Rus Republic
Austria/Empire of the Five Crowns(Tenative, OPEN)
OPEN

Civilized Nations
The Knights of Dixie/KKK: Ulls

Primatives
The Tokugawa Shogunate: Soviet Chernarus
Rattanakosin Dynasty/Siam: Aidannadia

Code: Select all: Application National Info Nation Name: Symbols: (ex. Flag, Coat of Arms, National Anthem, personifications, etc.) Homeland Population: (population of all free persons in your home territories Imperial Population: (population of your colonies; please list slaves (both native and black) in a separate category) Location/Claims: Capital City: Government Type: (Generally, only Monarchies and Merchant Republics exist at this point) Head of State: Head of Government: Head of Forgein Affairs: Head of the Colonial Office: State Religion & Denomination: Population Info Religion Demographics: (In percentiles or description of relations) Ethnicity: Accepted Cultures: (Groups deemed suited for leadership positions/treated favorably by the government) Other Cultures: (Groups deemed unsuitable for leadership positions/not treated with respect by government) Military Info Mobile Regulars: (name, number of troops, types of troops, strengths and weaknesses, etc.) Navy: (name, number of vessels, quality of navy, etc,) Air Force: (Name, number of vessels, etc.) Spaceships: (Names of vessels; keep numbers small please) Militia: (Number and areas of concentration) Major Garrisons: (List number by areas; include general artillery component) General Static Fortifications Strenght Strength: (1-10) Colonial Forces: (If applicable; for colonial powers only) Any Unique Ethertech Weapons?: (If so, describe here) Other Info Brief Description of your Economy: Brief Description of Culture/Society: Most important societal values (Three traits your culture values most): Goals: History: (From 1920) RP Sample: (Newbies will be granted a topic to demonstrate writing skills by me) Grantville - Do not remove. This is for tracking purposes.

by **South Vict** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 11:06 am

Reserve Germany please.

by **Plzen** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 11:07 am

Tag. Application for Sweden-Norway incoming as previously discussed.

by **Soviet Chernarus** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 11:09 am

by **Ulls** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 11:18 am

by **Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 11:26 am

South Vict wrote:Reserve Germany please.

There is no unified Germany, and I would strongly advise against you joining this RP. Your quality in other nation RP's has shown to be lacking, and the quality of this RP so far has been really high. I don't think your writing style would fit.

by **South Vict** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 12:25 pm

Great Confederacy Of Commonwealth States wrote:
South Vict wrote:Reserve Germany please.

There is no unified Germany, and I would strongly advise against you joining this RP. Your quality in other nation RP's has shown to be lacking, and the quality of this RP so far has been really high. I don't think your writing style would fit.

I know, I'm trying my best though.

by **South Vict** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 12:25 pm

Reserve Hamburg please.

by **South Vict** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 12:28 pm

I mean Hanover.

by **New Granadeseret** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 12:40 pm

South Vict wrote:
Great Confederacy Of Commonwealth States wrote:There is no unified Germany, and I would strongly advise against you joining this RP. Your quality in other nation RP's has shown to be lacking, and the quality of this RP so far has been really high. I don't think your writing style would fit.

I know, I'm trying my best though.

Yah... I've seen your stuff Vict. I'm not doubting you're trying your best, but you need to get in some practice in less-intense RPs first before I feel comfortable letting you into this after seeing some of your stuff/attempts at AH.

by **The Great Northern Canadian Dominion** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 3:42 pm

Would I be able to join as a colony? Of course I'd have to get approved by both Britian's player and the OP.

by **Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 3:49 pm

The Great Northern Canadian Dominion wrote:Would I be able to join as a colony? Of course I'd have to get approved by both Britian's player and the OP.

As Britain, that would be fine. Remember, there would be some societal changes I have already planned out. It depends on who you'd want to be and how you'd fill the role, in any case, before I give my British go-ahead. Whether the OP approves it is a whole other matter, of course.

by **The Great Northern Canadian Dominion** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 4:22 pm

Great Confederacy Of Commonwealth States wrote:As Britain, that would be fine. Remember, there would be some societal changes I have already planned out. It depends on who you'd want to be and how you'd fill the role, in any case, before I give my British go-ahead. Whether the OP approves it is a whole other matter, of course.

My primary objective to be Mounties In Space! in addition to a mostly historical colonial role as Canada. If necessary I can content myself with a very limited geopolitical role typical of 1890s Canada and muck about with pulp style adventures, though the prospect of building up Canada's military and economic sway in service of the British (mostly) and eventually become the strong right hook of the Empire with a mild independent streak would interest me as well.

Of course if Louis Riel survived, Canadian nationalism rises, or the First Nations tribes cause trouble there's room for antagonism as well. God forbid the Newfies revolt and hold the Empire's cod resources hostage!

by **New Granadeseret** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 6:18 pm

The Great Northern Canadian Dominion wrote:
Great Confederacy Of Commonwealth States wrote:As Britain, that would be fine. Remember, there would be some societal changes I have already planned out. It depends on who you'd want to be and how you'd fill the role, in any case, before I give my British go-ahead. Whether the OP approves it is a whole other matter, of course.

My primary objective to be Mounties In Space! in addition to a mostly historical colonial role as Canada. If necessary I can content myself with a very limited geopolitical role typical of 1890s Canada and muck about with pulp style adventures, though the prospect of building up Canada's military and economic sway in service of the British (mostly) and eventually become the strong right hook of the Empire with a mild independent streak would interest me as well.

Of course if Louis Riel survived, Canadian nationalism rises, or the First Nations tribes cause trouble there's room for antagonism as well. God forbid the Newfies revolt and hold the Empire's cod resources hostage!

Canada is a polite, well-behaved (half) Anglo-Saxon child. I see no reason why she woulden't be a model Commonwealth under Her Holy and Royal Majesty. Of course, with Nappy the Frog-eater croaking his sweet songs from Paris and your ungreatful (and more successful) older brother constantly trying to get you to move out of Papa's house and in with him, I imagine some for of Québécois and the more radical Republicans are going to give you a hard time (Then again, maybe Canada in this timeline could find a friend in the Native Americans. Crazy Horse and his fellows could get out of trouble for DECADES just like dem Duke boys; hoping across the country/country line. Maybe even some Knights of Dixie ah la Morgan's raid in actual Star-and-Bars spangled jeeps

).

by **South Vict** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 6:24 pm

New Granadeseret wrote:
The Great Northern Canadian Dominion wrote:My primary objective to be Mounties In Space! in addition to a mostly historical colonial role as Canada. If necessary I can content myself with a very limited geopolitical role typical of 1890s Canada and muck about with pulp style adventures, though the prospect of building up Canada's military and economic sway in service of the British (mostly) and eventually become the strong right hook of the Empire with a mild independent streak would interest me as well.

Of course if Louis Riel survived, Canadian nationalism rises, or the First Nations tribes cause trouble there's room for antagonism as well. God forbid the Newfies revolt and hold the Empire's cod resources hostage!

Canada is a polite, well-behaved (half) Anglo-Saxon child. I see no reason why she woulden't be a model Commonwealth under Her Holy and Royal Majesty. Of course, with Nappy the Frog-eater croaking his sweet songs from Paris and your ungreatful (and more successful) older brother constantly trying to get you to move in him I imagine some for of Québécois and the more radical Republicans are going to give you a hard time (Then again, maybe Canada in this timeline could find a friend in the Native Americans. Crazy Horse and his fellows could get out of trouble for DECADES just like dem Duke boys; hoping across the country/country line. Maybe even some Knights of Dixie ah la Morgan's raid in actual Star-and-Bars spangled jeeps ).

Wait.......You are talking about Countryballs right?

by **Reverend Norv** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 7:53 pm

This is one heck of a detailed application. I'll get the US app done, but it may take me a couple of days.

by **Ulls** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 8:13 pm

New Granadeseret wrote:
The Great Northern Canadian Dominion wrote:My primary objective to be Mounties In Space! in addition to a mostly historical colonial role as Canada. If necessary I can content myself with a very limited geopolitical role typical of 1890s Canada and muck about with pulp style adventures, though the prospect of building up Canada's military and economic sway in service of the British (mostly) and eventually become the strong right hook of the Empire with a mild independent streak would interest me as well.

Of course if Louis Riel survived, Canadian nationalism rises, or the First Nations tribes cause trouble there's room for antagonism as well. God forbid the Newfies revolt and hold the Empire's cod resources hostage!

Canada is a polite, well-behaved (half) Anglo-Saxon child. I see no reason why she woulden't be a model Commonwealth under Her Holy and Royal Majesty. Of course, with Nappy the Frog-eater croaking his sweet songs from Paris and your ungreatful (and more successful) older brother constantly trying to get you to move out of Papa's house and in with him, I imagine some for of Québécois and the more radical Republicans are going to give you a hard time (Then again, maybe Canada in this timeline could find a friend in the Native Americans. Crazy Horse and his fellows could get out of trouble for DECADES just like dem Duke boys; hoping across the country/country line. Maybe even some Knights of Dixie ah la Morgan's raid in actual Star-and-Bars spangled jeeps ).

A Morgan's Raid type deal is next after the coup of Allure on Mars for liftwood. Going to try and get some weapons and airships to reverse engineer it to better fight the Union.

by **Plzen** » Sat Jul 22, 2017 9:01 pm

What a long application... I couldn't finish it in one sitting.

by **The Knights of Azorea** » Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:11 am

Work in Progress Application
National Info
Nation Name: The Viceroyalty of Lianguang
Symbols: Three emblems and flags are often used to represent the half autonomous Commandery-Prefecture. The first, and only legal emblem to be used, is that of the traditional Qing Dragon, depicted on a triangular gold-yellow field. The second and most common emblem of the Prefecture is the emblem of the city of Guangzhou/Canton itself, established during the westernising riots of the 1870s. This emblem depicts the WORD Qianfeng (Forward!) surrounded by a white circle on a black field. Stars dot the black field, while the central white circle is often painted either half-yellow or half red by loyalist and liberation factions in the prefecture respectively. The third, and by far most illegal of the emblems used to represent the city is that of a dragon's head, borne on a pike, on a black field. This flag has often been used by the few student revolutionaries of Guangzhou, representing a call for the dismemberment of the house of Qing, or even the Empire as a whole.
Homeland Population: 32,000,000 (The majority dwell in Guangdong province itself, with a small number dwelling in Hainan, Guangxi and the southern prefectures of Fujian)
Imperial Population: No colonial holdings currently exist. Taiwan, the only marginally "colonial" area nearby remains under the control of the official governor of Fujian.
Location/Claims: Guangdong (Including Hainan), Guangxi, and the southern half of Guangxi
Capital City: Guangzhou or Canton. The bustling metropolis has become the major entry point for outside cultures to enter into China. As the only major southern port controlled by a governor willing to associate with outsiders, and as a massive market for commerce in itself, connecting to the rest of China along the Pearl River, and thus through the Imperial canals. The city is massively populous, and sprawls out over miles of countryside, with the largest minorities of outsiders in all of China, to the point that both a Mosque and several denominational churches have been constructed, along with traditional Daoist and Mahayana Buddhist temples. The harbour has been expanded in recent years, and bustles constantly with all manner of ships, acting as a meeting place for almost all nations active in the region, as the largest market and largest port to be found for hundreds of miles in any direction. In Guangzhou, it is common practice for a family, no matter their profession, to also run a shop out of their home fronts, with a storehouse in their courtyards.

Guangzhou is split into several districts, relative to the Pearl River, the titanic walls, and the harbour. The largest division is between the western New-Town and the eastern old-town, with the governor's offices presiding in the five-tier Pagoda, the fortress-citadel of the city, a veritable skyscraper. The Pearl river splits into a delta within the city's borders, with each island of the delta leased out to trading corporations, most often the various East India companies. The shoreline is utterly dominated by the vast dockyard, dotted with shipwrights, arsenals, suppliers and recruiting offices. Auction houses of all stripes, all manner of provisioners, and every sort of restaurant, shop, peddler and storehouse sit along the mad bustle of the promenade. Uniquely western architecture has been integrated into the dockyard facilities, as in recent years naval advisors from Europe, most often British expatriates, have been tasked with expanding and modernising the dockyard, to great effect, and to the point at which airship ports have merged into the larger port itself, with the vast tower complexes needed to support airship trade having resulted in the construction of another trading quarter, on the hillsides overlooking the city.

Beyond the trading quarters of Guangzhou, either following the winding market-streets, the peddler-choked Pearl River, or the Imperial road along the river, sits the true jewel of Guangzhou, the Kaiming (Enlightened) district. The Kaiming district is the product of decades of hard work and diplomatic graft by the governors of the city. Within the Enlightened districts rest churches, temples and mosques for every denomination passing in and out of Guangzhou, strategically designed to isolate warring sects from one another on a long, forked road. Everything from Shia Islam to Sikhism to Calvinist and Luthern Protestantism. Each site is a masterpiece of architectural craft, blending the indescribable majesty of Imperial architecture and the unique stylistic designs of each culture in question. These divine forks along the Imperial road bear the temples and sites of religious worship, while a second fork bears the academic might of Guangzhou. A University rests at the end of each fork, with a third in the centre. The western fork bears the House of Heavenly Wisdom, a University maintaining and teaching Ottoman and Islamic philosophy, theology and all manners of science. The House of Heavenly Wisdom acts as a centre for humanitarian study in the Islamic tradition, it's fork dominated by several libraries of relevant documents. On the eastern fork rests the University of Canton, an institution of Western style scientific and dialectic study. Maintained by migrant intellectuals of all manner of western traditions, the University acts as the repository for practical scientific practices, with an eye for political science and Ether science. The resources available to these two universities are massive, as the pet projects of several generations of commander-prefect. Each professor receives a massive stipend for their own research, and all academic records available to the government are made available to either university, making them the holy grail for students of Chinese and east Asian history, with all Chinese produced records and academia practiced in the central Universit, at the meeting points of the forks, the Five Tier Pagoda itself. The Fortress-temple complex acts as a library of Imperial records, a citadel for the city, the residence of the governor/prefect-commander, and a centre of East-Asian learning. The Chinese classics are maintained for all readers, and the diplomatic corps of the city dwell within the tower as well, to provide them with a constant base of interaction with the outsiders of the city. Surrounding the universities and temples is the Western district, renamed recently from the barbarian district, consisting of a fusion of Western-Chinese architecture, providing an area of the city within which western visitors may feel more comfortable.

