Serpent Country
25-06-2005, 08:04
OOC: Here is my factbook; I made it long. Comments on all of it or any portion of it are welcome. Feel free to just read part of it instead of the whole thing.
Later, I may add information detailing the nation's architecture, aesthetics, military, and anything requested by people.
Serpent Country Factbook
The Commonwealth of Serpent Country*
UN Report (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/target=display_nation/nation=serpent_country)
capital: Port Symphony
government type: democratic federal republic, with separation of powers and a multi-party coalition government.
national animal: Feathered Snake
unit of currency: Yaka
capital: Port Symphony
religious mix (approximation given): 40% follow local pagan traditions, 10% Atheist, 10% Deist/theistic freethinker, 15% Buddhist, 5% Hindu, 5% Muslim, 3% Zoroastrian, 2% Self-Realization Fellowship, 10% other
languages: the Serpent Tongue (Yeshipara), Makari, Wathu, Foxspeech, many others; strong quentilingual education program also teaches English, French, Mandarin, and others). Yeshipara is probably the most widely understood language (with roughly 70 % of Serpentians comprehending it).
local national names:
Minyeshi (Yeshipara), Shirawaya (Makari), Seqqualis (Wathu), Shal Qiir (Foxspeech). When referring to their nation to foreigners, Serpentians almost invariably translate "Serpent Country" into whatever language is being spoken.
terms for nationality:
noun: Serpentian(s)
adjectives: Serpentian
governmental and state-controlled agencies and objects are sometimes given the adjective "Feathered."
Candidates For "Real" World Location:
for use in RPs that presume the NS world coincides with the 'real' one
Southern Indian Ocean (along a tectonic plate boundary)
*Note: Serpent Country's national title changes periodically; every election the citizens have the option to select a new title on their ballots. As a result, the title can and has changed quite frequently.
Geography
Serpent Country is located on a large archipelago oriented north to south, the archipelago is shaped like a winding Serpent, which gives the country its name. The "head" of the Serpent is a huge island nearing the tropics, whereas the tail extends far into more temperate climes. The nation's capital, Port Symphony, is built on a small island in the center of the chain.
The nation is mountainous and heavily forested, with subtropical semi-jungles in the head, deciduous forests in the middle, and even boreal forests on the tail-ward mountains. The nation also boasts several, densely populated cities and large tracts of agricultural land. Climate and temperature are moderated by the ocean.
The archipelago was formed millions of years ago by volcanic activity, and many volcanoes are still active. Other common natural disasters include earthquakes, hurricanes and the occasional tsunami, for which the government has adapted early warning systems as a safety provision.
History
Settled first by hunter gatherers and then by successive waves of agrarian societies, Serpent Country came to be divided into the hands of many cultures, ranging from agrarian semi-nomads in the South to feudal empires in the north. The islands remained in disunity until the late seventeenth century, when they were conquered by the nearby nation of Fox Country after a protracted invasion. Fox Country's rule continued for a century and a half, but was punctuated by numerous revots, as the Colonial government was corrupt and the nation backing it was routinely oppressive and acted purely out of self-interest.
Foreign control of the islands ended in 1918, when a number of previously unimportant legislatures and hastily formed militias took advantage of Fox Country's protracted Civil War to quietly slip away from their control. After several years of stalemate and negotiation, these separate rebels and legislatures agreed to form a unified nation, drafting a constitution and establishing Serpent Country as a secular federal republic. During this time, Fox Country was too preoccupied with its own troubles to bring its wayward colony into line.
Over the next eighty years Serpent Country gradually developed, slowly launching social and political reforms while keeping a close eye on the nearby Fox Country. In foreign policy the government was largely isolationist (as it was for most of its prior history), preferring to mind its own business and expect others to do the same.
Recently, however, the nation has begun to reach out to other nations, dispatching explorers and diplomats to distant regions to satiate their population's growing curiosity about the outside world.
Culture
The archipelago has a pluralistic society, with many ethnic minorities and a large number of local languages in common use. Serpent Country's major cities display a mis-matched hodgepodge of architectural styles, peoples, and customs. The most common spoken language is the Serpent Tongue (Yeshpari); however, only about seventy percent of Serpentians understand it, and tourism typically requires a trilingual guide. It is suspected that this pluralism may be a reaction to the conformity requested of them during colonial times.
