With permission from our reptilian overlord, an old face returns in a new form, although they're still WIP for the time being. [hider=La GFA] [center][color=gold][h2]La Gran Federación Azulvista[/h2][/color] [img]https://i.imgur.com/rhC59V3.png[/img] [h3]Plus Ultra. Ad Astra.[/h3] [color=gold]Government Form[/color]: Feudal-Federal Oligarchal Republic [color=gold]Population[/color]: A little over 8 billion people are protected by the constitution of la Gran Federación. [color=gold]What is humanity?[/color]: The question that divides a system, a religion, and a nation. --- [/center] [color=gold]System Name and Description[/color]: Located in the Centauras arms of the Milky Way, the Gran Federación is split across a binary star system with four major inhabited planetary bodies, two in each sub-system. The stars - Azulvista Prima and Altacanción Prima, are a G and K type respectively. Their orbits, the AZL and ALT subsystems, both had a life-bearing world when the first colonists arrived to the system, which were promtptly named Azulvista and Altacanción. The stars orbit at around 5 AUs of seperation, making travel between the two core worlds managable, but not quick. Years in Azulvista are typically counted by 'Anno,' with Anno 0 being the year the Gateway closed. The other two bodies are Tonocopan - a smaller terrestrial planet in the AZL subsystem, and Nuevo Luna, Altacanción's moon. Smaller populations inhabit various other bodies - including the very important 'Última Parada' habitat located around the major gas giant of Patagonia, crucial for ships seeking to make slingshot manouvres between the two subsystems. Azulvista itself had a well-developed alien ecosystem, roughly equivalent to that of Earth's late carboniferous period. Its rich, greenhouse like environment had created vast forests and jungles, and its life was biocompatible with those of Earth - a boon that the early colonists exploited with glee, leading to it quickly outstripping all other bodies in terms of importance, interest and population. Altacanción, which was harsher and more rugged, lagged behind in these early years- a seemingly small domino that has led to almost half a millenia of unequal relations between the two bodies. Lastly, Azulvista is also home to a seemingly physics-defying metal, colloquially known as ‘lodestones,’ with the elemental name of Agustínium. [color=gold]Demographics[/color]: [b]By Class:[/b] Patricians: 891 million (of which 812 million are Homo Profectus) Mathetes: 1.539 billion Plebeians: 5.67 billion [b]By Planetary Body:[/b] Azulvista: 3.95 billion Tonocopan: 931 million Altacanción: 2.66 billion Luna Minor: 144 million Space-Based: 405 million [hider=Homo Profectus] It is impossible to provide a single overarching template which all Homo Profectus can be measured against, for genetic engineering is not controlled by any central authority within the Federacion. Instead, they are the consequence of centuries of dynastic engineering by the patrician class: the culmination of a genetic arms race to make sure their heirs would have every advantage possible to them in the cutthroat world of Cortes politics. That said, there are some distinct traits that are considered mandatory before one is categorised as a Profectus. Firstly - Female Profecti do not have wombs, although both still produce gametes - when a Profecti wishes to have children, their gametes are extracted, paired together in vitro, refined and allowed to grow within artificial wombs. Aesthetically, Profectus resemble idealised Greco-Roman statues, with sculpted physiques, near-flawless, lightly tan skin and a complete inability to ever experience a 'bad hair day.' Their bodies are self-cleaning and produce little waste, their minds are build for both long-term thinking and also fast, second-to-second decision-making - perfect for both the command table and the battlefield. But all of this is mere fluff when it comes to the real advantage Profecus have over Sapiens Sapiens - longevity. Regenerative telomeres, enhanced stem-cell production in bone marrow and adipose tissue and frequent regenerative treatment have seen Profecti lifespans leap up - first to a century on average, then two... While for now the earliest true Profeci struggle to reach their third century, predictions of recently born Profecti IV suggest that modern advancements may see the first 'human beings' to reach half a millennium of life, assuming outside forces don't cut this short. The effects have been disastrous to the Gran Federacion's systems. The Senado and Congress were never bound by term or age limits, and as the Profecti II's Augustus Clique solidified its grip over the Senado, it seems less and less likely that such a thing will ever happen without radical reform nobody can push past the Augustus elites. Young Profecti, designed to rule, to fight, to push the boundaries, are locked out of serious authority and trapped in