Guangzhou is a city of 3.5 million souls, sprawling outward with populations of all manner of migrants, tradesmen and artisans. Silk, porcelain and spices are sold along the Pearl river, along with almost every other commodity available to the Chinese, including Tea itself. Of course, the darker trade of East Asia, the narcotics trade, is also dominant. All manner of narcotics, from Constantinople to Bogota, are sold in Guangzhou. The city is unique in China as barely managing to maintain it's silver stocks in spite of the narcotics trade, through one cunning manufacture of the governors. Namely, the city participates in the trade, selling Opium to the isolationist internal provinces of China, under the nose of Qing administrators, effectively earning back its deficit by acting as the only easy supplier of narcotics to the internal provinces.
Government Type: Beauracratic Autocracy, with local assemblies and a half-defined local constitution.
Head of State: Emperor Yixuan of the Qing Dynasty (De Jure) Li Zhao (De Facto)
Head of Government: Li Zhao, Viceroy of Linguang, Governor of The Southern Ports, Governor of Guangdong, Governor of Hainan, Commander-General of forces in the Treaty Ports, and Commander of Guangxi. Prefect of Guangzhou.
Head of Foreign Affairs: Liang Chiu, Master of Outward Perfection.
Head of the Colonial Office: None to speak of.
State Religion & Denomination: Mahayana Buddhism is effectively the state religion, with heavy Confucian elements and Daoist influence.

Population Info
Religion Demographics: 73% Mahayana Buddhist Confucian, 6% Theravada Buddhism, 4% Vajrayana Buddhism, 7% Daoist/Folk religion, 6% Various Christian Denominations, 2% Other.
Ethnicity: 75% Cantonese Yue, 5% Zhuang, 4% Chaoshan, 5% Hakka, 9% Various Chinese Minorities, 2% Outside Westerns
Accepted Cultures: Cantonese, Manchu, Han, Westerners.
Other Cultures: Zhuang, Native Taiwanese.

Military Info
Mobile Regulars: The Green Standard Army of Guangzhou, as of the period of disunity, was raised to the station of the regular army. The massive population and raw tax base of the prefecture-commandery allow for the provisioning of, in total 250,000 Regular Soldiers. The Army of Canton is perhaps the most modern in China, aided by Western advisors and provisioned by several governmentally backed arms companies. The force is divided in a fashion similar to that of the West, with Chinese permutations. The force is split into five banners, 50,000 Men to each army, with a further logistical corps of 15,000 Men per banner. Two Banners are resident in Guangdong province, another is resident in Guangxi, and the remaining two are stationed on the shaky front line in Fujian.

Each Banner is split further into five Sub-Commanderies, consisting of five regiments (2000 Men to a Regiment). The semi modern banners (4 of the 5) consist of 80 Regiments of Foot, 30 of so Called Barbarous Infantry, equipped with traditional Chinese Weaponry, interspersed with more modern equipment. These forces most resemble western pikemen and are gradual to be phased out as more resources become available. 40 Regiments of Line Infantry in the Western Style organised into roughly western ranks and drilled vigorously in use of older pattern Breech Loading Rifles, imported in vast numbers from armies who have modernised beyond that stage. Five regiments of Grenadiers are maintained, the elite troops of the Guangzhou armed forces, chosen from the most physically impressive and disciplined soldiers available. The Grenadiers are unique in that they are forced to attend one of the regional Guangdong Academy of Foot Warfare for a time before active service, allowing them a degree of tactical awareness above the regular soldier, to counteract the massive problem of disunity and the sheer unwieldy mass of the army by interspersing it with imposing and commanding figures, beyond the numbers of pure officers. 3 Regiments of Rifles are equipped with the highest standard of rifle available, working as sharpshooters. 2 Regiments of Light Infantry are used for scouting. In the case of the Fujian army, five regiments of Line Infantry are replaced for light Infantry due to the mountainous nature of the province requiring additional scout units.

5 Regiments of Artillery, one per banner, with an additional regiment stationed in the mountainous heights overlooking the Fujian frontline, are maintained. The Artillery regiments are provisioned with the guns available in a Chinese style, the independent innovations of the Guangzhou state itself. Artillerymen are also trained at the imperial military academies, as the trade of an artilleryman or Cannoneer has been practised for centuries. The remaining fifteen regiments are cavalry, divided between skirmishing Pistoleers, in the tradition of mounted archers, making up seven regiments, with six regiments of Dragoons, and two Regiments of Lancers, all trained in a fusion of the western and the Qing/Manchu style, provisioned with Manchu horses.

The most major advantage of the Guangzhou army is the professional meritocratic and bureaucratic style long held in China. The purchase of commissions, common and damaging to western militaries, is entirely absent, with Governor Li having worked tirelessly in his earlier years as perfect to utterly remove the corruption and taint afflicting the imperial examination system, before establishing a new, military examination system, using western military theories in tandem with the Confucian and legalist classics to construct a disciplined military theory, and using rigorous, repeated examinations to be sure of the competence of military commanders. All officers above Seargent are required to have completed the first tier of examinations, with requirements tailored to subject and rank as the officer specialises or rises to higher positions. Commanders are expected to be fully literate in regards to the military goings on of every regiment under their control, along with several logistical examinations. The completion of the second tier of examinations automatically grants admittance to the Scholarly Noble classes, providing a fierce incentive for participation. The effects of this revolutionary twist on western military policy have been dramatic, leading to amazingly tactically adept higher officers, and to a consistently high level of meritocratic control over the state.

The prime example of the ideal the state currently strives towards is the army of Guangzhou itself, stationed in the city. Due to proximity to western influence, and immediate access to resources and logistical supply, it is the only fully "modern" force available to the state. Consisting of 50,000 men, divided into 25 regiments, not considering command staff, it contains seventeen regiments of line infantry, equipped with breech-loading rifles, to a higher standard than those utilised among the other banners. These men are the best trained and best lead troops in Guangzhou, and likely in China as a whole. Their officers are chosen from the highest scoring candidates in the various military examinations, with drillmasters drawn from western volunteers, and provisions of the highest quality. The line infantry is, uniquely, supported by a pair of airships, two commercial vessels refitted and given facades of Imperial junks. These vessels are used for swift transport, and due to their incredible rarity, are almost always either ceremonial or to deal with crimes on airships themselves. Along with the line infantry, three regiments of Grenadier Guard, the absolute elite of the Guangzhou military, are used as shock troops when cavalry aren't available, again chosen from the best soldiers available and put under yet more rigorous training. The Grenadier Guard has used to Staff the five tier pagoda in Guangzhou. Two regiments of cavalry are maintained, both Dragoon Guards, and three regiments of dedicated, modernised artillery are maintained, two of which are usually mounted on the walls and in the various guard-towers surrounding the city, intricately designed to cover the major plazas of the city, along with the harbour, in case major civil disobedience needs to be suppressed. The third is a mobile artillery regiment of mortars and horse-drawn smaller guns.

The major disadvantage of the state is that the Green Standard Army, inherently, is not designed to be a regular force. It is only through consistent, half-completed reforms that the army serves permanently at such a massive size, and through the use of a vast number of semi-professional barbarous divisions, which act as a huge weight for the tactical organisation, but are practically required to fill the ranks. Beyond this, the banners are unwieldy, and even the meritocratically chosen officers often duel over jurisdiction in the shifting organisation of the army. Logistics has not yet caught up to reality, and the army thus moves sluggishly, especially due to the lack of modern rail infrastructure in Guangzhou. The force is also, obviously, lagging behind in terms of modernisation. There is little to no use of Ether in the army, as no power has been willing to sell airships to Guangzhou as yet necessitating the purchase and conversion of what few half-commercial vessels can be found, not at all integrated into tactics. Almost all weapons are dramatically behind those in use in modern nations, not even considering the veritably primitive arquebuses and pikes used by the semi-barbarous divisions. Beyond even these major disadvantages, the army is wracked by the same abuse of narcotics, and religious division as the rest of the state. Opium use is harshly punished, but South American and Ottoman narcotics recently arrived, has not yet been legislated against.

Navy: Since the discovery of Ether, the construction of steamships has become dramatically cheaper, allowing the modernising Guangzhou to begin establishing Ether-boiler powered steam ships. The pride of the Cantonese navy consists of three of this Ether-Boiler steam powered Frigates, mobile and bearing high-quality western cannons. The remaining thirty ships of the city, excepting those mercantile vessels included in militia claims, are half-modernised mixtures of standard junk designs and multi-decked western ships. The navy is not unified in design or purpose as of yet, having not yet been reformed, as a strong naval presence has not yet been needed, due to the presence of the Portuguese in Macao.
Air Force: Tianlong and Shizitiantang are the two modified commercial airships used for enforcement and transport. Otherwise, no air force is present.
Spaceships: The state hasn't even managed to go fully beyond pikes, there are no operations outside of the atmosphere
Militia: Those of the old Green Standard who were not willing to work professionally makes up the militia, with older laws allowing for mass militia conscription as needed
Major Garrisons: Shantou Garrison, 4000 Entrenched Infantry and 1000 Artillerymen, making up three regiments. A complement of emplaced guns. Xiamen Garrison 3 Regiments of Entrenched Infantry, a Regiment of Artillery, and a complement of emplaced guns. Guangxi Provincial Garrison 4 Regiments, dispersed across the province, and two ranging cavalry regiments. Canton Garrison Five Regiments of Elite entrenched infantry, several regiments of artillery, both in the harbour and in the city itself. Three artillery regiments and three infantry regiments garrison the remainder of the ports in Guangdong.
General Static Fortifications Strength Strength: 6. Fully staffed and provided with a great deal of artillery, but not built up to modern standards outside of various Guangdong and Fujian ports.
Any Unique Ethertech Weapons?: None as yet.

Other Info
Brief Description of your Economy: The rich soil of southern China is a veritable breadbasket of rice plantations. The hills of Guangdong and Guangxi are terraced and teeming with rice paddies. The rural population had been booming in the Pearl River basin before the arrival of the westerners, but the import of a wider variety of crops for planting in less hospitable regions has caused agricultural production to skyrocket. Markets now bustle with corn, tropical fruits, and all the various produce of the Americas and of Europe. Tea leaves are manufactured en masse to fulfil European desire for the product. The population is increasing alongside the agricultural production. Agricultural production has also begun to feel the benefits of modernisation. The more modern form of crop rotation, incorporating fertilisers, has arrived in the government owned farms, though it has not yet spread out into private farms, or beyond the immediate neighbourhood of Guangzhou.

Along with these food crops, providing for the huge urban populations of the various prefectural cities, the production of cash crops is also an immense source of income. Spices have always been grown along the fertile river valley of the Pearl River, and along the various fertile stretches of Guangxi and Fujian, but these, along with all other farming, have begun to be affected by the introduction of western methods. First and foremost, the introduction of Indigo, Sugar and commercialised Cotton has provided expanded opportunities for plantation farming. The true innovation has been the introduction of plantation based farming, especially in the mass production of tea. With the arrival of southern refugees from the American Civil War in the wider world, some were adopted by the governor of Canton and provided with land and indentured servants in exchange for their expertise, both military and in the performance of large scale plantation agriculture. Notably, the Fujian people of Guangxi, as a non-Han underclass of half-barbarians, have been subjected to increasingly harsh serfdom, with the majority of the new plantation economy having been constructed in Guangxi. British advisors have aided in the sophistication of plantation agriculture by providing the industrial machinery needed for local Chinese intellectuals to produce their own innovation; the highly efficient industrial processing of tea into a saleable form. This is a massive boon to the economy, with the increasing need for tea-rich landing having led to the Fujian campaigns, and having financed much of the export of the opium burden.

Silk, the golden goose of China for millennia, has also reaped the benefits of the western invention, though with the Ottomans replacing the British, for the most part. As massive consumers of silk in the oriental style, holding onto a large portion of the silk road, many Ottoman Hashish sellers were bought out of their trade with offers of shares in silk plantations, again in exchange for their expertise. This practice is in its infancy, but a few government sponsored plantations now industrially produce fine woven silk for sale, a further boon to the economy of Guangzhou.

Outside of agriculture is the most obvious facet of the economy of Guangzhou, commerce. Shipping from around the world passes through the port of Guangzhou, and the port is uniquely equipped to deal with the hundreds of thousands who travel through it each year. Every service and provision available for a ship are to be found along the shore of Guangzhou. Foreign businesses have imparted the knowledge of steam-ship refuelling, and even Ether airship vessels can be refuelled at the airship ports upon the western hill. Entire crews are up to be hired, and work is to be found for every privateer in the sea at the hundreds of trade branch-houses and guilds. Storehouses for any and all items of trade are to be found, and the shipwrights of Guangzhou are known for their immense alacrity and skill, especially when provisioned by the vast lumber-works of Guangxi and the various foundries of Guangzhou. The maintenance of supply to the shipwrights has been a central aim of every governor of the city in the last seventy years, and an entire department of government is assigned to manage the port.

The physical industry of shipping is dwarfed in scope, however, by the industry of trade it carries. Any commodity, from Venus to Mars, is to be found in Guangzhou's markets. Luxurious silks, linens, cotton, silver, gold, steel, iron, anything that is needed can be supplied, manganese to gunpowder, tea to opium. The markets bustle so constantly that there is no longer a city curfew, with every family finding something to sell. The central plaza of the city is the Great Market, wherein everything is to be found in small quantities. Every antiquity among the hundreds of thousands of street vendors. Cantonese street food is known to be among the best in China. With the establishment of the Governorate, several other marketplaces were constructed for professional transactions. One marketplace is dedicated to the changing of coins, minting and banking, with several western banks having branch houses in the tightly secured Golden Market. An entire regiment of Grenadiers staff the banks, with a further regiment of line infantry at borders of the quarter. Only one other market is so well guarded, the so called "Dark Market". This is the home of government sanctioned narcotics trading, a unique commodity in China. Sellers are required to purchase a permit, and all sales undertaken within Guangzhou are heavily taxed. The same is not said for sales to retailers heading north into China proper, these sales are entirely untaxed. This strategy has been immensely influential in ensuring the success of Guangzhou as its own state, as it has become more profitable for narcotics sellers to dispatch their goods to the north through Guangzhou, as it provides the only legal place for narcotics to be sold, and without taxation beyond harbour duties at that.

Guangzhou enforces taxation on mercantile earnings, with the tax halved for westerners to encourage investment, along with harbour duties on docking vessels, and a tax on land and general income on established businesses. An occasional per-head tax is levied as needed, usually in exchange for civic concessions. Law enforcement has recently become far more sophisticated, focused on ensuring that all Opium, Hashish and Narcotics dens are restricted to the managed Dark Market, or forced to move north. The banks of Guangzhou are remarkably safe, and the streets are guarded by specialised garrison forces acting under the Legal department of the Secretariat.

In Guangxi, lumber and the plantation economy are immensely prosperous, with the governor offering generous land grants to western skilled tradesmen emigrating to the governorate. Numerous sawmills feed the shipwrights of Guangzhou. Additionally, a small but thriving business of manganese extraction occurs in the hills of the province. Gold, silver and other mineral mines have been captured and expanded in occupied Fujian, providing a great deal of recompense for the narcotics trade. Many provincial natives move to their respective cities over the course of the year to work in industrial manufactories.

