[hider=The Mandenic Mansadom WIP]
[centre][h1]The Mandenic Mansadom[/h1]
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Map Location:
The Mansadom occupies a circle of systems ringwards of the outer regions of the Augustan Empire, an area normally referred to as either the Boukour Loop, the Circlet of Mandé or the Edge of the Storm. The reason for this naming scheme is that the hyperlane network between the solar systems of all the Mansadom worlds form a ring around a supermassive black hole at the centre of the loop, called the White Eye, the Storm in the Void or the Bright Grave. This black hole has a bright accretion disk and severely hampers hyperlane travel anywhere near it, forcing travel around it instead. Due to its energy output, many power companies and state engineers have proposed enormous projects to capture its beams in massive solar panel arrays; however, no such project has been completed as of yet.

Government Type: 
Oligarchic monarchy lead by Mansa Abdoulmaye II of the Khourboukdao dynasty, a harkback to the ancient kings and emperors of the First and Second Malian Empires back on Earth. The mansa is in theory supposed to be kept in check by the Parliament in the capital system Manden, but the current mansa’s grandfather, Ahmoud II Khourboukdao, initiated several reforms to strengthen the monarchy in the face of widespread rebellion in the autumn of his reign. His son, Ahmoud III, continued in his father’s footsteps and had the Parliament pass the Renaissance Act, which made it so all decisions made by Parliament would have to be approved by the mansa or the mansa’s small cabinet of advisors, known as the Elders’ Council or Les Anciens. The class of religious scholars and imams known as the Learned, or Les Ulames, also holds considerable power as they made up the mass of bureaucrats, statesmen and clergy that enact the mansa’s will on his peoples.

Furthermore, the Mansadom is a vassal state of the Augustan Empire, but has recently wrested additional freedoms from their overlord during a short period of decline. However, as an independent state, the Mansadom would never survive - as it is wholly dependent on access to the internal imperial market and the protection of the imperial armed forces.

Demographics: 
The Mandenic Mansadom is home to both humans and many species of xenos, all united under two principles: 

1) their faith in Allah and in that Muhammad is His prophet.

2) their fear of the extrasolar barbarians beyond the Boukour Loop.

The majority of humans in the Mansadom are descendents of colonists who arrived with the Orion Rim Colonisation Programme (ORCP), colloquially called “Le Deuxième [i]Jennat[/i]” or “the Second Jennat”. The ORCP was initiated several centuries ago by the Federation of West Africa (La Fédération d’Afrique Ouest) back on Earth, a union of francophone African states who had united to become a considerable player on the Tellusian stage. The Mandens, as they are called, are largely black or dark brown with black hair, with local variations resulting from planetary conditions. The humans of Manden are the most similar to the original colonists, while the Mandens of the tunnel-cities on the frozen planet of Koufada are almost pale and gray with albino features. The majority of Mandens are farmers, fishermen, pastoralists and asteroid miners. Many also make up much of the middle class in the form of merchants, teachers, clergy and academicians. The upper class are almost exclusively made up of Mandens.

Hailing from the planet of Simkoufa-III, an ocean planet barely dotted with other land than a few islands and polar ice caps, the xeno race known as the Géless dominate the waters all pelagic zones of the unending oceans. The Géless are a race of “xenocetaceans”, classified thusly because of their outwards similarity of Tellusian whales. However, many will find after examining them more closely that they could hardly be further from the fact. The Géless are colony-feeders, meaning they feed on the enormous quantities of algae and plankton that grow in the thick “beard” of bristles around the length of their long mouth. Their migration patterns expose them to nearly all layers of the sea where life can thrive (at least to an extent), filling their bristles with nutrients that the algae and zooplankton can grow numerous on. The Géless can grow up to forty metres in length and weigh up to 150 tons. 

Similar to hypotheses about cetaceans from Old Tellus, initial colonisers of Simkoufa-III proposed that the Géless were intelligent beings with complex social structures. They regarded them as an alien whale and gave it little thought beyond simple biometric scans for the sake of expanding the genetic biobank. However, as the years passed, a Manden biologist by the name of Aboubakher Ismaïl Doukana was listening in on a Géless colony in a nearby ocean sector when the clock struck five in the afternoon. What he initially mistook as the sound of the minarets coming from outside turned out to be coming from the Géless: The oldest bull was singing its own [i]adhan[/i] while the others were silent. Dr. Doukana couldn’t believe what he had found and soon after received funding from the House of Academicians to conduct large-scale research into human-Géless communications. After nearly ten years, his team produced the first comprehensible translation programme to enable cross-species communication. What followed were inquiries into how the Géless had come to learn and practice Islam; over the years, the trend Dr. Doukana had initially discovered 

 (The people of your nation, human, xeno or both. It could be as simple as a percentage list with pics, a small paragraph or whatever you feel is best)

Military: (The fun part! What’s defending your nation in these uncertain times? You can provide as much or as little detail as you like. Can’t also forget, showing tons of pictures of what their soldiers, vehicles and ships look like :P)

History: The Storm in the Void, a massive black hole, dominates the centre of the Mandenic Mansadom, spewing forth great bouts of energy that feed the solar arrays on Manden and Gao, but also complicates hyperlane travel and intersystem trade. This has forced each world within the Mandenic Mansadom to grow increasingly independent, which has weakened the throne on Manden. (Speaks for itself. It can as brief or detailed as you wish.)

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