As Serpent Country's many societies have developed in relative isolation, its native cultures sometimes seem eccentric. Most Serpentians eschew Western dress in lieu of colorful robes, facepaint, and feathered headresses; beloved musicians are sometimes deified by established religious institutions, the government distributes plush toys to friendly nations; and airships are a common mode of transport. Serpent Country has its own calendar system.
Serpent Country tends to assimilate cultural items from other countries selectively, and rather unpredictably. However, as it is on the fringes of the world it tends to take a while for common fads to reach it. Most influences on it come from immigration; as Serpent Country has a highly unrestrictive policy toward new arrivals; be they princes or refugees. Relations between these new arrivals and native Serpentians are not always harmonious; many of Serpent Country's large cities are plagued by gang clashes between disaffected groups of immigrants.
Despite such issues, on the whole Serpentians tend to tolerate a wide range of lifestyles. Homosexual marriage, Polygamy, Polyandry, and the marriage of pets are all legal, as are gambling and prostitution. Recreational drug use is legal but controlled.
Religion
Both Christianity and Islam are rare in the islands. Between 1600 A.D. and 1800 A.D. there were several failed attempts to convert the islands to each of these religions. These conversion attempts usually involved poorly-funded invasions, which the local chieftains resisted voraciously. During the period of colonial rule, later missionaries were blocked by the government of Fox Country.
Today, most of the population either follows local polytheistic traditions, or is non-religious (though not necessarily atheist). Buddhism and Hinduism are also common, the former coming from missionaries in ancient times, and the later coming from large numbers of Indian and Nepalese immigrants. Deism, which was brought by cranky post-Enlightenment thinkers espousing the writings of Thomas Paine, is also popular. Often, individual Serpentians will mix tenants and features of separate religions, making an accurate census difficult.
Government
Serpent Country has a representative democracy, modeled after that of the United States but with systems of initiative and referendum enacted for greater public participation. As in many European Countries, Serpent Country's government is spread between many political parties.
The nation has a unicameral legislature, made of representatives from each of the nation's administrative districts. Districts receive a set basic number of delegates, with additional delegates dispatched on the basis of population. The executive branch is somewhat weaker than in other nations, and is led by a Prime Minister. The judicial branch is headed by the Supreme Court. Half of the Supreme Court judges are chosen by the Prime Minister, the other half are elected by the people, but are only eligible candidates if they have served in a prior judicial office.
The government supervises a massive bureaucracy responsible for welfare, public transport, and the country's well funded education system. Notably, Serpent Country holds elections to determine the top officials in this bureaucracy, as citizens hold biannual elections for the heads of major government departments.
In Parliament, the current dominating coalition is an unsteady alliance between the left-centrist Beacon Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the centrist, pro-science Social Technology Party. Opposing them on many issues is an even more unwilling alliance between the centrist Dragon Party and the Libertarian Party, which draws the basis of its support from Serpent Country's rural areas. The Dragon party tends to dispute the Libertarians on environmental issues, while the Beacon party tends to defect from its coalition on non-environmental economic issues.
Suffrage: 17 years, universal, voluntary
leading political parties
(ranked by relative size)
(associated agenda for Serpent Country listed in brackets):
Beacon Party (Civil Rights Lovefest, very pro-Human rights)
Dragon Party (Civil Rights Lovefest, centrist)
Socialist Workers Party (Left-Wing Utopia, restrictions on industry)
Libertarian Party (Anarchy, low taxes)
minor political parties
Social Technology Party (New York Times Democracy, pro-science, pro-police)
Social Hedonism Party (Liberal Scandinavian Paradise, animal rights, compulsory nudity)
Feathered Lion Party (Inoffensive Centrist Democracy, making Serpent Country more normal)
Serpentian Islamic Peoples Party (Moralistic Democracy, imposing some Islamic laws)
Serpentian Feathered Nationalist Party (Left-Leaning College State, ultra-nationalist)
Smaller Parties not listed.
National Holidays (2005):
Independence Day (December 4)
Constitution Day (June 6)
Local New Years Day (March 3)
The Royal Family
Serpent Country does not have any nationally recognized nobility, although some local islands will pay make note of the descendants of ancestral chiefs. On the other hand, it does have a royal family. However, Serpent Country's royal family is composed not of humans but rather of common house cats and their adorable kittens.