Brief Description of Culture/Society:
The Governorate is unique in China in that the open cultural values of the West and of mercantile Canton have spread and multiplied. Western thought is dramatically more prevalent than almost anywhere in east Asia due to concerted government investment, especially when considered alongside traditional Confucianism and meritocratic government. The southern intelligentsia has, since the era of the Ming, been utterly superior to their northern counterpart, and the establishment of further imperial universities has been crucial in maintaining this academic dominance. The state is unique in Asia in that it is entirely governed by the constitutional and legal bureaucratic system that has been in place for centuries. The class division has been largely abolished, with the distinctions between the four classes having almost disintegrated, the only remaining designator of status being a success in the examinations along with wealth.

The Meritocratic Bureaucratic system is utterly vital to the state. The vast population outnumbers that of the British Isles and requires a massive administrative apparatus to maintain. The government is split into three main component parts. The Secretariat manages legislation, consisting of the vast majority of the functionaries of the state, who act to draft and refine laws, maintaining imperial archives, censuses and tax records. The Secretariat is split into several departments, mirroring the western democratic system, with the system of election replaced by a ruthlessly technocratic regime, managed by the second branch of government, unique to the Governorate, The Office of Examination. The office manages appointments, consisting of a council of the optimates of each highest examination, along with the governor, who choose which students take up which administrative posts within the Secretariat. The Office is, in this way, the central facet of state, acting as both the administrative body of the examinations and, through the interference of Governor Li, the advisory to the executive branch of government, the Governorate itself. The governor, advised by the Council of Optimates, acts as the final adjudicator of state, and the highest executive, mandating the creation of laws and issuing decrees under a princely seal. His laws are executed by the Secretariat, and his legal decisions are recorded in the constantly updating canon of Cantonese law, recorded in the various Imperial libraries.

The Governor derives his authority from the Princely Seal, granted by the Emperor in Beijing, which grants him the freedom to control his state according to the "best interest" of the Qing dynasty. In practice, the Qing have no control beyond ceremony, and the governor is an independent leader, but the facade is vital for both parties, granting legitimacy to both in turn. The current governor is governor of Guangxi and of Guangdong, having illegally claimed Fujian, declaring its governor an enemy of the Qing and receiving the freedom to hunt down and replace the wayward governor.

The ideals of Confucian Legalism are central to the state, and are ubiquitous at all levels of society, with the teachings of Master Kong relayed to the populace by constant public speeches on the classics. Filial piety, and ultimate loyalty to your superiors, as defined by Confucian doctrine, is held above all else. Duty, Filial Piety and Merit are the defining components of daily life for all officials, and for a good number of the populace. The rural populace is, of course, mostly ignorant of these high minded ideals, but are mostly loyal to their competitors and meritocratically chosen magistrates. With the semi-disintegration of the class system, merchants and unlanded workers are free to traverse society at their choosing, outside of the indentured and many of the Zhuang.

Social Mobility and political consciousness are much more common in Guangzhou than anywhere else, alongside foreign religious and cultural beliefs, though Folk and Ancestor worship with Buddhist and Daoist elements still dominates rural communities, especially in Guangxi.
Most important societal values: Filial Piety, Meritocracy, Commerce.
Goals: The Goals of the Prefecture are to modernise. At current, the dominant political ideal within the state is the so called Da Zhongguo (Great China) party, pushing for China to reclaim its place as a dominant world power, ceded by the ineffectual "Inward Perfection" of the Ming Dynasty. The party believes that the modern, scientific and rational works of the western world are what gives them the power to dominate the world, and believe firmly that if mighty China embraces these inventions, it will return to its position as the Middle Kingdom, which the party believes it ceded after the collapse of the Expansionist Tang Dynasty. The party is as yet nebulous, with various political groups demanding everything from the return to a centralised, modernised Imperial Monarchy, to the creation of various city based republics, to the common ideal of a mixture between the two, of a constitutional Imperial monarchy. All of these disparate groups, however, drive towards modernisation for the Chinese state.

The state itself, and its governor are ruthlessly pragmatic in the pursuit of modernity. The governor desires to build his own power and sees the only way to avoid total domination by external power in the establishment of a modern state, army and system of education.
History:
RP Sample: (Newbies will be granted a topic to demonstrate writing skills by me)
Grantville - Do not remove. This is for tracking purposes.

by **New Granadeseret** » Sun Jul 23, 2017 11:47 am

The Knights of Azorea wrote:Work in Progress Application
National Info
Nation Name: The Grand Commandery Prefecture of Guangzhou
Symbols: Three emblems and flags are often used to represent the half autonomous Commandery-Prefecture. The first, and only legal emblem to be used, is that of the traditional Qing Dragon, depicted on a triangular gold-yellow field. The second and most common emblem of the Prefecture is the emblem of the city of Guangzhou/Canton itself, established during the westernising riots of the 1870s. This emblem depicts the WORD Qianfeng (Forward!) surrounded by a white circle on a black field. Stars dot the black field, while the central white circle is often painted either half-yellow or half red by loyalist and liberation factions in the prefecture respectively. The third, and by far most illegal of the emblems used to represent the city is that of a dragon's head, borne on a pike, on a black field. This flag has often been used by the few student revolutionaries of Guangzhou, representing a call for the dismemberment of the house of Qing, or even the Empire as a whole.
Homeland Population: 32,000,000 (The majority dwell in Guangdong province itself, with a small number dwelling in Hainan, Guangxi and the southern prefectures of Fujian)
Imperial Population: No colonial holdings currently exist. Taiwan, the only marginally "colonial" area nearby remains under the control of the official governor of Fujian.
Location/Claims: Guangdong (Including Hainan), Guangxi, and the southern half of Guangxi
Capital City: Guangzhou or Canton. The bustling metropolis has become the major entry point for outside cultures to enter into China. As the only major southern port controlled by a governor willing to associate with outsiders, and as a massive market for commerce in itself, connecting to the rest of China along the Pearl River, and thus through the Imperial canals. The city is massively populous, and sprawls out over miles of countryside, with the largest minorities of outsiders in all of China, to the point that both a Mosque and several denominational churches have been constructed, along with traditional Daoist and Mahayana Buddhist temples. The harbour has been expanded in recent years, and bustles constantly with all manner of ships, acting as a meeting place for almost all nations active in the region, as the largest market and largest port to be found for hundreds of miles in any direction. In Guangzhou, it is common practice for a family, no matter their profession, to also run a shop out of their home fronts, with a storehouse in their courtyards.

Guangzhou is split into several districts, relative to the Pearl River, the titanic walls, and the harbour. The largest division is between the western New-Town and the eastern old-town, with the governor's offices presiding in the five-tier Pagoda, the fortress-citadel of the city, a veritable skyscraper. The Pearl river splits into a delta within the city's borders, with each island of the delta leased out to trading corporations, most often the various East India companies. The shoreline is utterly dominated by the vast dockyard, dotted with shipwrights, arsenals, suppliers and recruiting offices. Auction houses of all stripes, all manner of provisioners, and every sort of restaurant, shop, peddler and storehouse sit along the mad bustle of the promenade. Uniquely western architecture has been integrated into the dockyard facilities, as in recent years naval advisors from Europe, most often British expatriates, have been tasked with expanding and modernising the dockyard, to great effect, and to the point at which airship ports have merged into the larger port itself, with the vast tower complexes needed to support airship trade having resulted in the construction of another trading quarter, on the hillsides overlooking the city.

Beyond the trading quarters of Guangzhou, either following the winding market-streets, the peddler-choked Pearl River, or the Imperial road along the river, sits the true jewel of Guangzhou, the Kaiming (Enlightened) district. The Kaiming district is the product of decades of hard work and diplomatic graft by the governors of the city. Within the Enlightened districts rest churches, temples and mosques for every denomination passing in and out of Guangzhou, strategically designed to isolate warring sects from one another on a long, forked road. Everything from Shia Islam to Sikhism to Calvinist and Luthern Protestantism. Each site is a masterpiece of architectural craft, blending the indescribable majesty of Imperial architecture and the unique stylistic designs of each culture in question. These divine forks along the Imperial road bear the temples and sites of religious worship, while a second fork bears the academic might of Guangzhou. A University rests at the end of each fork, with a third in the centre. The western fork bears the House of Heavenly Wisdom, a University maintaining and teaching Ottoman and Islamic philosophy, theology and all manners of science. The House of Heavenly Wisdom acts as a centre for humanitarian study in the Islamic tradition, it's fork dominated by several libraries of relevant documents. On the eastern fork rests the University of Canton, an institution of Western style scientific and dialectic study. Maintained by migrant intellectuals of all manner of western traditions, the University acts as the repository for practical scientific practices, with an eye for political science and Ether science. The resources available to these two universities are massive, as the pet projects of several generations of commander-prefect. Each professor receives a massive stipend for their own research, and all academic records available to the government are made available to either university, making them the holy grail for students of Chinese and east Asian history, with all Chinese produced records and academia practiced in the central Universit, at the meeting points of the forks, the Five Tier Pagoda itself. The Fortress-temple complex acts as a library of Imperial records, a citadel for the city, the residence of the governor/prefect-commander, and a centre of East-Asian learning. The Chinese classics are maintained for all readers, and the diplomatic corps of the city dwell within the tower as well, to provide them with a constant base of interaction with the outsiders of the city. Surrounding the universities and temples is the Western district, renamed recently from the barbarian district, consisting of a fusion of Western-Chinese architecture, providing an area of the city within which western visitors may feel more comfortable.

Guangzhou is a city of 3.5 million souls, sprawling outward with populations of all manner of migrants, tradesmen and artisans. Silk, porcelain and spices are sold along the Pearl river, along with almost every other commodity available to the Chinese, including Tea itself. Of course, the darker trade of East Asia, the narcotics trade, is also dominant. All manner of narcotics, from Constantinople to Bogota, are sold in Guangzhou. The city is unique in China as barely managing to maintain it's silver stocks in spite of the narcotics trade, through one cunning manufacture of the governors. Namely, the city participates in the trade, selling Opium to the isolationist internal provinces of China, under the nose of Qing administrators, effectively earning back its deficit by acting as the only easy supplier of narcotics to the internal provinces.
Government Type: Beauracratic Autocracy, with local assemblies and a half-defined local constitution.
Head of State: Emperor Yixuan of the Qing Dynasty (De Jure) Li Zhao (De Facto)
Head of Government: Li Zhao, Governor of The Southern Ports, Governor of Guangdong, Governor of Hainan, Commander-General of forces in the Treaty Ports, and Commander of Guangxi. Prefect of Guangzhou.
Head of Foreign Affairs: Liang Chiu, Master of Outward Perfection.
Head of the Colonial Office: None to speak of.
State Religion & Denomination: Mahayana Buddhism is effectively the state religion, with heavy Confucian elements and Daoist influence.

Population Info
Religion Demographics: 73% Mahayana Buddhist Confucian, 6% Theravada Buddhism, 4% Vajrayana Buddhism, 7% Daoist/Folk religion, 6% Various Christian Denominations, 2% Other.
Ethnicity: 75% Cantonese Yue, 5% Zhuang, 4% Chaoshan, 5% Hakka, 9% Various Chinese Minorities, 2% Outside Westerns
Accepted Cultures: Cantonese, Manchu, Han, Westerners.
Other Cultures: Zhuang, Native Taiwanese.

Military Info
Mobile Regulars: The Green Standard Army of Guangzhou, as of the period of disunity, was raised to the station of the regular army. The massive population and raw tax base of the prefecture-commandery allow for the provisioning of, in total 250,000 Regular Soldiers. The Army of Canton is perhaps the most modern in China, aided by Western advisors and provisioned by several governmentally backed arms companies. The force is divided in a fashion similar to that of the West, with Chinese permutations. The force is split into five banners, 50,000 Men to each army, with a further logistical corps of 15,000 Men per banner. Two Banners are resident in Guangdong province, another is resident in Guangxi, and the remaining two are stationed on the shaky front line in Fujian.

Each Banner is split further into five Sub-Commanderies, consisting of five regiments (2000 Men to a Regiment). The semi modern banners (4 of the 5) consist of 80 Regiments of Foot, 30 of so Called Barbarous Infantry, equipped with traditional Chinese Weaponry, interspersed with more modern equipment. These forces most resemble western pikemen and are gradual to be phased out as more resources become available. 40 Regiments of Line Infantry in the Western Style organised into roughly western ranks and drilled vigorously in use of older pattern Breech Loading Rifles, imported in vast numbers from armies who have modernised beyond that stage. Five regiments of Grenadiers are maintained, the elite troops of the Guangzhou armed forces, chosen from the most physically impressive and disciplined soldiers available. The Grenadiers are unique in that they are forced to attend one of the regional Guangdong Academy of Foot Warfare for a time before active service, allowing them a degree of tactical awareness above the regular soldier, to counterract the massive problem of disunity and the sheer unwieldy mass of the army by interspersing it with imposing and commanding figures, beyond the numbers of pure officers. 3 Regiments of Rifles are equipped with the highest standard of rifle available, working as sharpshooters. 2 Regiments of Light Infantry are used for scouting. In the case of the Fujian army, five regiments of Line Infantry are replaced for light Infantry due to the mountainous nature of the province requiring additional scout units.

5 Regiments of Artillery, one per banner, with an additional regiment stationed in the mountainous heights overlooking the Fujian frontline, are maintained. The Artillery regiments are provisioned with the guns available in a Chinese style, the independent innovations of the Guangzhou state itself. Artillerymen are also trained at the imperial military academies, as the trade of an artilleryman or Cannoneer has been practised for centuries. The remaining fifteen regiments are cavalry, divided between skirmishing Pistoleers, in the tradition of mounted archers, making up seven regiments, with six regiments of Dragoons, and two Regiments of Lancers, all trained in a fusion of the western and the Qing/Manchu style, provisioned with Manchu horses.

The most major advantage of the Guangzhou army is the professional meritocratic and bureaucratic style long held in China. The purchase of commissions, common and damaging to western militaries, is entirely absent, with Governor Li having worked tirelessly in his earlier years as perfect to utterly remove the corruption and taint afflicting the imperial examination system, before establishing a new, military examination system, using western military theories in tandem with the Confucian and legalist classics to construct a disciplined military theory, and using rigorous, repeated examinations to be sure of the competence of military commanders. All officers above Seargent are required to have completed the first tier of examinations, with requirements tailored to subject and rank as the officer specialises or rises to higher positions. Commanders are expected to be fully literate in regards to the military goings on of every regiment under their control, along with several logistical examinations. The completion of the second tier of examinations automatically grants admittance to the Scholarly Noble classes, providing a fierce incentive for participation. The effects of this revolutionary twist on western military policy have been dramatic, leading to amazingly tactically adept higher officers, and to a consistently high level of meritocratic control over the state.

