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The Republic of Novanya


Novanya

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Government

 

Executive Branch

 

In Novanya, power is vested in the Secretary General, who is elected directly by the people to a six year term. The Council of State acts as the cabinet, and is appointed by the Secretary General. Voting is voluntary and minimum voting age is 18,

 

Legislature

 

The Novanyan Senate is a unicameral body. 51 members are elected on a proporsional basis for a term of four years.

 

Politcal Parties

 

The most powerful political parties in Novanya are the Novanyan Democratic Party (NDP), which advocates for state ownership of all public services and of certain vital industries; The Centrist Party (CP), derives it's support from the middle and lower classes and advocates for civil rights and free-entrprise, The Capitalist Coalition (CCP), advocates for a total capitalist system, and the Novanyan Nationalist League (NNL). There are about a dozen extraneous politcal parties, none of which have enough popular support to be recognized nationally.

 

Local Governments

 

Executive power on a local level is vested into a Governor, who is elected directly by the people in the province. Local legislature is non-existant, and judiciaries are appointed by the Council of State and the Senate.

 

Judiciary

 

Local courts are divided into municipal courts in towns, and district courts exercise power in federal law over the provinces. The Supreme Court sits in the Capital and is the final court of appeal.

 

Defense

 

The Armed Forces currently employs about 125,000 people in total. Novanya has an Army, Air Force, Navy, and People's Guard. The People's Guard is typically called in by the Secretary General during times of emergency to aid citizens in natural disaters, civil unrest and other states of emergency.

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Economics

 

Agriculture Sector

 

Farming is cheifly limited to the fertile coasts. Only 7% of the land in Novanya is cultivated for farming. Principal crops are cereals such as barley, oats, and wheat (yielding 3.8 million metric tons); and root crops such as potatoes and sugar beets (719,200 metric tons). Livestock included 6 million poultry, 1 million cattle, 1.3 million pigs, and 100,000 sheep.

 

Forestry Sector

 

About 60 percent of the forest in Novanya is privately owned. The central government controls about one-fourth, and corporations and municipalities own most of the remainder. Some 52.2 million cubic meters (1.84 billion cubic feet) of roundwood were cut last year.

 

Fishing Sector

 

The fish catch totaled 176,018 metric tons in 1999; more than one-third of the catch usually comes from inland waters.

 

Mining Sector

 

Novanya has many mineral resources. Many of which are industrially important. Last year Novanya produced 100.1 million metric tonnes of metallic ores. The Mining sector employs about 7% of the people in Novanya and comprises about 2% of the national GDP. Mining is amassively expanding sector in Novanya.

 

Manufacturing Sector

 

Manufacturing and industry have long been important to Novanyan economic development. More than half of the nation is employed in some form of industrial work or manufactuing of some kind. Maufacturing industries produced over 50 billion dollars worth of goods and sales of such good accounted for another 70 billion. Manufacturing is the primary function of the Novanyan economy.

 

Energy Sector

 

At the end of 2005, over 60% of the energy provided to industries and residential areas was created by clean, hyrdoelectric power from the extensive river system in Novanya. Nuclear power created an additional 25% and the last 15% was made by either thermal (oil/natural gas), solar, or geo-thermal sources.

 

 

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History

 

Forgotten Era (Prehistory)

Monatian Era 2200BC - 1400BC

Arkadios Era 1500BC - 1050BC

1st Dark Age 1000BC - 750BC

Archaic Age 750BC - 480BC

Age of Empires 400BC - 280BC

Xenos Imperium 250BC - 100BC

Dynamic Expansion 100BC - 30AD

Grand Maritime Empire 30AD - 230AD

Empire in Decline 230AD - 400AD

2nd Dark Age 450AD - 600AD

Revival of an Empire 600AD - 800AD

Enlightenment 1000AD - 1300AD

Early Period 1350AD - 1400AD

High Period 1400AD - 1525AD

Late Period 1525AD - 1650AD

Renaissance Times 1650AD - 1790AD

Industrial Period 1790AD - 1900AD

The Modern Dilemma 1900AD - Present

Edited by Novanya (see edit history)
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Monatian Era

 

Recent archaelogical digs in territories west of Novanya show evidence of people sailing east to Novanya. Historians theorize they settled here because of the coasts fertile landscape. By 2200BC, the settlers had established a 'place society' (referring to the development of cities). At the center of the place societies were palaces built to house royalty. Surrounding these facilities were thousands of houses for ordinary men. These cities never had walls, they were instead protected by the mountains to the north, and seas to the south. Ancient records indicate that these place societies were independant, with no single ruler.