The royal family was first adopted (literally from the streets) in 1937, when the majority of Parliament stormed a dockside tavern known as the Roaring Goldfish to celebrate Independence Day. Become rather intoxicated on the local Kulpaa (a drink resembling honeyed rice-wine), several of the Representatives took to mocking the government of nearby Fox Country. Seeking for a new way to offend the Great King of Fox Country (as well as monarchies in general), the intoxicated Representatives decided to take Mark Twain's advice and institutionalize a royal family of cats.
Running to Port Symphony's humane society and fetching a number of flea-ridden animals, the mob of Representatives christened the largest of the felines Emperor Kal Qiin III, after the reigning sovereign of Fox Country. Making a crown out of aluminum foil, they rushed back to the Parliament building, declared the legislature in session and proclaimed the orange tabby Kal Qiin the Third the first monarch of Serpent Country before enough of the more sober legislators could return to stop them. They also voted that a sizable appropriations bill be passed to provide sumptuous quarters for Serpent Country's new royal family, and voted that the government subsidize the Roaring Goldfish and provide it with an ample supply of grog. Legend says that the current Prime Minister, who had spent the bulk of his term wrestling with Parliament over fiscal issues, had simply shrugged, gave up, and signed the appropriations bill.
While there have been numerous attempts following the famous "Great Hangover of '37" to dethrone Serpent Country's royal family (many of them undertaken by the very Representatives who enthroned them in the first place), because of their overwhelming cute fuzziness the population of Serpent Country has all-in-all become rather fond of its token feline leadership, voting to keep them in place.
Today, the 'royals' reside in a finely furnished portion of the Parliament building and are cared for by a ceremonial staff of attractive servants in skimpy outfits. Serpentian cartoons now use animated versions of the royals as an educational tool, and local tabloids run stories about their feline affairs. While the royals have no real power, they are given the fancy cat food for supper, are kept free of fleas of ticks, and have done great work in keeping the Parliament building's rodent population down.
Economy
Serpent Country has a diversified economy, and despite the high taxes maintains a decently sized private sector. On the world scale, Serpent Country isa middle-income nation, occupying a niche between rich developed countries and poor, developing nations. Though their standard of living is far below that of the First World and mitigated by high taxation, most Serpentians nonetheless think that their country is fairly prosperous. This later fact has motivated them to spend large sums of money on foreign aid.
The government has so far regulated industry to a moderate extent, typically for environmental or quality-of-life concerns.
Workforce Breakdown by Sector (approximate):
Agricultural: 15%
Industrial: 31%
Service: 54%
Major Agricultural Products: Fish, Pineapples, Rice, Hemp, Cannabis, Potatoes
Major Industrial Products: Airships, Plush Toys, Small Boats, Latptop Cases
Major Service Industries: College Textbook Sales, Gambling, Other Book Sales, Translation, Pornography, Selling Plush Toys
Major Natural Resources: Timber (accessibility hindered by environmental regulations), Stone, Agricultural Land, Lots of Fish, Aluminum
Electricity Production by Source (approximate)
Nuclear: 35%
Wind: 25 %
Hydroelectric: 20 %
Solar: 10%
Coal: 10 %
Consumer Goods Per 1000 People
Automobiles: 56
Telephones: 216
Televisions: 106
Radios: 805
Personal Computers: 114
Operating Systems Per 1000 Personal Computers
both OSes counted on dual-booted computers
Linux: 520
MS-DOS: 312
Mac OS: 119
Windows 95, 98, 2000+: 88
Emacs:* 67
Other: 123
*turned into independent operating system
Military
Services
(approximate proportion of military budget included)
20% Serpentian Feathered Army
50% Serpentian Feathered Navy
30% The Winds of Heaven (Serpentian Feathered Air Force)
size of military: approximately .6% of population
defense spending: approximately 5% of GDP.
conditions of service: voluntary in peacetime, provisions for wartime draft in place
Serpent Country's military is designed for self-defense. While it is relatively formidable around the archipelago, it has little projection capability beyond that.