The prime example of the ideal the state currently strives towards is the army of Guangzhou itself, stationed in the city. Due to proximity to western influence, and immediate access to resources and logistical supply, it is the only fully "modern" force available to the state. Consisting of 50,000 men, divided into 25 regiments, not considering command staff, it contains seventeen regiments of line infantry, equipped with breech-loading rifles, to a higher standard than those utilized among the other banners. These men are the best trained and best lead troops in Guangzhou, and likely in China as a whole. Their officers are chosen from the highest scoring candidates in the various military examinations, with drillmasters drawn from western volunteers, and provisions of the highest quality. The line infantry is, uniquely, supported by a pair of airships, two commercial vessels refitted and given facades of Imperial junks. These vessels are used for swift transport, and due to their incredible rarity, are almost always either ceremonial, or to deal with crimes on airships themselves. Along with the line infantry, three regiments of Grenadier Guard, the absolute elite of the Guangzhou military, are used as shock troops when cavalry aren't available, again chosen from the best soldiers available and put under yet more rigorous training. The Grenadier Guard is used to Staff the five tier pagoda in Guangzhou. Two regiments of cavalry are maintained, both Dragoon Guards, and three regiments of dedicated, modernised artillery are maintained, two of which are usually mounted on the walls and in the various guard-towers surrounding the city, intricately designed to cover the major plazas of the city, along with the harbour, in case major civil disobedience needs to be suppressed. The third is a mobile artillery regiment of mortars and horse-drawn smaller guns.

The major disadvantage of the state is that the Green Standard Army, inherently, is not designed to be a regular force. It is only through consistent, half-completed reforms that the army serves permanently at such a massive size, and through the use of a vast number of semi-professional barbarous divisions, which act as a huge weight for the tactical organisation, but are practically required to fill the ranks. Beyond this, the banners are unwieldy, and even the meritocratically chosen officers often duel over jurisdiction in the shifting organisation of the army. Logistics has not yet caught up to reality, and the army thus moves sluggishly, especially due to the lack of modern rail infrastructure in Guangzhou. The force is also, obviously, lagging behind in terms of modernisation. There is little to no use of Ether in the army, as no power has been willing to sell airships to Guangzhou as yet necessitating the purchase and conversion of what few half-commercial vessels can be found, not at all integrated into tactics. Almost all weapons are dramatically behind those in use in modern nations, not even considering the veritably primitive arquebuses and pikes used by the semi-barbarous divisions. Beyond even these major disadvantages, the army is wracked by the same abuse of narcotics, and religious division as the rest of the state. Opium use is harshly punished, but South American and Ottoman narcotics, recently arrived, has not yet been legislated against.

Navy: Since the discovery of Ether, the construction of steamships has become dramatically cheaper, allowing the modernising Guangzhou to begin establishing Ether-boiler powered steam ships. The pride of the Cantonese navy consists of three of this Ether-Boiler steam powered Frigates, mobile and bearing high-quality western cannons. The remaining thirty ships of the city, excepting those mercantile vessels included in militia claims, are half-modernised mixtures of standard junk designs and multi-decked western ships. The navy is not unified in design or purpose as of yet, having not yet been reformed, as a strong naval presence has not yet been needed, due to the presence of the Portuguese in Macao.
Air Force: Tianlong and Shizitiantang are the two modified commercial airships used for enforcement and transport. Otherwise, no airforce is present.
Spaceships: The state hasn't even managed to go fully beyond pikes, there are no operations outside of the atmosphere
Militia: Those of the old Green Standard who were not willing to work professionally makes up the militia, with older laws allowing for mass militia conscription as needed
Major Garrisons: Shantou Garrison, 4000 Entrenched Infantry and 1000 Artillerymen, making up three regiments. A complement of emplaced guns. Xiamen Garrison 3 Regiments of Entrenched Infantry, a Regiment of Artillery, and a complement of emplaced guns. Guangxi Provincial Garrison 4 Regiments, dispersed across the province, and two ranging cavalry regiments. Canton Garrison Five Regiments of Elite entrenched infantry, several regiments of artillery, both in the harbour and in the city itself. Three artillery regiments and three infantry regiments garrison the remainder of the ports in Guangdong.
General Static Fortifications Strength Strength: 6. Fully staffed and provided with a great deal of artillery, but not built up to modern standards outside of various Guangdong and Fujian ports.
Any Unique Ethertech Weapons?: None as yet.

Other Info
Brief Description of your Economy: The rich soil of southern China is a veritable breadbasket of rice plantations. The hills of Guangdong and Guangxi are terraced and teeming with rice paddies. The rural population had been booming in the Pearl River basin before the arrival of the westerners, but the import of a wider variety of crops for planting in less hospitable regions has caused agricultural production to skyrocket. Markets now bustle with corn, tropical fruits, and all the various produce of the Americas and of Europe. Tea leaves are manufactured en masse to fulfil European desire for the product. The population is increasing alongside the agricultural production. Agricultural production has also begun to feel the benefits of modernisation. The more modern form of crop rotation, incorporating fertilisers, has arrived in the government owned farms, though it has not yet spread out into private farms, or beyond the immediate neighbourhood of Guangzhou.

To be continued.
Brief Description of Culture/Society:
Most important societal values (Three traits your culture values most):
Goals:
History: (From 1920)
RP Sample: (Newbies will be granted a topic to demonstrate writing skills by me)
Grantville - Do not remove. This is for tracking purposes.

I know we were discussing this idea earlier, and I can say I mostly like where this is going. However, keep in mind that you're HEAVILY dependent on the West for your modern equipment, expertise, and capital to fund everything; all of that stuff dosen't come out of the goodness of their hearts. You're still going to be classified as Primative and will have your ability to repair, replace, and expand your modern technology taken away if you lose your patrons for whatever reason. The level of detail is more than enough though: I trust you to RP your unique situation well.

Also, you ought to clarify who those patrons are exactly. British Opium merchants are one, but clearing up your relations with the Ottoman Hashish peddlers, American and French merchants, and the governments of the Great Powers is important.

by **The Knights of Azorea** » Sun Jul 23, 2017 1:03 pm

Thank you. I'd be glad to clarify that, and I'll make sure to add an addendum to the history section detailing the formations of various trading relationships. A lot of these relationships are founded on the commercial expedience of Canton, but in order to get the history along the right lines, I sort of need to know how we're planning on doing the Opium Wars, if at all? The way I'm hoping to approach it is that the Western powers humiliated the Qing, and demanded access to Chinese markets, being given, in exchange, access to various southern ports, placed under the authority of Guangzhou, but I'm happy to shift things around as is preferable.

by **Reverend Norv** » Mon Jul 24, 2017 6:29 am

APPLICATION

National Information

Nation Name: The United States of America

Symbols: The Flag of the United States, nicknamed Old Glory, is the Republic's most important symbol; it flies from all federal ships and airships, down to the smallest airsled. The Great Seal of the USA is generally used to symbolize the federal government rather than the nation as a whole; since the US has no diplomatic uniform, American diplomats wear the seal as a gold lapel pin to symbolize their authority. While the United States does not formally possess a national anthem, the Battle Hymn of the Republic is widely played at official functions, and is taught in public schools - though many white Southerners regard it as a symbol of their disfranchisement. The United States has two popular personifications: Columbia, who represents the American people, and Uncle Sam, who represents the federal government. The bald eagle is the national animal, though it is more rarely used than other American symbols. Finally, among the most potent and popular symbols of the United States are documents: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Every American schoolchild memorizes the preambles of these two documents, and appeals to "defend the Constitution" are at least as symbolically potent as the cry to "defend the flag."

Homeland Population: 65,979,766 (based on 1880 census combined with registered births and immigration data). This figure includes approximately fourteen million white Southerners, whose political rights are limited by Reconstruction but who remain US citizens. It also includes 248,253 Native Americans, many of whom are registered as US citizens but regard themselves as members of independent tribes. Another six thousand American citizens reside in settler colonies on Mars, over which no government claims formal sovereignty.

Imperial Population: The United States has no directly administered colonies. Instead, its power is projected through a network of alliances, treaties, free trade agreements, gunboat patrols, and military bases that collectively turn countries into de facto American puppets. These include Korea (population approx. 11 million), the Central American Republic (population approx. 750,000), the Dominican Republic (population approx. 610,000), the Republic of Hawaii (population approx. 97,000), and twelve Martian city-states (total population approx. 500,000). In total, approximately 12,957,000 people live in countries closely aligned to the United States.

Location/Claims: The de jure territorial extent of the United States is shown at right. However, the United States also claims a special status in the whole Western Hemisphere: the Monroe Doctrine holds that any European interference in the Americas is a direct threat to the security of the United States, and so the USA claims exclusive Great Power status in its hemisphere. Obviously, no other nation is inclined to accept this claim. Three puppet republics - the Central American Republic, the Dominican Republic, and the Republic of Hawaii - are closely aligned with American policy, and encompass the territories of modern-day Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama - as well as Puerto Rico, the eastern half of Hispaniola, and the Hawaiian Islands. Moreover, the US controls an informal empire of settler colonies and puppet city-states that includes much of the western hemisphere of Mars; it has leased three territorial concessions in major Chinese trade ports; and the American ambassador to Korea has a permanent post as Royal Advisor to the Joseon King, which makes Korea an American protectorate in all but name.

Capital City: Washington, District of Columbia

Government Type: Federal Constitutional Republic

Head of State: President Schuyler Colfax

Head of Government: De jure, President Schuyler Colfax; de facto, Speaker of the House John Bingham

Head of Foreign Affairs: De jure, Secretary of State John Hay; de facto, Hay shares his authority with Representative James Ellet (N.W. - CA), the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

Head of the Colonial Office: Since the US adamantly denies that it possesses any colonies, no position directly analogous to "Head of the Colonial Office" exists in the federal government. In practice, most decisions regarding America's de facto foreign protectorates are made by the House Select Committee on Aviation, a fairly secretive (and very misleadingly named) body that does most of its work behind closed doors.

State Religion & Denomination: The United States Constitution prohibits an established church, but Protestant rhetoric and ideals are pervasive in American political life.

Population Information

Religion Demographics: Approximately sixty-five percent of Americans belong to more than a hundred Protestant churches, of which the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Baptists are the largest and most influential. An additional thirty percent of Americans are Roman Catholics. The remaining five percent are Eastern Orthodox, Mormon, Jewish, or follow traditional Native American religions. Many white Southerners feel that the US should be an exclusively Protestant country. In the North, anti-Semitism is less common, but Protestant anti-Catholicism can be even more virulent and has real political power.

Ethnicity: The United States is an exceedingly ethnically diverse nation. About twelve percent of the American population is of African descent, while four percent is of Mexican extraction and another two percent is of East Asian birth. The remaining eighty-two percent of Americans are white, but they trace their roots to every part of Europe from Portugal to Armenia. The oldest groups are of Ulster-Scots (Scots-Irish), English, and German extraction, but many of the Republic's cities are populated mostly by Americans of Italian, Polish, and Irish origin. Roughly one in every four Americans is a first-generation immigrant.

Accepted Cultures: Most American political and military leaders are white Protestants of Scots-Irish or English extraction, though there are exceptions.

Other Cultures: Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans face widespread racial discrimination, but their legal rights are guaranteed. Catholics and other recent immigrants are seen as suspect, but they also share in the full benefits of citizenship. White Southerners are disadvantaged by the Ironclad Oath, which disfranchises anyone who has ever taken up arms with the Confederacy or the Klu Klux Klan, or given aid and comfort to the same; in practice, this amounts to virtually the entire South. Native Americans have exactly the same legal rights as other citizens, but are required to give up their traditional tribal identities in order to exercise them; they are probably the most oppressed of all American citizens. In general, most Americans enjoy extensive legal and civil rights, but this does not protect them from social discrimination and prejudice.

Military Information

Mobile Regulars: The United States Army is composed of a largely professional officer corps and a standing enlisted force of all able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. It numbers just over 700,000 men, grouped into seven hundred regiments, 140 brigades, thirty divisions, and five corps. It is widely considered to be the most innovative armed force on the planet, having fully embraced the transformative effect of etheric technology on military tactics and strategy. Roughly two-thirds of the Army's regiments have been restructured in accordance with the Gardner Reforms. The Reforms turn each regiment into an air-mobile formation that is transported to the battlefield by airship, deployed from the airship to the ground using airsleds (Gatling gun-armed hovercraft, each capable of transporting a platoon, which offer US troops great mobility on the surface of the battlefield), and commanded using flexible mission-type tactics that allow for great initiative at the platoon and company level. The result is a force composed overwhelmingly of air-mobile infantry, with artillery relocated to airships as aerial fire support and cavalry abandoned as a vestige of the past. The American soldier's morale is high; he is very aware that he is part of a cutting-edge army. When the Garder Reforms work as intended on the battlefield, they can create a combination of rapid mobility and concentrated firepower that is very difficult to resist. The modern Army's major weakness is the risk that its transport airships, which are only armored on their undersides, can be intercepted and destroyed by enemy combat airships while still en route to the battlefield.

Navy: The United States Navy is by far the weakest branch of the American military. It numbers just thirty-five ships: one battleship, four protected cruisers, nine frigates, and twenty-one gunboats. With the exception of the gunboats, which are small but quite modern, the Navy's surface fleet is largely obsolete: it was laid down in the late 1860s. Naval morale is also low, and Congress shows no signs of addressing the problem: the influential Army General Staff believes that within two decades, airpower will render the surface warship obsolete.

Air Force: Most of the military aircraft of the United States are directly integrated into the US Army. Hundreds of McCallum-class airships transport American battalions, resupply them in the field, and support them with aerial artillery fire. Almost twenty thousand warsleds - which do not really count as aircraft, since they can descend from an airship but can only hover a few feet off the ground once they land - transport American platoons on the battlefield. More than a hundred New Jersey-class airships haul dozens of tons of cargo across thousands of miles to support the Army's strategic deployments. All of these aircraft are integrated directly into the Army's organizational structure at the battalion, platoon, and divisional level, respectively. But Congress has recently authorized the construction of a fleet of fifty state-of-the-art, all-liftwood, heavily armored airships-of-the-line. These airships will form the core of the new United States Airfleet, a dedicated air superiority force. Unfortunately, only six of them have been completed as of 1889.

Spaceships: The United States has no dedicated military spacecraft. Most American spacecraft, in fact, are privately owned: for example, the Vanderbilt Liftwood Company uses seventeen massive cargo spaceships to transport liftwood back from Mars to American factories. The federal government owns only six spacecraft of its own, all of which are dedicated troop transports capable of carrying one regiment each. These spaceships are unarmed, and are operated by the United States Merchant Marine rather than by the armed forces proper.

Militia: All able-bodied American men between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five are required to remain as reservists in their state militia regiments. The result is a truly massive militia force with extremely variable levels of training and equipment, since each state trains and arms its own militia (or fails to do so). As a consequence, the militia is not concentrated in any one area. Notably, the states have not embraced the Gardner Reforms, and so most militia troops are still armed and trained to fight traditional battles like those last seen in the Civil War. The regular Army holds most militia regiments in very low regard.