their roles as dillitante nobles, succumbing to hedonism and risk-seeking behaviour to attempt to fill a gap only there thanks to their adaptations. [/hider] [color=gold]History[/color]: The Gran Federación was founded under a pan-Hispanic Gateways Colonial Administrator named the Iniciativa Exoplanetaria, a genuinely optimistic effort to preserve the waning values of liberal democracy and a well-managed free market. Tickets aboard the initial fleet of the Santa María, Victoria and San Pedro were a combination of reserved seats, those auctioned off to fund the project, census raffles and a certain number reserved for workers, stretched across the majority of the Spanish speaking world. The result? Three vessels to three worlds - The fortunate to Azulvista, the rough and ready to Altacanción, and the unlucky pioneers to Tonocapan. While the closing of the Gateways would later be known as Anno 0, it was not as great a shock to the system as one might expect. Azulvista's easily exploitable nature meant that it was already a net exporter of food, and much of the early expansion across the planet's surface was spurred on by the ever-hungry jaws of the rest of the system. During this period, the early warning signs of what Azulvista would become began to appear. Tonocopan, already harsh and bogged down in grinding terraforming efforts, became more and more reliant on Azulvistan support (or more accurately, [i]aid,[/i]) while Altacanción's stability always seemed precipitous. One of the greatest projects of the Confederación was establishing 'Última Parada' in the far system of Azulvista: proof, it seemed, that not all of mankind's planet-spanning brilliance had been lost in Anno 0. Alas however, it could not last. Corazón Santiago's Pronunciamiento in Anno 81 saw the end of democratic rule in Azulvista, as she rebuilt the world not for free minded idealism, but instead to right what she saw as the great injustice: that one planet would contribute so much so a system's survival, but see nothing in return. Fiercly intelligent, politically savvy and born at just the right time to see her concepts become fruition, she rode to power on a wave of anti-establishment sentiments on Azulvista, securing power only to clamp down on her rivals and centralise it under herself. No more, she claimed, would Azulvista's agricultural barons profit while the average Azulvistano worked for miserly pay. No more would Altacanción's instability be supported by Azulvistan output - at least, not without significantly more in return. Under Santiago, the Confederación itself began to shake apart at the seams, culminating in Altacanción announcing its unilateral exit from the group, consequences be damned. Tonocopan, which couldn't survive without Azulvistan support, was bound much more tightly to the coreworld, and Santiago's newly centralised economic magnates began to dig their talons into the world, seeking to turn it from burden to bounty. Santiago was not a fool however. She knew that when one strong ruler passed, too often would their work be subverted or dismantled by those left behind. Determined to avoid this, she had meticulously looked for a successor able to bear her mantle and carry the Azulvistan cause forward - a successor she found in Miguel Artigas. Thus, at least in AZL, began the Age of Caudillos. For more than a century, Azulvista and Tonocopan were kept under a series of, if not true autocrats, certainly those who wished to be so. Chaotic and unstable, the Age of Caudillos was characterised by dozens of unfinished projects started by one dictator and ended by another, Altincante's continuing struggle with a hostile force only a subsystem away, and Tonocopan's continuing issues. The culimation of the Age of Caudillos was the War of the Two Sisters - the first interplanetary conflict in Azulvistan history. Domingo Sánchez - Azulvista's current Caudillo, had been laying the groundwork for such an offensive for more than two decades, but any hope of a quick war were immediately put to an end, even though Azulvista's cobbled together Armada could secure control of the planet's orbit, even landing on Luna Minor and occupying its limited population and industrial sectors. With the war in space won however, the ground war turned into a grinding, unending stalemate. Altacanción had always had a distinct identity from Azulvista, right back to the founding of the First Republic, and after more than a century of independence they were hardly willing to roll over and let Azulvista take control. As the promised quick victory slipped from Sánchez's grasp, and the demands of actually maintaining a long-term war economy began to take hold over the system, the cracks in Azulvista's own social order began to make themselves known. Dissent against the Caudillos came from every aspect of society - the monied elites whose fortunes came under attack to feed the war machine, the common labourer facing