In most fields of technology the military is lacking, being perhaps ten to fifteen years behind current developments in tanks, radar, targeting systems, and missile technologies. However, its communication system is very robust and secure. Logistically, the Serpentian military is well equipped for a defensive battle, with an excellent supply of fuel, ammunition, and spare parts. However, Serpent Country lacks a sufficient supply of tankers and long ranged landing ships to extend its supply lines overseas.
Because the nation is located on an island chain, the Navy receives the largest share of the military budget. Feathered Naval ships are divided between long-range and coastal defense ships, long range ships being intended for convoy escort and wartime raiding missions. Close to home, the Navy relies on mobs of ground based fighter planes and ASW dirigibles for aerial support; far from its shores it would likely be outclassed.
The under-funded army is designed to fight a guerrilla war, utilizing bunker networks and forested hills to hide and regroup while gradually wearing the enemy down. Decently supplied with anti-personnel weapons, light artillery, and anti-tank weapons, the army is lacking in its complement of tanks. Serpent Country has no separate marine force; rather, certain army units are trained specially for amphibious operations.
So far, most arms have been produced domestically under a number of local contractors closely intertwined with the government, which has enacted strict laws against the export of weaponry without Parliament's express approval.
So far, Serpent Country has no nuclear weaponry, and does not stock weapons of mass destruction. However, the Social Technology Party, the Feathered Nationalist Party, and some members of the Dragon and Socialist Workers Parties have repeatedly proposed nuclear weapons programs. While popular opinion is solidly against the research of chemical and biological weapons, whether or not Serpent Country shall seek to acquire nuclear arms in the near future is a matter for debate. Should such an initiative be done, they will have no shortage of reactors to provide weapons material.
Later, I may add information detailing the nation's architecture, aesthetics, military, and anything requested by people.
Serpent Country Factbook
The Commonwealth of Serpent Country*
UN Report (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/target=display_nation/nation=serpent_country)
capital: Port Symphony
government type: democratic federal republic, with separation of powers and a multi-party coalition government.
national animal: Feathered Snake
unit of currency: Yaka
capital: Port Symphony
religious mix (approximation given): 40% follow local pagan traditions, 10% Atheist, 10% Deist/theistic freethinker, 15% Buddhist, 5% Hindu, 5% Muslim, 3% Zoroastrian, 2% Self-Realization Fellowship, 10% other
languages: the Serpent Tongue (Yeshipara), Makari, Wathu, Foxspeech, many others; strong quentilingual education program also teaches English, French, Mandarin, and others). Yeshipara is probably the most widely understood language (with roughly 70 % of Serpentians comprehending it).
local national names:
Minyeshi (Yeshipara), Shirawaya (Makari), Seqqualis (Wathu), Shal Qiir (Foxspeech). When referring to their nation to foreigners, Serpentians almost invariably translate "Serpent Country" into whatever language is being spoken.
terms for nationality:
noun: Serpentian(s)
adjectives: Serpentian
governmental and state-controlled agencies and objects are sometimes given the adjective "Feathered."
Candidates For "Real" World Location:
for use in RPs that presume the NS world coincides with the 'real' one
Southern Indian Ocean (along a tectonic plate boundary)
*Note: Serpent Country's national title changes periodically; every election the citizens have the option to select a new title on their ballots. As a result, the title can and has changed quite frequently.
Geography
Serpent Country is located on a large archipelago oriented north to south, the archipelago is shaped like a winding Serpent, which gives the country its name. The "head" of the Serpent is a huge island nearing the tropics, whereas the tail extends far into more temperate climes. The nation's capital, Port Symphony, is built on a small island in the center of the chain.
The nation is mountainous and heavily forested, with subtropical semi-jungles in the head, deciduous forests in the middle, and even boreal forests on the tail-ward mountains. The nation also boasts several, densely populated cities and large tracts of agricultural land. Climate and temperature are moderated by the ocean.
The archipelago was formed millions of years ago by volcanic activity, and many volcanoes are still active. Other common natural disasters include earthquakes, hurricanes and the occasional tsunami, for which the government has adapted early warning systems as a safety provision.
History
Settled first by hunter gatherers and then by successive waves of agrarian societies, Serpent Country came to be divided into the hands of many cultures, ranging from agrarian semi-nomads in the South to feudal empires in the north. The islands remained in disunity until the late seventeenth century, when they were conquered by the nearby nation of Fox Country after a protracted invasion. Fox Country's rule continued for a century and a half, but was punctuated by numerous revots, as the Colonial government was corrupt and the nation backing it was routinely oppressive and acted purely out of self-interest.