Major Garrisons: Sixty percent of the regular Army is garrisoned in the American South, with major bases in New Orleans, Charleston, Atlanta, Richmond, Houston, and Vicksburg. From here, smaller federal garrisons fan out to practically every Southern town of any meaningful size. Smaller garrison forces control the restive Southwest and Alaska. Relatively few troops are actually deployed overseas: a total of twelve regiments are scattered between Korea, Formosa, the Caribbean, Central America, and Mars.
At any given moment, most American troops who are neither garrisoning the South nor posted to overseas bases are involved in large-scale field maneuvers under the supervision of the Army General Staff, in keeping with the American military philosophy of semper reformanda.

General Static Fortifications Strength: The Army General Staff believes that air-mobile warfare has rendered static fortifications obsolete; any fort can be bypassed from the air. As a result, American military fortifications are of very poor quality - perhaps a one or two out of ten. For the most part, all US fortifications are simply temporary field improvisations: trenchlines and foxholes.

Colonial Forces: While the Kingdom of Korea, the Central American Republic, the Dominican Republic, the Republic of Hawaii, and the Martian city-states all have their own armed forces, they are so lightly armed, poorly trained, and badly led that they are largely ineffective for any purpose beyond local law enforcement. Reliance on American protection has atrophied the independent military capacity of America's de facto protectorates.

Any Unique Ethertech Weapons?: While the Gardner Reforms have given American troops access to a wide range of new technologies, most of these are innovative simply because they represent cost-effective ways to mass-produce widely known but very expensive airship designs. The primary exception is the airsled: a lightly armored hovercraft powered by a liftwood keel and six ducted fans and armed with a Gatling gun, which can make a controlled glide from an airship to the surface (though not vice versa), and ferry a platoon of soldiers around the battlefield at twenty miles per hour. It is the emblem of the American military focus on high technology, rapid mobility, and concentrated firepower, and it is mass-produced at a rate of almost eight thousand units per year.

Other Information

Brief Description of your Economy: The United States is an industrialized economy with the world's second-largest gross domestic product. It is the world's leading producer of coal, steel, cotton textiles, and etheric engines. Manufacturing - and especially heavy industry - is the foundation of the economy, but agriculture and mining remain important and are essential to the prosperity of many rural areas. Most importantly, the US economy is fed by cheap immigrant labor and abundant natural resources, and averages four percent GDP growth per year.

American industry is controlled largely by a handful of major, vertically integrated companies, of which Vanderbilt Liftwood, Carnegie Steel, Standard Oil, and Edison Technologies are the largest. These companies employ millions of Americans and accrue enormous wealth; their size allows them to lower production costs through economies of scale. The New Whig Party owes much of its popularity to its willingness to stand up to these titans of industry: it has passed laws requiring safe working conditions and a decent minimum wage, and it has raised taxes on the super-rich. Nonetheless, Washington needs the major corporations on its side in order to sustain economic growth. As a result, federal economic policy always represents a compromise between the captains of industry and a suspicious Congress.

Nevertheless, compromises do get made, because federal policies fuel the growth of American industry. The expansion of US manufacturing is enabled by massive federal spending on railroad and electrical infrastructure. An extremely dense infrastructure network reduces the cost of large-scale industrial production, which keeps prices low and domestic consumption high. Congress also disburses millions of dollars in research grants and military contracts, and most American companies have benefited greatly from producing equipment and vehicles for the US Army. But the main reason for the USA's sustained economic growth is a seemingly limitless influx of two key commodities: raw materials from the West and immigrant labor from Europe. Thus, while decent working conditions make the average American laborer less productive than his British counterpart, overall economic growth remains high and steady because of three factors: the sheer size of the American labor pool, the continued growth of that pool, and the cheap steel and coal that are abundantly available to American factories.

Brief Description of Culture/Society: The United States is among the most diverse societies in history. It is made up of two major racial groups, plus a host of minorities. It is a majority-Protestant country that is also thirty percent Catholic, and an English-speaking nation in which a quarter of the population speaks English only as a second language. It is divided by racism, by massive wealth inequality, by widespread anti-Catholic prejudice, and by deep regional suspicion between North and South. Despite the Constitution's promise of equality under the law, white Southerners are largely disfranchised by legislation that strips any man who aids rebellion of his civil rights, and Native Americans are forced to abandon their traditional ways of life in order to enjoy the benefits of American citizenship. In short, the USA is a deeply divided society, an amalgamation of many subcultures with their own social systems and identities, each of which relates slightly differently to the federal government and to the nation as a whole.

This divided society is held together for the most part by intangibles, not by a common language or faith or ethnic background. This unifying principle is called the American Dream, and it has two elements. The first is economic opportunity. The United States, despite its high level of income inequality, has no true hereditary aristocracy. Most of America's top politicians, generals, and business leaders rose from the middle classes through good luck and hard work; they did not inherit their wealth and status from their parents. The American Dream promises that, no matter your race or creed, hard work will be rewarded with success - and while this rarely proves the case, it is still more likely in the US than in Europe. This gives rise to a shared American spirit of enterprise and adventure and innovation, a distinctive unwillingness ever to be satisfied with the present situation. The second component of the American dream is public and political: if you sacrifice for the good of the nation, then the nation will protect your sacred rights as a free man and as a citizen. Universal military service has inflated the importance of this principle, and its result is a society that values egalitarianism but not individualism: civic virtue, the capacity to place the country before oneself, is crucial. To a great extent, this is what keeps the United States from collapsing under the weight of its social divisions; simply tolerating other citizens, whether they are blacks or Catholics or Yankees, becomes an act of civic virtue - a part of what makes a man a good and selfless American.

Most Important Societal Values: Liberty - meaning not individual freedom to do whatever one wants, but the defense of one's rights as a citizen involved in the collective project of self-government, and the protection of one's right to rise as high in society as one's intelligence and merit will allow. Justice - meaning not merely the fair treatment of individuals by other individuals, but a moral commitment to a society in which the liberties of all are protected, and in which the defense of liberty is celebrated and threats to liberty are suppressed. And duty, meaning the willingness to put the ideals of liberty and justice ahead of one's personal safety or prosperity, and to sacrifice in order to protect and extend them.

Goals: The United States has three foreign policy priorities. The first is geostrategic: to secure the Western Hemisphere as an American sphere of influence by purging European colonial rule from the Americas. This dream - the Monroe Doctrine - has been an American goal for more than fifty years, but the US has only recently acquired the strength to work toward realizing it with any practical hope of success. The second goal of the US is economic: to extend free trade over as much of the world's surface as possible, in order to ensure that American products can be exported globally, and that the riches of European colonies flow to the USA as well as to Europe. In particular, the US regards keeping China free of European domination as an essential economic interest: for as long as China remains a free-trade zone, San Francisco will be one of the world's leading ports of call in the lucrative China trade. Finally, the last American foreign policy goal is ideological: the defense and promotion of republican government, no matter where in the world it may appear. The US has proven willing to achieve this goal by underhanded means: arming, funding, and training Republican rebels in European monarchies. But it has also proved itself a loyal and determined friend to small and young republics all around the world.

History: Until 1865, the history of the United States is largely consistent with events in our timeline. After that point, it diverges dramatically:

1865: Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln is assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes president. Federal military occupation of the American South begins. The Freedmen's Bureau is established, and begins breaking up southern plantations for distribution to former slaves as small farms.

1866: President Johnson vetoes the Freedmen's Act, curbing land redistribution in the South. Republicans win a 190-seat majority in House of Representatives, of which 163 are affiliated with the party's Radical wing (Southern states' right to congressional representation is suspended). The Civil Rights Act is passed by overriding President Johnson's veto; it prohibits discrimination on the basis of color. The Klu Klux Klan is established, and begins attacks on Southern black community centers. Congressional Radicals first propose a peacetime draft in order to maintain occupation of South.

1867: The United States purchases Alaska from Russia. Major deposits of etheric salts and sands are discovered in both Alaska and the New Mexico Territory. The Klu Klux Klan attacks federal troops and assassinates Gen. Sinclair Roberts, deputy military governor of Georgia. Congressional Radicals again propose peacetime conscription.

1868: President Andrew Johnson is impeached by the House of Representatives for abuse of power. He is convicted by the Senate, removed from office, and replaced by Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio. President Wade is re-elected in November alongside a Radical Congress. The Second Reconstruction Acts are passed: the Ironclad Oath becomes a condition of suffrage and of holding office, stripping most Southern whites of their political rights. The Freedman's Act is passed for a second time; land redistribution resumes in the South. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are passed, protecting freedmen and other minorities. The Klu Klux Klan assassinates the military governor of Texas.

1869: The National Service System Acts are passed. All able-bodied American men are required to serve three years (18-21) in federal military service, and then to remain available for service until the age of 45 as members of their state militias. Thomas Alva Edison uses an experimental etheric spacecraft, and becomes the first man in space. Congress approves a direct subsidy and a tax credit for space exploration research. The Transcontinental Railroad is completed.

1870: The Republicans retain control of Congress. The National Rail Transport Act is passed: it raises taxes on interstate commerce to fund a massive investment in regional railway construction, causing a boom in factory construction in the Upper Midwest. Northern capitalists, led by Cornelius Vanderbilt, establish offices in the French Quarters of New Orleans and Charleston and begin to buy up the farms of struggling freedmen. The centralization of Southern agriculture provokes a gradual recovery in the productivity of the cotton industry, boosting American textile production. The state of Colorado, upon its admission to the Union, becomes the first to grant women full suffrage in its elections.

1871: The first American colony on Mars is established at Genesis by Shaker pacifists, without the knowledge or support of the US government. The US Secret Service is strongly suspected of collusion in the production of Republican tracts which cause rioting in several European capitals, but no conclusive proof is found.

1872: The Sixteenth Amendment is passed, allowing for the collection of a federal income tax. The American Social Insurance Acts are passed, establishing progressive federal income and corporate taxes to fund government assistance in sickness, unemployment, and old age. The Princeton Declaration sets US policy toward Native Americans: they are full citizens of the USA, and as such must renounce all tribal allegiances and integrate into American society. The Klu Klux Klan launches a coordinated bombing campaign in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. In response, the Federal Internal Security Taskforce (FIST) is established, initially as a temporary measure, to conduct anti-Klan law enforcement across state lines. The Republicans retain control of Congress; President Wade is reelected.

1873: Rampant speculative investment provokes a financial crisis that has ripple effects across the globe - the Panic of 1873. In response, Congress prints millions of greenbacks - fiat currency - in order to maintain moderate inflation and prevent widespread bankruptcy. It uses the resulting liquidity to invest heavily in etheric and electrical infrastructure in major cities, reducing the cost of industrial production. This produces a boom in domestic production and consumption that rapidly restores the US to economic growth. The National Conference on Women's Suffrage in Denver draws more than six thousand attendees, including two Republican congressmen. Women's suffrage becomes a national political controversy.

1874: Split by disagreements on tax policy, fiat money, and women's suffrage, the Republican Party schisms into the Liberals - heirs to the moderate Republicans - and the New Whigs, who are heirs to the party's Radical wing. The Liberals win control of Congress, and James Garfield becomes the first Liberal president. The Shaker settlement on Mars is attacked and destroyed by the Martian city-state of Sirenia, precipitating the Martian Crisis. In October, the US Army launches its first interplanetary operation: a punitive airship raid that levels Sirenia with shellfire. The Sioux revolt against federal attempts to force their children into boarding schools; the Army razes hundreds of Sioux villages until the chiefs submit, abjuring their authority and swearing loyalty to the Republic.

1875: In the wake of the Martian Crisis, the US negotiates a treaty with the Martian city-state of Thymiamata, leasing a military base in the Chryse highlands. This installation is dubbed Fort Edison. American colonists make privately-funded journeys to Mars and establish lucrative settlements at Highwood and New Corinth, among the liftwood forests. The Liberal government attempts to repair relations with European powers, and accedes to the Treaty of Frankfurt. Six southern states formally apply to be readmitted to Congress; the House of Representatives narrowly rejects all six applications. The ten-year anniversary of the Civil War's end is marked by the parade of more than a hundred thousand troops through Washington DC, which draws global attention to growing American military might.

1876: The Nez Perce rebel against federal attempts to collect a livestock tax. The Army chases them into the mountains, where most of the tribe dies of starvation and exposure. The survivors are resettled as US citizens in manufacturing towns in Ohio. At the invitation of the Joseon king, US forces intervene in Korea to suppress a peasant revolt; in return, Korea cedes a residential quarter in Hanseong to the Americans, signs a free trade agreement, and appoints the US consul to the royal council of advisors. In New York and Boston, recent immigrants riot against US conscription policy (the "Tenderloin Riots"); local police and state militia suppress the unrest.

1877: Amid continuing terrorism by the Klu Klux Klan, the Federal Internal Security Taskforce receives extended powers of surveillance and more permanent funding. It is renamed the Bureau of Internal Security, but remains unofficially known as FIST. In Nicaragua and Honduras, local aristocrats declare the Central American Republic. Aided by US arms, training, and several thousand "volunteers," the Republic gains independence and immediately signs a free-trade agreement and alliance pact with the USA. Almost a million dollars in direct federal subsidies briefly supercharges the American steel industry, lowering global steel prices far enough to drive several foreign competitors out of business.

1878: The Liberal Party attempts to cut taxes on corporate profits and the very rich; their bill is narrowly defeated, but the Liberals retain a thin majority in the House of Representatives after elections in November. In the same elections, the Democrats win control of twelve state legislatures in the Midwest and West. Japan signs a free-trade agreement and leases the US a small diplomatic quarter in Edo (Tokyo) in exchange for the help of American advisors and investors in developing a domestic railroad and canal network.

1879: Federal subsidies allow Thomas Edison to establish the world's largest dedicated research-and-development facility at Menlo Park, New Jersey; it soon becomes a global center for etheric engineering. The Coal Mining Reform Act is passed, leading to extensive construction of railroads and canals in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky; general prosperity in these areas improves. The Apache revolt against federal attempts to police the Mexican border more tightly. Brute force soon devastates the tribe's heartland, but the Apache refuse to surrender and be resettled. The survivors, led by Geronimo, begin a long campaign of sabotage and terrorism in the American Southwest. Democratic governors in Nebraska and Missouri obstruct federal conscription officers and tax collectors; in Missouri v. Garfield, the Supreme Court finds that while direct obstruction is unconstitutional, the federal government cannot force the states to assist in federal law enforcement either.

1880: Economic growth slows slightly. Several thousand Americans emigrate to the Martian colonies; Washington declares that while these colonies are not territorially part of the Union, their residents remain American citizens under federal protection. This odd formulation becomes known as the Garfield Doctrine. The New Whigs take control of the House of Representatives, leading to divided government and legislative paralysis. President Garfield mediates a Sino-Japanese conflict over Taiwan, and forces both sides to grant the US a naval base at Taipei.