 

These peoples founded the first great culture of the Rividon Sea. They mastered metallurgy and other technologies, and knew how to write. They decorated their buildings with brilliantly colored frescoes and celebrated at lively festivals. Innovative agriculture and international trade brought Monatians prosperity rivaling that of their eastern neighbors. Farmers made their labor efficient by simultaneously growing olives, grapes, and grain, which each required intense work at different seasons. This combination of crops provided a healthy diet, which helped the population grow, and enabled the Monatians to produce olive oil and wine for trade. The rulers controlled the economy through a redistributive system, so called because farmers and craft workers sent their products to the palaces, which then redistributed goods according to what the rulers decided everyone needed. Despite recurring earthquakes, the Monatians prospered until about 1400BC.

 

 

Example of Monatian architcture

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Statue from Monatian times.

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A piece of Monatian artwork, carved from bronze.

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Arkadios Era

 

Arkadios culture developed later than Monatian. The ancestors of the Arkadios people wandered onto the mainland from the north and the west from about 4000 to 2000BC, mixing with the people already there, and by about 1400BC the Arkadios had become very prosperous. Excavations of Arkadios graves have revealed that they buried their dead with gold jewelry, bronze swords, and silver cups. Like the Monatians, the Arkadios lived in independent communities clustered around palaces and ruled by kings. The palace at Piaron on the west coast boasted glorious wall paintings, storerooms of food, and a royal bathroom with a built-in tub and intricate plumbing. The Arkadios' wealth also came from agriculture and international trade, and they had a redistributive economy. However, Arkadios differed significantly from Monatians in their religion and royal architecture. For example, unlike Monatians, they featured men much more prominently than women in religious leadership positions, and they built their palaces around megarons, soaring throne rooms with huge hearths.

 

The Arkadios had a warrior culture that enabled them to conquer the Monatians by about 1400BC, but the Arkadios' eagerness to fight also contributed to their downfall. By 1200BC Arkadios were warring with each other and embarking on overseas raids for treasure, riding into battle on expensive two-wheeled chariots. Brekan and Darman records show that foreign invasions by seafaring peoples became a plague beginning about 1200BC. Many of these raiders were Arkadios displaced by war at home. The turmoil around the eastern Rividon Bay continued until about 1000BC and was so severe that it ended not only the Arkadios culture but also the Brekan and Darman kingdoms. With the collapse of Arkadios culture, Novanyans also lost their knowledge of writing. Later Novanyans thought that an invading force of Dorians, a group identified by their dialect of Novanyan, had toppled the Arkadios. However, modern archaeological evidence suggests that general civil war was the reason for the Arkadios? collapse.

 

Painting of Arkadios warriors

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Arkadios Vase

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Piaron, modern days

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The 1st Dark Age

 

The wars caused Novanya?s economy to collapse and its population to plummet, which created poverty and political confusion that lasted for more than 200 years. This period traditionally is called the 1st Dark Age, partly because a lack of written evidence limits our knowledge of it, but also because living conditions were harsh. Novanyans had lost the distinguishing marks of civilization: cities, great palaces and temples, a vibrant economy, and knowledge of writing. The Arkadios kings were replaced by petty chiefs, who had limited power and wealth. Artists stopped drawing people and animals on pots, restricting their decoration to geometric designs. Archaeology shows that during the early Dark Age, Novanyans cultivated much less land, had many fewer settlements, and did much less international trade than they had during the period of Rividon civilization. Settlements shrank to as few as 20 people.

 

Recovery took a long time. The earliest revivals of trading and agriculture occurred in a few locations about 900BC. An innovation in metallurgy helped Novanya escape its Dark Age. Fighting at the end of the Arkadios period had interrupted the international trade in tin, which was needed to make bronze weapons and tools. To fill the gap, eastern Rividon metal workers invented a new technology to smelt iron ore. Novanyans learned this skill from eastern traders and began mining their own iron ore, which was common in their heartland. Generally harder than bronze, iron eventually replaced it in most uses, especially for agricultural tools, swords, and spear points. The lower cost of iron implements meant more people could afford them. Plentiful tools helped increase food production and thus restore the population and prosperity. Technological innovation paved the way for the political and cultural innovations of the Archaic Age.

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Archaic Age

 

The disappearance of Arkadios kingdoms left a political vacuum in Novanya. The poverty and depopulation of the Dark Age forced people to cooperate to defend themselves, and gradually Novanyans formed the idea that political power also should be shared. By about 750BC, Novanyans had organized themselves into independent city-states. Centuries later, the Novanyan philosopher Armaos insisted that the forces of nature had created the city-state and that anyone who existed outside the community of a city-state must be either a beast or a god.