Foreign control of the islands ended in 1918, when a number of previously unimportant legislatures and hastily formed militias took advantage of Fox Country's protracted Civil War to quietly slip away from their control. After several years of stalemate and negotiation, these separate rebels and legislatures agreed to form a unified nation, drafting a constitution and establishing Serpent Country as a secular federal republic. During this time, Fox Country was too preoccupied with its own troubles to bring its wayward colony into line.
Over the next eighty years Serpent Country gradually developed, slowly launching social and political reforms while keeping a close eye on the nearby Fox Country. In foreign policy the government was largely isolationist (as it was for most of its prior history), preferring to mind its own business and expect others to do the same.
Recently, however, the nation has begun to reach out to other nations, dispatching explorers and diplomats to distant regions to satiate their population's growing curiosity about the outside world.
Culture
The archipelago has a pluralistic society, with many ethnic minorities and a large number of local languages in common use. Serpent Country's major cities display a mis-matched hodgepodge of architectural styles, peoples, and customs. The most common spoken language is the Serpent Tongue (Yeshpari); however, only about seventy percent of Serpentians understand it, and tourism typically requires a trilingual guide. It is suspected that this pluralism may be a reaction to the conformity requested of them during colonial times.
As Serpent Country's many societies have developed in relative isolation, its native cultures sometimes seem eccentric. Most Serpentians eschew Western dress in lieu of colorful robes, facepaint, and feathered headresses; beloved musicians are sometimes deified by established religious institutions, the government distributes plush toys to friendly nations; and airships are a common mode of transport. Serpent Country has its own calendar system.
Serpent Country tends to assimilate cultural items from other countries selectively, and rather unpredictably. However, as it is on the fringes of the world it tends to take a while for common fads to reach it. Most influences on it come from immigration; as Serpent Country has a highly unrestrictive policy toward new arrivals; be they princes or refugees. Relations between these new arrivals and native Serpentians are not always harmonious; many of Serpent Country's large cities are plagued by gang clashes between disaffected groups of immigrants.
Despite such issues, on the whole Serpentians tend to tolerate a wide range of lifestyles. Homosexual marriage, Polygamy, Polyandry, and the marriage of pets are all legal, as are gambling and prostitution. Recreational drug use is legal but controlled.
Religion
Both Christianity and Islam are rare in the islands. Between 1600 A.D. and 1800 A.D. there were several failed attempts to convert the islands to each of these religions. These conversion attempts usually involved poorly-funded invasions, which the local chieftains resisted voraciously. During the period of colonial rule, later missionaries were blocked by the government of Fox Country.
Today, most of the population either follows local polytheistic traditions, or is non-religious (though not necessarily atheist). Buddhism and Hinduism are also common, the former coming from missionaries in ancient times, and the later coming from large numbers of Indian and Nepalese immigrants. Deism, which was brought by cranky post-Enlightenment thinkers espousing the writings of Thomas Paine, is also popular. Often, individual Serpentians will mix tenants and features of separate religions, making an accurate census difficult.
Government
Serpent Country has a representative democracy, modeled after that of the United States but with systems of initiative and referendum enacted for greater public participation. As in many European Countries, Serpent Country's government is spread between many political parties.
The nation has a unicameral legislature, made of representatives from each of the nation's administrative districts. Districts receive a set basic number of delegates, with additional delegates dispatched on the basis of population. The executive branch is somewhat weaker than in other nations, and is led by a Prime Minister. The judicial branch is headed by the Supreme Court. Half of the Supreme Court judges are chosen by the Prime Minister, the other half are elected by the people, but are only eligible candidates if they have served in a prior judicial office.
The government supervises a massive bureaucracy responsible for welfare, public transport, and the country's well funded education system. Notably, Serpent Country holds elections to determine the top officials in this bureaucracy, as citizens hold biannual elections for the heads of major government departments.