1881: Threatened by the growth of American colonies, twelve Martian city-states embargo the settlers, threatening the colonies with starvation. In a nine-month punitive expedition (the Martian War), US troops force all twelve city-states to accept free-trade treaties, lease residential enclaves, and accept the presence of American gunboats and soldiers. Carnegie Steel becomes the largest single steel producer in the world. The New Whigs propose bills to protect factory workers from unsafe conditions; President Garfield vetoes them. The White House again proposes a tax cut for the wealthy; the New Whigs refuse to allow it out of committee in the House.

1882: Menlo Park becomes the largest single producer of etheric engines in the world. In November, the New Whigs retain control of the House of Representatives and win the White House; Schuyler Colfax becomes president. The American Workers Protection Act is passed; it regulates factory working conditions, limits working hours, and bans child labor. The State Department issues the Blaine Statement, which acknowledges the "special interest and right to consideration" of the Sublime Porte with regard to issues concerning the world's Muslims; this is little-noticed at home, but wins the US much goodwill in Constantinople. Panama revolts in a bid to join the Central American Republic; US Navy ships embargo Panamanian ports to prevent Spanish reinforcements from preventing Panama's secession (the "Panama Standoff"). Spain backs down.

1883: The US Army launches the Woodall Campaign, an all-out assault by several hundred thousand troops on Klu Klux Klan strongholds deep in the mountains of northern Alabama and Tennessee. Heavy casualties ensue, but the campaign devastates the Klan's heartland; many Southern rebels flee to Venus and Mars, where they establish new chapters and new bases. Railroad workers strike by the thousands in Ohio and Pennsylvania (the "Pullman Strike"); Congress passes amendments to the American Workers Protection Act guaranteeing, within limits, the right of industrial workers to unionize. The strikes therefore end in victory. Congress officially withdraws the United States from the Treaty of Frankfurt, eight years after American accession thereto. President Colfax establishes an official US consulate on Mars in the city-state of Thymiamata (forcibly "allied" to the US since the Martian War of 1881), and declares that the US will seek to defend the territorial integrity and independence of the Martian city-states and the openness of Martian markets against any attempt at conquest or monopolization (the Colfax Doctrine).

1884: Based on the lessons of the Woodall Campaign, the US Army implements an extensive modernization program: the Army becomes based on flexible smaller units, armed with repeating rifles, using mission-type tactics, that are transported by battle barges, deployed by liftwood hovercraft, supported by liftwood gunships armed with Maxim guns, and sustained by expeditionary logistics based on cargo airships. The revolutionary Gardner Reforms are intended to produce the world's first "army for the etheric age." The Army also begins supplying arms and training to Poland-Lithuania, as a warning against Russian or Austrian aggression. The US Secret Service is strongly suspected of collusion in a Republican bomb plot against the King of Italy, but no conclusive proof is found. The Democrats sweep the Midwest in the congressional elections, narrowing the New Whig majority in the House of Representatives to nine seats.

1885: In Miller v. University of Michigan, the Supreme Court rules that women must be admitted to American public universities on an equal basis with men. The twentieth anniversary of the end of the Civil War is marked by parades, speeches, and the unveiling of the Lincoln Memorial. All eleven Southern states petition for readmission to Congress. All petitions are denied; heavy casualties in the Woodall Campaign make concessions to the South political suicide. Tens of thousands of white Southerners strike and riot across the South; only after two months and two thousand deaths does the Army succeed in suppressing the Memorial Day Uprising. Amid rapid economic growth, ten million greenbacks are printed to slow deflation. In western Hispaniola, peasant revolutionaries declare the Dominican Republic. Aided by US arms, training, and several thousand "volunteers," the Republic gains independence and immediately signs a free-trade agreement and alliance pact with the USA.

1886: The powerful Martian city-state of Alcyon attacks the US-aligned city-state of Zephyria. The newly reformed US Army intervenes, and moves two regiments more than a thousand miles by air to beat back Alcyon's attack. The Alcyon Expedition succeeds in less than a week. Alcyon is forced to sign treaties of alliance and free trade; the efficacy of America's new "air-mobile" warfare is proven. President Colfax extends the Colfax Doctrine to China: the US will oppose any attempt to conquer Chinese territory or monopolize Chinese markets. The Empress Dowager rewards Washington with residential concessions in Peking, Canton, and Nanking. In November, the New Whigs win a stronger majority in the House of Representatives; President Colfax is reelected. In the wake of the 15th New York Colored Infantry's meritorious service in the Alcyon Expedition, President Colfax orders the Army to allow the commissioning of African-American officers in colored regiments.

1887: Illinois gives women the right to vote; one-third of the states have now adopted women's suffrage. Congress votes to extend the powers of FIST to include warrantless detention; the Supreme Court strikes down this law, provoking the New Whigs to fury. The Apache insurgency is curtailed by the capture and execution of Geronimo; it drags on, but at a more manageable level. British spies discover that the US Secret Service is attempting to inspire, arm, and train Quebecois separatists; Whitehall threatens the US with embargo, and Washington agrees to curtail its activities without ever actually admitting its complicity. The Canada Crisis therefore ends in a diplomatic humiliation for the USA. This is somewhat redeemed by the World's Fair, which is held in Philadelphia and serves to showcase American industrial might, technological progress, and military innovation. But the Fair is struck by the Klu Klux Klan in a coordinating bombing and gun attack that kills more than two hundred people. In response, four hundred imprisoned Klan members are swiftly re-tried in military tribunals and hanged.

1888: American merchants, armed and trained by US advisors, stage a coup in Hawaii and impose the Bayonet Constitution, turning the Hawaiian Islands into an American puppet republic. Speaker of the House John Bingham, widely regarded as the most powerful man in Washington, suffers a severe health crisis and returns home to Ohio. Almost twelve thousand people demonstrate across the country for women's suffrage on Susan B. Anthony's birthday (the "February March"). In November, the New Whigs lose their majority in the House; Congress is divided between the three parties, with none holding an absolute majority. This allows the Democrats to call the first truly open congressional debate on the Southern Question, which turns so passionate that it leaves many representatives in tears.

1889 (current year): The previous year's poor harvest threatens thousands of Midwestern farmers with foreclosure; the New Whigs and Democrats vote together for the first time to provide farm subsidies and print greenbacks, inflating the dollar and defusing the crisis. In Durham, North Carolina, the local Loyal League massacres a white family in retaliation for a Klu Klux Klan bombing. When the family is found to have had no Klan connection, protests erupt, and congressional Democrats demand legislation to bring Unionist paramilitaries to heel. Amid growing unrest in key Spanish colonies, congressional New Whigs and President Colfax intensify their anti-Spanish rhetoric, warning that the Spanish Empire is a relic of tyranny that has no place in the future of the New World. Observers warn that a Spanish-American war is likely within eighteen months.

RP Sample: My credentials are in my sig.
Grantville - Do not remove. This is for tracking purposes.

by **Plzen** » Mon Jul 24, 2017 9:52 am

Alright. My application is almost finished. I'll write a history for it tomorrow, and then it will really be done. The draft a bit bare-bones because I simply don't have an affinity towards explanations or detail, and I doubt I can really change that.

In the meantime, feedback would be appreciated.

by **New Granadeseret** » Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:07 pm

Reverend Norv wrote:
APPLICATION

National Information

Nation Name: The United States of America

Symbols: The Flag of the United States, nicknamed Old Glory, is the Republic's most important symbol; it flies from all federal ships and airships, down to the smallest airsled. The Great Seal of the USA is generally used to symbolize the federal government rather than the nation as a whole; since the US has no diplomatic uniform, American diplomats wear the seal as a gold lapel pin to symbolize their authority. While the United States does not formally possess a national anthem, the Battle Hymn of the Republic is widely played at official functions, and is taught in public schools - though many white Southerners regard it as a symbol of their disfranchisement. The United States has two popular personifications: Columbia, who represents the American people, and Uncle Sam, who represents the federal government. The bald eagle is the national animal, though it is more rarely used than other American symbols. Finally, among the most potent and popular symbols of the United States are documents: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Every American schoolchild memorizes the preambles of these two documents, and appeals to "defend the Constitution" are at least as symbolically potent as the cry to "defend the flag."

Homeland Population: 65,979,766 (based on 1880 census combined with registered births and immigration data). This figure includes approximately fourteen million white Southerners, whose political rights are limited by Reconstruction but who remain US citizens. It also includes 248,253 Native Americans, many of whom are registered as US citizens but regard themselves as members of independent tribes. Another six thousand American citizens reside in settler colonies on Mars, over which no government claims formal sovereignty.

Imperial Population: The United States has no directly administered colonies. Instead, its power is projected through a network of alliances, treaties, free trade agreements, gunboat patrols, and military bases that collectively turn countries into de facto American puppets. These include Korea (population approx. 11 million), the Central American Republic (population approx. 750,000), the Dominican Republic (population approx. 610,000), the Republic of Hawaii (population approx. 97,000), and twelve Martian city-states (total population approx. 500,000). In total, approximately 12,957,000 people live in countries closely aligned to the United States.
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Location/Claims: The de jure territorial extent of the United States is shown at right. However, the United States also claims a special status in the whole Western Hemisphere: the Monroe Doctrine holds that any European interference in the Americas is a direct threat to the security of the United States, and so the USA claims exclusive Great Power status in its hemisphere. Obviously, no other nation is inclined to accept this claim. Three puppet republics - the Central American Republic, the Dominican Republic, and the Republic of Hawaii - are closely aligned with American policy, and encompass the territories of modern-day Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama - as well as Puerto Rico, the eastern half of Hispaniola, and the Hawaiian Islands. Moreover, the US controls an informal empire of settler colonies and puppet city-states that includes much of the western hemisphere of Mars; it has leased three territorial concessions in major Chinese trade ports; and the American ambassador to Korea has a permanent post as Royal Advisor to the Joseon King, which makes Korea an American protectorate in all but name.

Capital City: Washington, District of Columbia

Government Type: Federal Constitutional Republic

Head of State: President Schuyler Colfax

Head of Government: De jure, President Schuyler Colfax; de facto, Speaker of the House John Bingham

Head of Foreign Affairs: De jure, Secretary of State John Hay; de facto, Hay shares his authority with Representative James Ellet (N.W. - CA), the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

Head of the Colonial Office: Since the US adamantly denies that it possesses any colonies, no position directly analogous to "Head of the Colonial Office" exists in the federal government. In practice, most decisions regarding America's de facto foreign protectorates are made by the House Select Committee on Aviation, a fairly secretive (and very misleadingly named) body that does most of its work behind closed doors.

State Religion & Denomination: The United States Constitution prohibits an established church, but Protestant rhetoric and ideals are pervasive in American political life.

Population Information

Religion Demographics: Approximately sixty-five percent of Americans belong to more than a hundred Protestant churches, of which the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Baptists are the largest and most influential. An additional thirty percent of Americans are Roman Catholics. The remaining five percent are Eastern Orthodox, Mormon, Jewish, or follow traditional Native American religions. Many white Southerners feel that the US should be an exclusively Protestant country. In the North, anti-Semitism is less common, but Protestant anti-Catholicism can be even more virulent and has real political power.
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Ethnicity: The United States is an exceedingly ethnically diverse nation. About twelve percent of the American population is of African descent, while four percent is of Mexican extraction and another two percent is of East Asian birth. The remaining eighty-two percent of Americans are white, but they trace their roots to every part of Europe from Portugal to Armenia. The oldest groups are of Ulster-Scots (Scots-Irish), English, and German extraction, but many of the Republic's cities are populated mostly by Americans of Italian, Polish, and Irish origin. Roughly one in every four Americans is a first-generation immigrant.

Accepted Cultures: Most American political and military leaders are white Protestants of Scots-Irish or English extraction, though there are exceptions.

Other Cultures: Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans face widespread racial discrimination, but their legal rights are guaranteed. Catholics and other recent immigrants are seen as suspect, but they also share in the full benefits of citizenship. White Southerners are disadvantaged by the Ironclad Oath, which disfranchises anyone who has ever taken up arms with the Confederacy or the Klu Klux Klan, or given aid and comfort to the same; in practice, this amounts to virtually the entire South. Native Americans have exactly the same legal rights as other citizens, but are required to give up their traditional tribal identities in order to exercise them; they are probably the most oppressed of all American citizens. In general, most Americans enjoy extensive legal and civil rights, but this does not protect them from social discrimination and prejudice.

Military Information

Mobile Regulars: The United States Army is composed of a largely professional officer corps and a standing enlisted force of all able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. It numbers just over 700,000 men, grouped into seven hundred regiments, 140 brigades, thirty divisions, and five corps. It is widely considered to be the most innovative armed force on the planet, having fully embraced the transformative effect of etheric technology on military tactics and strategy. Roughly two-thirds of the Army's regiments have been restructured in accordance with the Gardner Reforms. The Reforms turn each regiment into an air-mobile formation that is transported to the battlefield by airship, deployed from the airship to the ground using airsleds (Gatling gun-armed hovercraft, each capable of transporting a platoon, which offer US troops great mobility on the surface of the battlefield), and commanded using flexible mission-type tactics that allow for great initiative at the platoon and company level. The result is a force composed overwhelmingly of air-mobile infantry, with artillery relocated to airships as aerial fire support and cavalry abandoned as a vestige of the past. The American soldier's morale is high; he is very aware that he is part of a cutting-edge army. When the Garder Reforms work as intended on the battlefield, they can create a combination of rapid mobility and concentrated firepower that is very difficult to resist. The modern Army's major weakness is the risk that its transport airships, which are only armored on their undersides, can be intercepted and destroyed by enemy combat airships while still en route to the battlefield.
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Navy: The United States Navy is by far the weakest branch of the American military. It numbers just thirty-five ships: one battleship, four protected cruisers, nine frigates, and twenty-one gunboats. With the exception of the gunboats, which are small but quite modern, the Navy's surface fleet is largely obsolete: it was laid down in the late 1860s. Naval morale is also low, and Congress shows no signs of addressing the problem: the influential Army General Staff believes that within two decades, airpower will render the surface warship obsolete.

Air Force: Most of the military aircraft of the United States are directly integrated into the US Army. Hundreds of McCallum-class airships transport American battalions, resupply them in the field, and support them with aerial artillery fire. Almost twenty thousand warsleds - which do not really count as aircraft, since they can descend from an airship but can only hover a few feet off the ground once they land - transport American platoons on the battlefield. More than a hundred New Jersey-class airships haul dozens of tons of cargo across thousands of miles to support the Army's strategic deployments. All of these aircraft are integrated directly into the Army's organizational structure at the battalion, platoon, and divisional level, respectively. But Congress has recently authorized the construction of a fleet of fifty state-of-the-art, all-liftwood, heavily armored airships-of-the-line. These airships will form the core of the new United States Airfleet, a dedicated air superiority force. Unfortunately, only six of them have been completed as of 1889.