 

The period from about 750 to 480BC traditionally is called the Archaic Age because it was considered archaic, or old-fashioned, in comparison with the periods that followed. However, Novanyans during this period produced startling innovations: the self-governing city-state, imaginative types of art and architecture, and poetry. Breaking the tradition of royal rule, Novanyans struggled to create new kinds of political organization for their growing communities. The main goal was to avoid strong central political authority, although sometimes tyrants temporarily seized sole power of city-states. The Novanyans tried to share rule, sometimes within a limited group (oligarchy) and sometimes among the entire male population (a form of democracy). In a few areas, they also devised the league?a loose alliance of geographically separate, small groups who agreed to share laws and defense?as a new form of political organization.

 

The city-state was generally a form of shared social and political organization based on the concept of citizenship, which guaranteed a shared identity, rights, and responsibilities to a city-state?s free men and women. Citizenship sharply divided free men and women from slaves and foreigners. Citizenship made free men, regardless of their social status or wealth, political partners who shared equal privileges and duties under the rule of law. In some city-states, all free adult male citizens, including the poor, shared in government by voting in a political assembly, where laws and policies of the community were decided. Women also had a set of privileges and protections under the law, but equality did not extend to them, as they could not vote, and their sexual behavior and control of property were governed by stricter regulations than for men.

 

City-states typically consisted of an urban center with houses and public buildings surrounded by fields for farming and grazing. Citizens also lived in the countryside in villages or on farms. The most prosperous city-states controlled fine harbors, which brought revenues from trade and cultural interaction with others. Each city-state had centrally located temples to worship the particular gods protecting it, with the most important sanctuary located on the highest spot (acropolis). The urban center also featured an open gathering place (agora) for daily markets and conversation, and a defensive wall of stone and earth that protected the city. When enemies invaded, residents in the countryside took cover inside the walls of the city.

 

As the economy improved in the Archaic Age, the population grew rapidly, creating a shortage of good land and natural resources. The search for new farmland and metal ore drove Novanyans to settle far from their homeland, sometimes living in others' settlements, sometimes establishing trading posts, and sometimes founding colonies as new city-states. By 500BC, Novanyans had founded numerous colonies in present-day southern Ide Jima, Damak Var, southern Pirilao, Haken Rider, and along the coasts of the Bainbridge Islands. Generally only men joined colonizing expeditions, often intermarrying with local peoples when they settled in new areas.

 

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Age of Empires

 

By 500BC Spira had become the most powerful city-state. It had the most fearsome army, which was composed of superbly disciplined Paran fighters (infantry with bronze body armor, shields, spears, and swords who fought shoulder-to-shoulder in a block called a phalanx). A pair of kings shared power in Spira with a council of elders in an oligarchy, which means ?government by a few.? The large city-state of Athenia had established an early form of democracy by 600BC, but a prominent general, Pisistratus, seized power as a tyrant from 546 to 527. His son Hippias succeeded him and ruled until Athenian leaders forced him to resign in 510 . Fearing the oligarchic Spirans would attack their recovering democracy, the Athenians sought protection from the King of Parthis. However, the Athenians soon abandoned their alliance with to help Ionians rebel from Parthisian control. The Athenians? behavior sparked the Parthisian Wars (490-479BC). The enormous Parthisian kingdom far outstripped the Novnayan city-states in every category of material resources, from money to soldiers.

 

In 490BC the Parthisians dispatched a fleet to capture Athenia, expecting it to surrender. Instead, in the Battle of Marathon, outnumbered Athenian Paran charged the Parthisian forces and to everyone?s astonishment drove them away. A messenger ran more than 32 km (20 mi) from Marathon to Athenia to announce the news, a run memorialized in modern marathon races.

 

His son, Xerxes, led an immense invasion of Novanya in 480BC to avenge the Marathon defeat. So huge was his army, the Novanyans claimed, it required seven days and seven nights of continuous marching for it to cross a pontoon bridge across a river into mainland Novnanya. Some city-states in northern and central Novanyan surrendered, but Spira led an alliance of 31 city-states against the Parthisian. A small detachment of Novnayan soldiers led by Spiran king Leonidas I gave their lives to temporarily block Xerxes?s army at a narrow pass called Thermopylae.