draft tickets, the military command structure that wanted out of what they saw as an impossible war, and all the rest. As dissent grew, Sánchez desperation grew too, and conditions on Altacanción began to deteriorate. It culimated in Anno 212, when a young woman by the name of Julia De Angelo was sentenced to death for her opposition to the cause. Rather than quell unrest however, the move instead provided the disparate discontent factions with someone to rally behind, and De Angelo soon became the figurehead of the entire anti-war movement on Azulvista itself. Although she did end up being executed, her death served to ignite the powderkeg of Azulvistan politics - within a year, the planet was in all-out rebellion. Unlike Santiago's smooth, bloodless Pronunciamiento, the Age of Caudillos ended with blood in the streets. Sánchez himself, betrayed by his bodyguards, was killed when a group of armed rebels ambushed his motorcade. Shortly afterwards, the various rebel groups came together in Azulvista's capital of Esperanza to draft a new constitution - The Second Republic of Azulvista. But the Second Republic did not have long to lick its wounds. In the late 230s, a threat arrived that completely blindsided the entire system - the Yaotl, an alien force that approached the Azulvista from its 'underbelly,' their initial colony fleet striking across the system in a coordinated assault that the still-recovering Second Republic was horrendously ill-prepared for. This was the start of the most defining period of the GFA's history - an almost two century long conflict known as the Yaotl Conflagration that saw open combat across all four of the system's inhabited bodies and intense naval warfare. Azulvista Prima, as the economic, agricultural and (in many ways still,) cultural heartland of the system, became the axis around which the defence was centered, able to field the most soldiers with the best equipment. Nuevo Luna became the system's naval hub - its resources cracked and refined into warships for the Armada, with massive anti-orbital batteries serving to keep it and Altacanción's skies clear of all but the most concerted threats. This slowly bent the rest of the system around Azulvista's orbit in a way that the old Caudillos could only have dreamed of. Now, Azulvista wasn't merely a foreign planet or hostile hegemon, but the center of organised resistance against an existential threat. Furthermore, the actual effect of constant warfare naturally shaped society around it, with martial prowess being valorised and championed across all strata of society... But [i]particularly[/i] among the elite and pseudo-nobility that had formed during the age of Caudillos. Dubbing themselves 'Patricians,' these individuals naturally found themselves in positions of power, and as power is wont to allow, concentrated that power futher within the structure that had granted it to them in the first place. It was during the Yaotl Conflagration that the system calcified [color=gold]Culture and Society[/color]: Hispanic by origin, Rome by pretenses, Azulvistan by nature, the GFA's culture is a patchwork of everything viewed positively from the old calender with everything wonderful built since the Gateway closed. In many ways, the daily life of a plebeian can be compared to those of any other working class member of a developed nation in past centuries. Even with the benefits of automation and modern 29th century neural networks, at the end of the day the factory floor still needs a supervisor, children need a human face to teach them and someone has to make sure the automated freight convoys are working as intended. Of course, there's also the blunt fact that for many tasks it's [i]still[/i] cheaper and more effective to use human labour - Agustínium in particular is infamous for disrupting sensitive electronics, and lodefield work still largely needs to be done 'dumb,' with human-driven excavators backed up by human-directed tools in the hands of blue-collar human workers. It's when one rises above this baseline however that things begin to deviate, often [i]very[/i] dramatically. After the end of the Yaotl War and the subsequent demilitarisation of the Estado Industrial, Azulvista's economy has become a battleground between nuevo-riche sindicatos and monied patricians, with automated trading algorithms, barely-legal financial chicanery and brute computing power pitted head-to-head against landed interests and their own computing machines. Soldiers are trained not just in infantry tactics, but in hearts-and-minds operations, drone/counter-drone warfare and anti-xenoforming protocols. The OSE doesn't just gather intelligence the old-fashioned way, but also through massive, depersonalised predictive engineered intelligences like the Latido Algorithm, and of course, this is all capped off by the patricians themselves, whose posthuman biologies enable them to juggle military command, political