Spaceships: The United States has no dedicated military spacecraft. Most American spacecraft, in fact, are privately owned: for example, the Vanderbilt Liftwood Company uses seventeen massive cargo spaceships to transport liftwood back from Mars to American factories. The federal government owns only six spacecraft of its own, all of which are dedicated troop transports capable of carrying one regiment each. These spaceships are unarmed, and are operated by the United States Merchant Marine rather than by the armed forces proper.

Militia: All able-bodied American men between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five are required to remain as reservists in their state militia regiments. The result is a truly massive militia force with extremely variable levels of training and equipment, since each state trains and arms its own militia (or fails to do so). As a consequence, the militia is not concentrated in any one area. Notably, the states have not embraced the Gardner Reforms, and so most militia troops are still armed and trained to fight traditional battles like those last seen in the Civil War. The regular Army holds most militia regiments in very low regard.

Major Garrisons: Sixty percent of the regular Army is garrisoned in the American South, with major bases in New Orleans, Charleston, Atlanta, Richmond, Houston, and Vicksburg. From here, smaller federal garrisons fan out to practically every Southern town of any meaningful size. Smaller garrison forces control the restive Southwest and Alaska. Relatively few troops are actually deployed overseas: a total of twelve regiments are scattered between Korea, Formosa, the Caribbean, Central America, and Mars.
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At any given moment, most American troops who are neither garrisoning the South nor posted to overseas bases are involved in large-scale field maneuvers under the supervision of the Army General Staff, in keeping with the American military philosophy of semper reformanda.

General Static Fortifications Strength: The Army General Staff believes that air-mobile warfare has rendered static fortifications obsolete; any fort can be bypassed from the air. As a result, American military fortifications are of very poor quality - perhaps a one or two out of ten. For the most part, all US fortifications are simply temporary field improvisations: trenchlines and foxholes.

Colonial Forces: While the Kingdom of Korea, the Central American Republic, the Dominican Republic, the Republic of Hawaii, and the Martian city-states all have their own armed forces, they are so lightly armed, poorly trained, and badly led that they are largely ineffective for any purpose beyond local law enforcement. Reliance on American protection has atrophied the independent military capacity of America's de facto protectorates.

Any Unique Ethertech Weapons?: While the Gardner Reforms have given American troops access to a wide range of new technologies, most of these are innovative simply because they represent cost-effective ways to mass-produce widely known but very expensive airship designs. The primary exception is the airsled: a lightly armored hovercraft powered by a liftwood keel and six ducted fans and armed with a Gatling gun, which can make a controlled glide from an airship to the surface (though not vice versa), and ferry a platoon of soldiers around the battlefield at twenty miles per hour. It is the emblem of the American military focus on high technology, rapid mobility, and concentrated firepower, and it is mass-produced at a rate of almost eight thousand units per year.

Other Information

Brief Description of your Economy: The United States is an industrialized economy with the world's second-largest gross domestic product. It is the world's leading producer of coal, steel, cotton textiles, and etheric engines. Manufacturing - and especially heavy industry - is the foundation of the economy, but agriculture and mining remain important and are essential to the prosperity of many rural areas. Most importantly, the US economy is fed by cheap immigrant labor and abundant natural resources, and averages four percent GDP growth per year.
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American industry is controlled largely by a handful of major, vertically integrated companies, of which Vanderbilt Liftwood, Carnegie Steel, Standard Oil, and Edison Technologies are the largest. These companies employ millions of Americans and accrue enormous wealth; their size allows them to lower production costs through economies of scale. The New Whig Party owes much of its popularity to its willingness to stand up to these titans of industry: it has passed laws requiring safe working conditions and a decent minimum wage, and it has raised taxes on the super-rich. Nonetheless, Washington needs the major corporations on its side in order to sustain economic growth. As a result, federal economic policy always represents a compromise between the captains of industry and a suspicious Congress.

Nevertheless, compromises do get made, because federal policies fuel the growth of American industry. The expansion of US manufacturing is enabled by massive federal spending on railroad and electrical infrastructure. An extremely dense infrastructure network reduces the cost of large-scale industrial production, which keeps prices low and domestic consumption high. Congress also disburses millions of dollars in research grants and military contracts, and most American companies have benefited greatly from producing equipment and vehicles for the US Army. But the main reason for the USA's sustained economic growth is a seemingly limitless influx of two key commodities: raw materials from the West and immigrant labor from Europe. Thus, while decent working conditions make the average American laborer less productive than his British counterpart, overall economic growth remains high and steady because of three factors: the sheer size of the American labor pool, the continued growth of that pool, and the cheap steel and coal that are abundantly available to American factories.

Brief Description of Culture/Society: The United States is among the most diverse societies in history. It is made up of two major racial groups, plus a host of minorities. It is a majority-Protestant country that is also thirty percent Catholic, and an English-speaking nation in which a quarter of the population speaks English only as a second language. It is divided by racism, by massive wealth inequality, by widespread anti-Catholic prejudice, and by deep regional suspicion between North and South. Despite the Constitution's promise of equality under the law, white Southerners are largely disfranchised by legislation that strips any man who aids rebellion of his civil rights, and Native Americans are forced to abandon their traditional ways of life in order to enjoy the benefits of American citizenship. In short, the USA is a deeply divided society, an amalgamation of many subcultures with their own social systems and identities, each of which relates slightly differently to the federal government and to the nation as a whole.

This divided society is held together for the most part by intangibles, not by a common language or faith or ethnic background. This unifying principle is called the American Dream, and it has two elements. The first is economic opportunity. The United States, despite its high level of income inequality, has no true hereditary aristocracy. Most of America's top politicians, generals, and business leaders rose from the middle classes through good luck and hard work; they did not inherit their wealth and status from their parents. The American Dream promises that, no matter your race or creed, hard work will be rewarded with success - and while this rarely proves the case, it is still more likely in the US than in Europe. This gives rise to a shared American spirit of enterprise and adventure and innovation, a distinctive unwillingness ever to be satisfied with the present situation. The second component of the American dream is public and political: if you sacrifice for the good of the nation, then the nation will protect your sacred rights as a free man and as a citizen. Universal military service has inflated the importance of this principle, and its result is a society that values egalitarianism but not individualism: civic virtue, the capacity to place the country before oneself, is crucial. To a great extent, this is what keeps the United States from collapsing under the weight of its social divisions; simply tolerating other citizens, whether they are blacks or Catholics or Yankees, becomes an act of civic virtue - a part of what makes a man a good and selfless American.
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Most Important Societal Values: Liberty - meaning not individual freedom to do whatever one wants, but the defense of one's rights as a citizen involved in the collective project of self-government, and the protection of one's right to rise as high in society as one's intelligence and merit will allow. Justice - meaning not merely the fair treatment of individuals by other individuals, but a moral commitment to a society in which the liberties of all are protected, and in which the defense of liberty is celebrated and threats to liberty are suppressed. And duty, meaning the willingness to put the ideals of liberty and justice ahead of one's personal safety or prosperity, and to sacrifice in order to protect and extend them.

Goals: The United States has three foreign policy priorities. The first is geostrategic: to secure the Western Hemisphere as an American sphere of influence by purging European colonial rule from the Americas. This dream - the Monroe Doctrine - has been an American goal for more than fifty years, but the US has only recently acquired the strength to work toward realizing it with any practical hope of success. The second goal of the US is economic: to extend free trade over as much of the world's surface as possible, in order to ensure that American products can be exported globally, and that the riches of European colonies flow to the USA as well as to Europe. In particular, the US regards keeping China free of European domination as an essential economic interest: for as long as China remains a free-trade zone, San Francisco will be one of the world's leading ports of call in the lucrative China trade. Finally, the last American foreign policy goal is ideological: the defense and promotion of republican government, no matter where in the world it may appear. The US has proven willing to achieve this goal by underhanded means: arming, funding, and training Republican rebels in European monarchies. But it has also proved itself a loyal and determined friend to small and young republics all around the world.

History: Until 1865, the history of the United States is largely consistent with events in our timeline. After that point, it diverges dramatically:

1865: Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln is assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes president. Federal military occupation of the American South begins. The Freedmen's Bureau is established, and begins breaking up southern plantations for distribution to former slaves as small farms.

1866: President Johnson vetoes the Freedmen's Act, curbing land redistribution in the South. Republicans win a 190-seat majority in House of Representatives, of which 163 are affiliated with the party's Radical wing (Southern states' right to congressional representation is suspended). The Civil Rights Act is passed by overriding President Johnson's veto; it prohibits discrimination on the basis of color. The Klu Klux Klan is established, and begins attacks on Southern black community centers. Congressional Radicals first propose a peacetime draft in order to maintain occupation of South.

1867: The United States purchases Alaska from Russia. Major deposits of etheric salts and sands are discovered in both Alaska and the New Mexico Territory. The Klu Klux Klan attacks federal troops and assassinates Gen. Sinclair Roberts, deputy military governor of Georgia. Congressional Radicals again propose peacetime conscription.

1868: President Andrew Johnson is impeached by the House of Representatives for abuse of power. He is convicted by the Senate, removed from office, and replaced by Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio. President Wade is re-elected in November alongside a Radical Congress. The Second Reconstruction Acts are passed: the Ironclad Oath becomes a condition of suffrage and of holding office, stripping most Southern whites of their political rights. The Freedman's Act is passed for a second time; land redistribution resumes in the South. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are passed, protecting freedmen and other minorities. The Klu Klux Klan assassinates the military governor of Texas.

1869: The National Service System Acts are passed. All able-bodied American men are required to serve three years (18-21) in federal military service, and then to remain available for service until the age of 45 as members of their state militias. Thomas Alva Edison uses an experimental etheric spacecraft, and becomes the first man in space. Congress approves a direct subsidy and a tax credit for space exploration research. The Transcontinental Railroad is completed.

1870: The Republicans retain control of Congress. The National Rail Transport Act is passed: it raises taxes on interstate commerce to fund a massive investment in regional railway construction, causing a boom in factory construction in the Upper Midwest. Northern capitalists, led by Cornelius Vanderbilt, establish offices in the French Quarters of New Orleans and Charleston and begin to buy up the farms of struggling freedmen. The centralization of Southern agriculture provokes a gradual recovery in the productivity of the cotton industry, boosting American textile production. The state of Colorado, upon its admission to the Union, becomes the first to grant women full suffrage in its elections.

1871: The first American colony on Mars is established at Genesis by Shaker pacifists, without the knowledge or support of the US government. The US Secret Service is strongly suspected of collusion in the production of Republican tracts which cause rioting in several European capitals, but no conclusive proof is found.

1872: The Sixteenth Amendment is passed, allowing for the collection of a federal income tax. The American Social Insurance Acts are passed, establishing progressive federal income and corporate taxes to fund government assistance in sickness, unemployment, and old age. The Princeton Declaration sets US policy toward Native Americans: they are full citizens of the USA, and as such must renounce all tribal allegiances and integrate into American society. The Klu Klux Klan launches a coordinated bombing campaign in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. In response, the Federal Internal Security Taskforce (FIST) is established, initially as a temporary measure, to conduct anti-Klan law enforcement across state lines. The Republicans retain control of Congress; President Wade is reelected.

1873: Rampant speculative investment provokes a financial crisis that has ripple effects across the globe - the Panic of 1873. In response, Congress prints millions of greenbacks - fiat currency - in order to maintain moderate inflation and prevent widespread bankruptcy. It uses the resulting liquidity to invest heavily in etheric and electrical infrastructure in major cities, reducing the cost of industrial production. This produces a boom in domestic production and consumption that rapidly restores the US to economic growth. The National Conference on Women's Suffrage in Denver draws more than six thousand attendees, including two Republican congressmen. Women's suffrage becomes a national political controversy.

1874: Split by disagreements on tax policy, fiat money, and women's suffrage, the Republican Party schisms into the Liberals - heirs to the moderate Republicans - and the New Whigs, who are heirs to the party's Radical wing. The Liberals win control of Congress, and James Garfield becomes the first Liberal president. The Shaker settlement on Mars is attacked and destroyed by the Martian city-state of Sirenia, precipitating the Martian Crisis. In October, the US Army launches its first interplanetary operation: a punitive airship raid that levels Sirenia with shellfire. The Sioux revolt against federal attempts to force their children into boarding schools; the Army razes hundreds of Sioux villages until the chiefs submit, abjuring their authority and swearing loyalty to the Republic.

1875: In the wake of the Martian Crisis, the US negotiates a treaty with the Martian city-state of Thymiamata, leasing a military base in the Chryse highlands. This installation is dubbed Fort Edison. American colonists make privately-funded journeys to Mars and establish lucrative settlements at Highwood and New Corinth, among the liftwood forests. The Liberal government attempts to repair relations with European powers, and accedes to the Treaty of Frankfurt. Six southern states formally apply to be readmitted to Congress; the House of Representatives narrowly rejects all six applications. The ten-year anniversary of the Civil War's end is marked by the parade of more than a hundred thousand troops through Washington DC, which draws global attention to growing American military might.

1876: The Nez Perce rebel against federal attempts to collect a livestock tax. The Army chases them into the mountains, where most of the tribe dies of starvation and exposure. The survivors are resettled as US citizens in manufacturing towns in Ohio. At the invitation of the Joseon king, US forces intervene in Korea to suppress a peasant revolt; in return, Korea cedes a residential quarter in Hanseong to the Americans, signs a free trade agreement, and appoints the US consul to the royal council of advisors. In New York and Boston, recent immigrants riot against US conscription policy (the "Tenderloin Riots"); local police and state militia suppress the unrest.

1877: Amid continuing terrorism by the Klu Klux Klan, the Federal Internal Security Taskforce receives extended powers of surveillance and more permanent funding. It is renamed the Bureau of Internal Security, but remains unofficially known as FIST. In Nicaragua and Honduras, local aristocrats declare the Central American Republic. Aided by US arms, training, and several thousand "volunteers," the Republic gains independence and immediately signs a free-trade agreement and alliance pact with the USA. Almost a million dollars in direct federal subsidies briefly supercharges the American steel industry, lowering global steel prices far enough to drive several foreign competitors out of business.

1878: The Liberal Party attempts to cut taxes on corporate profits and the very rich; their bill is narrowly defeated, but the Liberals retain a thin majority in the House of Representatives after elections in November. In the same elections, the Democrats win control of twelve state legislatures in the Midwest and West. Japan signs a free-trade agreement and leases the US a small diplomatic quarter in Edo (Tokyo) in exchange for the help of American advisors and investors in developing a domestic railroad and canal network.

1879: Federal subsidies allow Thomas Edison to establish the world's largest dedicated research-and-development facility at Menlo Park, New Jersey; it soon becomes a global center for etheric engineering. The Coal Mining Reform Act is passed, leading to extensive construction of railroads and canals in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky; general prosperity in these areas improves. The Apache revolt against federal attempts to police the Mexican border more tightly. Brute force soon devastates the tribe's heartland, but the Apache refuse to surrender and be resettled. The survivors, led by Geronimo, begin a long campaign of sabotage and terrorism in the American Southwest. Democratic governors in Nebraska and Missouri obstruct federal conscription officers and tax collectors; in Missouri v. Garfield, the Supreme Court finds that while direct obstruction is unconstitutional, the federal government cannot force the states to assist in federal law enforcement either.