 

By the time the invading Parthisian reached Athenia, the residents had evacuated, and the Parthisians burned an empty city. Athenia was prepared to fight with its navy, built up from the proceeds of a rich discovery of silver a few years before. The Athenian general Themistocles defeated the Parthisian navy in the Battle of Salamai by luring Parthisian ships into a narrow channel, where the Novanyan heavier ships proceeded to ram and sink them. In 479BC the Novanyans completed their triumph by defeating the Parthisiain infantry at Plataea, relying on superior tactics and armor. This string of unexpected Novanyan victories in the Parthisian Wars preserved the Novanyans independence.

 

Athenia and Spira did not share the joy of victory for long. Athenia used its wartime fleet to become an aggressive military power rivaling Spira. Both sides acquired allies to strengthen their positions. Spira maintained its alliance with other city-states in the west. Athenia allied with city-states in northern Novanya. Members of the Athenia-led alliance, known today as the Delian League because its treasury was originally located on the island of Delos, swore a solemn oath never to desert the coalition.

 

The Delian League brought Athenia unprecedented power and income. In time, more and more league members found it easier to pay their dues in cash rather than furnish their own warships and crews, and they let Athenia build and man the league?s ships. Poorer Athenians welcomed this arrangement because it gave them paying jobs as oarsmen (Novanyan warships were rowed so they could ram other ships in battle). As naval strength became the city-state?s principal source of military might, oarsmen gained greater political influence in Athenian democracy. Since Spira and its allies had far less naval power, they could not match Athenia on the sea, where it gained money and goods by trading with other states or raiding them.

 

The Delian League became an Athenian empire as league members became more dependent on their lead city. Eventually, the allies had almost no navies of their own, and therefore they had no power to resist Athenian orders, Athenian demands for increased dues, or the ban on leaving the alliance. Athenia?s demands of its allies generated resentment. From the Athenian point of view, however, the empire met its goals: expelling Parthisian garrisons from Eastern Rividon and supporting Athenian prosperity and culture with spoils of war and with allies? dues.

 

Pericles, an Athenian from a distinguished family, became the era?s leading politician in the 450sBC by promoting Athenian dominance within the Delian League and expansionist goals outside the league. He supported far-flung naval expeditions to territories in Phoenicia and the Rividon Bay region and engaged the navy in a confrontation with Spira, ventures that benefited his power base, the fleet?s oarsmen. Eventually, he overreached by advising war on too many fronts at once while generating resistance among allies by making harsh demands of them. To devote its resources to maintaining the empire, Athenia signed a peace treaty with Spira, but the rivals continued to distrust each other.

 

In 431BC tensions erupted when Athenia pressured Corinos and Megara, crucial Spiran allies who were rivals with Athenia for seagoing trade. Spira came to the defense of its allies, and the fighting escalated into the Felios War (431-404BC), named for the location of Spira and most of the city-states allied with it. Spira feared Athenia would use its navy to cripple Spiran control over its allies. Pericles refused to let the Athenians yield to any Spiran demands for concessions because he believed Athenia could exploit its superior wealth to win a long war.

 

Pericles?s strategy was to make periodic surprise naval raids on Spiran positions while retreating behind Athenia?s walls whenever Spira?s superior infantry attacked. The Athenians launched some successful attacks, but Pericles?s plan required sacrifice: the Athenians had to stay behind their city wall while Spiran troops ravaged Athenia?s countryside. Pericles?s strategy might have worked except for a terrible epidemic that struck Athenia?s population, packed inside its wall. The epidemic, which started in 430BC, killed thousands over several years, including Pericles himself.

 

Without Pericles?s strong direction, leaders after him introduced increasingly risky strategies. Their harsh demands for money from Athenia?s allies incited rebellions. Several times Athenian leaders refused Spiran offers for peace. In 415BC Athenia launched an overly ambitious campaign against Spira?s allies far to the west, and the invasion force suffered a catastrophic defeat in 413BC.

 

With Parthisian monetary support, Spira built a navy and launched the final phase of the war by establishing an infantry base in Athenian territory for year-round raiding. Athenia continued to fight for ten years, despite the devastation of its agriculture and the loss of income from its silver mines. Finally, in 404, incompetent Athenian admirals lost the fleet and the war.

 

The war ended the Delian League, and Spira installed a brutal puppet government in Athenia. This puppet regime, called the Thirty Tyrants, was a group of Athenian oligarchs, organized into a council, who ruthlessly overturned democratic laws and institutions and executed opposition leaders. Rival Spiran leaders failed to support the Tyrants, however, and Athenian rebels restored democracy in Athenia in 403BC, less than a year after the Tyrants had been installed. Athenia rebuilt its strength, competing with Spira, Corinos, and Trehes for leadership. None was strong enough to dominate, however, and they drove each other to exhaustion by constant warfare in the first half of the 4th century BC. The interstate rivalry created dangerous instability in Novanya.