discourse, personal artistic pursuits and performative nobility as if it were another day in the office. Azulvista's unique cultural blend continues down to its roots - designer-made 'amphetamine adjacents' loaded into energy drinks gives desperate students the kick they need to cram for a test, pay-per-view pankration matches rake in massive sponsorship sums and fully automated food vans serve premium burritos on military bases. Indeed, so deep has this identity gone that it's even disrupted the very foundations of the Catholic Church itself. [hider=The Azulvistan Catholic Church of the Doctrine of the Saints] Or, as it's more colloqually known, [i]La Doctrina de los Santes,[/i] was originally a recognised denomination of the Catholic Church prior to Anno 0. Although distinct from Rome in a number of smaller but still important ways (particularly on the canonisation of certain folk saints,) it nonetheless recognised the Supreme Pontiff as the highest authority, and was never intended to function for centuries without the Vatican. Like so many other problems that Azulvista faces, its divisions were slow to develop, but once the Gateways closed and Anno 0 arrived, a ticking clock had already started to count. Without the Pope, the Church refused to canonise new saints, remaining steadfast in its belief that Catholicism should not stray from its roots - after all, if the Church had survived for two millenia on Earth, why would it suddenly fail humanity now? Alas however, such opinions were not shared by every member of the faithful in the Azulvista system. Debate escalated into arguments, and arguments gradually became intractable as the centuries wound on, until in the late Anno 300s, the Church formally underwent a schism. The result was the birth of the Romanist Rites of the Azulvistan Catholic Church (better known as the Romanists) and the Integrated Rites of the Azulvistan Catholic Church (commonly called reformists, the name for their supporters pre-schism.) Although both claim to be legitimate entities within the Azulvistan Catholic Church (and thus the wider Catholic Church, if it still exists,) the two groups are no longer in communion with one another, and few can see a way forward to bring both sides back together. [/hider] [center] --- [/center] [color=gold]Governance and Politics[/color]: Formally, the Federación is a 'feudal-federal' republic, headed by a Presidente-Generalissimo, with each of the four major planetary bodies overseen by their own Chancellor, who act as de-facto executives for day-to-day governance. A bicameral parliament, the Cortes Generale, acts as the main legislative branch - upon reaching the age of majority, Patricians are ceremonially knighted, granting them their first vote and permitting them the ability to enter the running for Congress. In turn, the congress then elects members to the upper house of the Senado. Other important members of government include the Speaker of the Senado, who is third in the line of succession should anything happen to the vicepresidente. The military is organised under the High Generalship and its General-En-Jefe (not to be confused with Generalissimo, the ceremonial title for the president, who remains the official commander-in-chief,) and High Admiralty beneath its Almirante-da-Armada. Both roles are appointed from the upper echelons of the military heirachy by the Presidente - along with the Directore General of la Oficina de Seguridad de Estado (OSE,) the nation's intelligence service. When it comes to day-to-day management, fief-states are officially under the control of their relevant patrician. At the lowest level these are marqués, then condels, magistrade and finally duques, who often have ultimate authority over country-sized holdings. In practice, it's impossible for a single noble house to actually manage such massive bodies, and a good governor will know what can be delegated to lesser nobles or mathetes bureaucrats and what requires a more personal touch. [color=gold]Technology Overview[/color]: (What have your people invented? Or have they forgotten anything?) [color=gold]Military Overview[/color]: The glory days of the Gran Republic are over, and the engine that was the Estado Industrial has drifted off to sleep, its swords hammered into ploughshares. Although on paper the GFA still fields a somewhat formidable military, the truth is that much of the nation's warfighting expertise has slowly decayed since the end of the Yaotl War. The Ejército has been fully retrofitted into an anti-insurgent and counter-xenoforming force and now fights a long, grinding struggle against the remnants of Yaotl forces on Tonocopan while also suppressing rebellion on Altacanción. They are joined in their effort by the Auxilia - The GFA's 'national guard,' formerly under the control of individual nobles, now reorganised into a [i]mostly[/i] state-controlled force. [center] --- [/center] [/hider]