1880: Economic growth slows slightly. Several thousand Americans emigrate to the Martian colonies; Washington declares that while these colonies are not territorially part of the Union, their residents remain American citizens under federal protection. This odd formulation becomes known as the Garfield Doctrine. The New Whigs take control of the House of Representatives, leading to divided government and legislative paralysis. President Garfield mediates a Sino-Japanese conflict over Taiwan, and forces both sides to grant the US a naval base at Taipei.

1881: Threatened by the growth of American colonies, twelve Martian city-states embargo the settlers, threatening the colonies with starvation. In a nine-month punitive expedition (the Martian War), US troops force all twelve city-states to accept free-trade treaties, lease residential enclaves, and accept the presence of American gunboats and soldiers. Carnegie Steel becomes the largest single steel producer in the world. The New Whigs propose bills to protect factory workers from unsafe conditions; President Garfield vetoes them. The White House again proposes a tax cut for the wealthy; the New Whigs refuse to allow it out of committee in the House.

1882: Menlo Park becomes the largest single producer of etheric engines in the world. In November, the New Whigs retain control of the House of Representatives and win the White House; Schuyler Colfax becomes president. The American Workers Protection Act is passed; it regulates factory working conditions, limits working hours, and bans child labor. The State Department issues the Blaine Statement, which acknowledges the "special interest and right to consideration" of the Sublime Porte with regard to issues concerning the world's Muslims; this is little-noticed at home, but wins the US much goodwill in Constantinople. Panama revolts in a bid to join the Central American Republic; US Navy ships embargo Panamanian ports to prevent Spanish reinforcements from preventing Panama's secession (the "Panama Standoff"). Spain backs down.

1883: The US Army launches the Woodall Campaign, an all-out assault by several hundred thousand troops on Klu Klux Klan strongholds deep in the mountains of northern Alabama and Tennessee. Heavy casualties ensue, but the campaign devastates the Klan's heartland; many Southern rebels flee to Venus and Mars, where they establish new chapters and new bases. Railroad workers strike by the thousands in Ohio and Pennsylvania (the "Pullman Strike"); Congress passes amendments to the American Workers Protection Act guaranteeing, within limits, the right of industrial workers to unionize. The strikes therefore end in victory. Congress officially withdraws the United States from the Treaty of Frankfurt, eight years after American accession thereto. President Colfax establishes an official US consulate on Mars in the city-state of Thymiamata (forcibly "allied" to the US since the Martian War of 1881), and declares that the US will seek to defend the territorial integrity and independence of the Martian city-states and the openness of Martian markets against any attempt at conquest or monopolization (the Colfax Doctrine).

1884: Based on the lessons of the Woodall Campaign, the US Army implements an extensive modernization program: the Army becomes based on flexible smaller units, armed with repeating rifles, using mission-type tactics, that are transported by battle barges, deployed by liftwood hovercraft, supported by liftwood gunships armed with Maxim guns, and sustained by expeditionary logistics based on cargo airships. The revolutionary Gardner Reforms are intended to produce the world's first "army for the etheric age." The Army also begins supplying arms and training to Poland-Lithuania, as a warning against Russian or Austrian aggression. The US Secret Service is strongly suspected of collusion in a Republican bomb plot against the King of Italy, but no conclusive proof is found. The Democrats sweep the Midwest in the congressional elections, narrowing the New Whig majority in the House of Representatives to nine seats.

1885: In Miller v. University of Michigan, the Supreme Court rules that women must be admitted to American public universities on an equal basis with men. The twentieth anniversary of the end of the Civil War is marked by parades, speeches, and the unveiling of the Lincoln Memorial. All eleven Southern states petition for readmission to Congress. All petitions are denied; heavy casualties in the Woodall Campaign make concessions to the South political suicide. Tens of thousands of white Southerners strike and riot across the South; only after two months and two thousand deaths does the Army succeed in suppressing the Memorial Day Uprising. Amid rapid economic growth, ten million greenbacks are printed to slow deflation. In western Hispaniola, peasant revolutionaries declare the Dominican Republic. Aided by US arms, training, and several thousand "volunteers," the Republic gains independence and immediately signs a free-trade agreement and alliance pact with the USA.

1886: The powerful Martian city-state of Alcyon attacks the US-aligned city-state of Zephyria. The newly reformed US Army intervenes, and moves two regiments more than a thousand miles by air to beat back Alcyon's attack. The Alcyon Expedition succeeds in less than a week. Alcyon is forced to sign treaties of alliance and free trade; the efficacy of America's new "air-mobile" warfare is proven. President Colfax extends the Colfax Doctrine to China: the US will oppose any attempt to conquer Chinese territory or monopolize Chinese markets. The Empress Dowager rewards Washington with residential concessions in Peking, Canton, and Nanking. In November, the New Whigs win a stronger majority in the House of Representatives; President Colfax is reelected. In the wake of the 15th New York Colored Infantry's meritorious service in the Alcyon Expedition, President Colfax orders the Army to allow the commissioning of African-American officers in colored regiments.

1887: Illinois gives women the right to vote; one-third of the states have now adopted women's suffrage. Congress votes to extend the powers of FIST to include warrantless detention; the Supreme Court strikes down this law, provoking the New Whigs to fury. The Apache insurgency is curtailed by the capture and execution of Geronimo; it drags on, but at a more manageable level. British spies discover that the US Secret Service is attempting to inspire, arm, and train Quebecois separatists; Whitehall threatens the US with embargo, and Washington agrees to curtail its activities without ever actually admitting its complicity. The Canada Crisis therefore ends in a diplomatic humiliation for the USA. This is somewhat redeemed by the World's Fair, which is held in Philadelphia and serves to showcase American industrial might, technological progress, and military innovation. But the Fair is struck by the Klu Klux Klan in a coordinating bombing and gun attack that kills more than two hundred people. In response, four hundred imprisoned Klan members are swiftly re-tried in military tribunals and hanged.

1888: American merchants, armed and trained by US advisors, stage a coup in Hawaii and impose the Bayonet Constitution, turning the Hawaiian Islands into an American puppet republic. Speaker of the House John Bingham, widely regarded as the most powerful man in Washington, suffers a severe health crisis and returns home to Ohio. Almost twelve thousand people demonstrate across the country for women's suffrage on Susan B. Anthony's birthday (the "February March"). In November, the New Whigs lose their majority in the House; Congress is divided between the three parties, with none holding an absolute majority. This allows the Democrats to call the first truly open congressional debate on the Southern Question, which turns so passionate that it leaves many representatives in tears.

1889 (current year): The previous year's poor harvest threatens thousands of Midwestern farmers with foreclosure; the New Whigs and Democrats vote together for the first time to provide farm subsidies and print greenbacks, inflating the dollar and defusing the crisis. In Durham, North Carolina, the local Loyal League massacres a white family in retaliation for a Klu Klux Klan bombing. When the family is found to have had no Klan connection, protests erupt, and congressional Democrats demand legislation to bring Unionist paramilitaries to heel. Amid growing unrest in key Spanish colonies, congressional New Whigs and President Colfax intensify their anti-Spanish rhetoric, warning that the Spanish Empire is a relic of tyranny that has no place in the future of the New World. Observers warn that a Spanish-American war is likely within eighteen months.

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My only critique is the size and provenance of the Air Force: airships are still a relatively primative technology, and I believe we clarified inn the Worldbuild thread that they're pretty fragile, have a short range or are very flammable, and can't carry a particularly large amount of firepower. Seeing potential is certainly fine, but airship tech (and the fact that we're talking mostly LTA craft anyways) isen't at a point that it can do what you claim it can do. Having that many would also cost quite a pretty penny; but that's made up for by not investing money in the navy.

Everything else though I don't have a single complaint. Adjust your Air Force, and you're ACCEPTED.

Plzen wrote:Alright. My application is almost finished. I'll write a history for it tomorrow, and then it will really be done. The draft a bit bare-bones because I simply don't have an affinity towards explanations or detail, and I doubt I can really change that.

In the meantime, feedback would be appreciated.

It's no problem: Rev's app is certainly closer to the pinnacle than bare minimum in terms of details I'm accepting. So far, everything looks good, though I'd like some more specifics in terms of the economy. Like, what raw materials do they have in abundance, what do they import/export, etc.

by **New Granadeseret** » Mon Jul 24, 2017 1:56 pm

WIP

Application
National Info
Nation Name: The Sublime Caliphate of the House of Osman (The Ottoman Empire)
Symbols: The Holy Imperial Standard (No boring quadrilateral flags for us!)

The Ottoman Coat-of-Arms

The Ottoman national beast: the Leopard

Homeland Population: (population of all free persons in your home territories

Imperial Population: (population of your colonies; please list slaves (both native and black) in a separate category)

Location/Claims:The Imperial Core

Colonial holdings include

Africa: Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania (Divided between The Eja'lets Azraq al-Şehzade (Roughly consisting of the Sudan, Uganda, Burundi, the northern 3rd of inland Tanzania, Kenya west of Lake Turkana and Ethiopia to the west of the Blue Nile), Majeerteen (Consisting of the remainder of Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritetria), and Zanjibar (The remainder of Tanzania and Kenya, as well as the Seychelles islands). Djibouti is governed under the Hejaz, as its main port is used as the main processing/supply station for the cities of Mecca and Medina and pilgrimage ships from the east.

Asia: Assorted vassal emirates within the Gulf States, Yemen, and Oman. Hormuz and Qatar are under direct colonial administration, and the Tricial States are a patchwork of Ottoman governors and local princes, depending on how loyal the local dynasty over a particular village has been to the state. The Ottoman Concession in China (Al-Huoxiu), based out of a much-reduced Shanghi and Nankin, and give the Caliphate fairly extensive rights in those areas Loyal to the Huoxiu Rebellion, as well as the remains of the Anhui and lower panhandle of the Henan province; mostly through local officials similar to the situation in the south to maintain the legal fiction of Qing sovergenity.

Venus: The Caliphate is, in terms of legally recognized nations at least (The Ottoman Empire never officially recognized the Confederacy), the predominate power on Venus; their capital spaceport of Cenekapsi on the Theai Mons the only place on the planet that undoubtably qualifies as a City. Smaller Ottoman outposts; ranging from trading/labor recruitment posts to small towns built around missionary-abbeys (Madresses) populated by several hundreds Lizardmen converts, are spread out across Beta Regio, Asteria Regio, Phobei Regio, and along the Vespa Roupes. The surrounding lizardmen villages are also friendly, swapping their labor and exotic flora for examples of Terrian technology, and are in the process of being converted/integrated into the colonial economy.

Capital City: Though officially named Islambol ("Where Islam abounds"), the city is still often referred to as Kostantiniye or Constantinople by Westerners

Government Type: Semi-Constitutional Monarchy/Prussian Constitutionalism; while in many way's the Sultanate retains the Absolutists character of both the 1700's and the monarchal traditions of the Middle East, the Tanzimat reforms and official adherence to the Shura principal of Islam means their behavior is somewhat short of despotic. While any official pronouncement by him is, in legal theory, absolute, he maintains a Divan

Head of State: His Sacred and Imperial Majesty; Sultan of Sultans, Khan of Khans, Defender of the Faithful, Protector of the Holy Sanctuaries, Emperor of Rum, Caliph of all Islam and Successor to the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe, Murad V

Head of Government: Grand Vizier Ahmed Sefik Pasha

Head of Forgein Affairs: Reis ül-Küttab, Cheif of the Scribes and Custodian of the Sublime Porte, Aboab Carasso

Head of the Colonial Office: For Terrian Colonization: Cheif of the Exile Millets, Ab-dul Bakan Pasha

For Venetian Colonization: The Khedive of Venus, Jabel al-Ulthen Pasha

State Religion & Denomination: Sunni Islam

Population Info

The blood of Beleivers is always of equal value
-The Prophet Mohammed (Blessings of God be upon hi)

Religion Demographics: Though no longer as all-defining as in the pre-Tanzimat religion still plays a major role in the Ottoman state's perception of its citizens. So far as the Empire is concerned, one's ancestory is less important than one's consciously chosen Faith and, therefore, their character, expected level of trustworthiness and loyalty to the Caliph. Obviously, the Muslims who make up 78% of the population are preferred, and hold a near-monopoly on positions in the armed forces and colonial office. Following them are the Jews, who despite their relatively small numbers (3%) hold a disproportionate number of positions in the civil beuracracy and occasionally manage to hold even the highest-ranking offices (The current Cheif of the Scribes, Aboab Carasso, being a shining example of this), and enjoy the reputation of "The loyal minority". Greek Orthodox (11%), with their notable presence in the merchantile fields and major cities within the Empire, are less trusted as a class, due to their frequent contact with forgeiners and greater history of rebelliousness but are also more likely to live closer to Turkish populations and so are more likely to be partially assimilated and so trusted by their local communities. Miaphycites (4%) are generally viewed as incompetent and 'Hill Yokels"; filling the roll of the Irish in GB and the Hillybilly in America as the joke cultural group, while Bulgarian-Serb Orthodox (3%) aren't trusted as far as they can be thrown. The remaining 1% are assorted Protestants, Catholics, and general "Other" branches of Christianity. Animism and other traditional religions (Including those in the Chinese concession) are not recognized by the Ottoman state, however; meaning their followers are generally lumped in with the largest recognized faith in their community

Ethnicity: While the Ottoman dynasty is descended paternally from Turks, the empire and Sultans themselves are fairly Multi-ethnic. Arabs actually make up the largest ethnic group within the Calihpate

Accepted Cultures: Turkish, Tartar, Arabic, Bosniak, Albanian, Circassian, Funj, Kurdish, Swahili, Somali. Sunni Muslim converts from any ethnicity are also technically at this level, but in practice face similar levels of prejudice to the Sephardic Jews (I.E.; better than assorted Eastern Christian churches, but less competent than a Muslim of the "right" stock)

Other Cultures: Armenian, Assyrian, Greek, Bulgarian, Serb, Ethiopian, Chinese, Misc. Subsaharan Africans

Military Info
Mobile Regulars: (name, number of troops, types of troops, strengths and weaknesses, etc.)
Navy: (name, number of vessels, quality of navy, etc,)
Air Force: (Name, number of vessels, etc.)
Spaceships: (Names of vessels; keep numbers small please)
Militia: (Number and areas of concentration)
Major Garrisons: (List number by areas; include general artillery component)
General Static Fortifications Strenght Strength: (1-10)
Colonial Forces: (If applicable; for colonial powers only)
Any Unique Ethertech Weapons?: (If so, describe here)

Other Info
Brief Description of your Economy:
Brief Description of Culture/Society:
Most important societal values (Three traits your culture values most):
Goals:
History: (From 1820)
RP Sample: (Newbies will be granted a topic to demonstrate writing skills by me)
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