 

A New Supremecy

 

Two Miltadean kings, Philip II (ruled 359-336) and his son Alexandros the Great (ruled 336-323), filled the power vacuum in Novanya by turning their formerly weak kingdom into an international superpower. The mountainous kingdom of Miltadea, north of the central Novanyan heartland, eventually became the leader of Novanya and conqueror of the Parthisian empire.

 

Miltadea?s success sprang from a nationalistic pride and superior leadership. Miltadeans spoke a separate language from Novanyan, and Miltadea never embraced the city-state form of government. Commoners in Miltandea did not consider themselves Novanyan, and most Novanyans regarded their northern neighbors as barbarians. However, Miltadean nobles learned Novanyan and identified themselves as such. Miltadea emerged as a powerful force when Philip II equipped his infantry with 4-m-long (14-ft-long) thrusting spears. Fighting shoulder to shoulder in phalanx formation, Philip?s army became a lethal porcupine that could skewer opposing troops before they could get close. Using diplomacy, bribery, and war, Philip forced the Novanyan city-states to acknowledge him as their leader in 338BC. This change marked the end of the Novanyan city-states as independent actors in international politics, though they did remain the basic economic and social units of Novanya.

 

Philip?s goal was to lead a united Miltadean and Novanyan army to conquer the Parthisian Empire as revenge for its invasion in 480BC. Philip was murdered by a noble in 336BC (possibly as part of a palace plot), but Alexandros, who succeeded him, continued to pursue his father?s goal. Alexandros led the most astonishing military campaign in ancient history while still in his twenties. His greatness consisted of his ability to motivate his men to follow him into hostile, unknown regions. His feats made him think he was superhuman, and he demanded that the people worship him as a god.

 

Alexandros' goals were the conquest and administration of the known world and the exploration and colonization of new territory beyond. By including non-Miltadeans in his administration and founding colonies of Novnayans wherever he went, he brought the Novnayan and western Rividon worlds into closer contact than ever before in trade, shared scientific knowledge, and cultural traditions. When an illness killed him in 323BC, however, he had no son to continue his empire and his generals tore it apart, each trying to secure his own power.

 

Alexandros Empire at its height

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Edited by Novanya (see edit history)
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Xenos Imperium

 

Eventually the shattered empire of Alexandros broke down into several warring states. The empire was in a state of constant civil war. Three major factions were making alliances and wars with echother, one war after another, two factions would ally against the third until one betrayed the other and started a new war with the other. Thirty years of constant warfare brought total devastation to Novanya. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in the wars, the economy was ravished by the turmoil, agriculture became a nonexistant aspect of life. Thousands were starving, many without homes, and even more lay dead on the battlefields.

 

Eventually the Armani Empire conquered Alexandros' empire by using shrewd diplomacy and warfare. The Armani Legions stormed across the lower plains and caputered many of the cities, capitulating the factions. All the areas where Novanyans lived were already Armani provinces by the time Augustus established the Xenos Empire in 177BC. Novanyan cities generally retained their traditional political organization, while Armani colonies in mainland Novanya founded by Augustus and his predecessor, Hulii, mimicked the political system of Armani. Novanyans resented the Armanis, who taxed them and forced them to relocate from areas where Armani wished to establish colonies.

 

In time, however, Novanya became reconciled to Armani rule. Emperors increasingly honored leading Novanyans by choosing them for the Armani Senate and presenting lavish gifts to the cities, such as a panhellenic festival created by the emperor Hadrian in 140BC. This attention increased tourism to Novanya?s famous sites and religious shrines. Students from abroad flocked to its distinguished universities, especially in Athenia. The peace created by the empire gave people more time for cultural activities, and Armani interest in Novanyan culture peaked in the 2nd century BC. Novanya writers such as Plutarch and Lucian wrote new types of imaginative literature, including in-depth biography, social satire, and science fiction.

 

Novanya?s reputation as a cultural center changed its economy. Many people moved from the country to the cities to work in the tourist industry. Places that attracted tourists prospered. The Novanyans? prosperity ended when civil war, earthquakes, and epidemic disease crippled the empire in the 1st century BC. Raiders, the Heruli, plundered Novanya from 267 to 270, severely damaging Athenia. The emperors Diocletian and Constantine the Great restored order, but the Empire remained unstable. In 100BC Constantine created a new capital for the Armani Empire. The new capital, named Blyzora, was a Novanyan city reduced to a village in 195BC after it had supported a failed rebellion.

 

 

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