In Parliament, the current dominating coalition is an unsteady alliance between the left-centrist Beacon Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the centrist, pro-science Social Technology Party. Opposing them on many issues is an even more unwilling alliance between the centrist Dragon Party and the Libertarian Party, which draws the basis of its support from Serpent Country's rural areas. The Dragon party tends to dispute the Libertarians on environmental issues, while the Beacon party tends to defect from its coalition on non-environmental economic issues.
Suffrage: 17 years, universal, voluntary
leading political parties
(ranked by relative size)
(associated agenda for Serpent Country listed in brackets):
Beacon Party (Civil Rights Lovefest, very pro-Human rights)
Dragon Party (Civil Rights Lovefest, centrist)
Socialist Workers Party (Left-Wing Utopia, restrictions on industry)
Libertarian Party (Anarchy, low taxes)
minor political parties
Social Technology Party (New York Times Democracy, pro-science, pro-police)
Social Hedonism Party (Liberal Scandinavian Paradise, animal rights, compulsory nudity)
Feathered Lion Party (Inoffensive Centrist Democracy, making Serpent Country more normal)
Serpentian Islamic Peoples Party (Moralistic Democracy, imposing some Islamic laws)
Serpentian Feathered Nationalist Party (Left-Leaning College State, ultra-nationalist)
Smaller Parties not listed.
National Holidays (2005):
Independence Day (December 4)
Constitution Day (June 6)
Local New Years Day (March 3)
The Royal Family
Serpent Country does not have any nationally recognized nobility, although some local islands will pay make note of the descendants of ancestral chiefs. On the other hand, it does have a royal family. However, Serpent Country's royal family is composed not of humans but rather of common house cats and their adorable kittens.
The royal family was first adopted (literally from the streets) in 1937, when the majority of Parliament stormed a dockside tavern known as the Roaring Goldfish to celebrate Independence Day. Become rather intoxicated on the local Kulpaa (a drink resembling honeyed rice-wine), several of the Representatives took to mocking the government of nearby Fox Country. Seeking for a new way to offend the Great King of Fox Country (as well as monarchies in general), the intoxicated Representatives decided to take Mark Twain's advice and institutionalize a royal family of cats.
Running to Port Symphony's humane society and fetching a number of flea-ridden animals, the mob of Representatives christened the largest of the felines Emperor Kal Qiin III, after the reigning sovereign of Fox Country. Making a crown out of aluminum foil, they rushed back to the Parliament building, declared the legislature in session and proclaimed the orange tabby Kal Qiin the Third the first monarch of Serpent Country before enough of the more sober legislators could return to stop them. They also voted that a sizable appropriations bill be passed to provide sumptuous quarters for Serpent Country's new royal family, and voted that the government subsidize the Roaring Goldfish and provide it with an ample supply of grog. Legend says that the current Prime Minister, who had spent the bulk of his term wrestling with Parliament over fiscal issues, had simply shrugged, gave up, and signed the appropriations bill.
While there have been numerous attempts following the famous "Great Hangover of '37" to dethrone Serpent Country's royal family (many of them undertaken by the very Representatives who enthroned them in the first place), because of their overwhelming cute fuzziness the population of Serpent Country has all-in-all become rather fond of its token feline leadership, voting to keep them in place.
Today, the 'royals' reside in a finely furnished portion of the Parliament building and are cared for by a ceremonial staff of attractive servants in skimpy outfits. Serpentian cartoons now use animated versions of the royals as an educational tool, and local tabloids run stories about their feline affairs. While the royals have no real power, they are given the fancy cat food for supper, are kept free of fleas of ticks, and have done great work in keeping the Parliament building's rodent population down.
Economy
Serpent Country has a diversified economy, and despite the high taxes maintains a decently sized private sector. On the world scale, Serpent Country isa middle-income nation, occupying a niche between rich developed countries and poor, developing nations. Though their standard of living is far below that of the First World and mitigated by high taxation, most Serpentians nonetheless think that their country is fairly prosperous. This later fact has motivated them to spend large sums of money on foreign aid.
The government has so far regulated industry to a moderate extent, typically for environmental or quality-of-life concerns.
Workforce Breakdown by Sector (approximate):
Agricultural: 15%
Industrial: 31%
Service: 54%
Major Agricultural Products: Fish, Pineapples, Rice, Hemp, Cannabis, Potatoes
Major Industrial Products: Airships, Plush Toys, Small Boats, Latptop Cases
Major Service Industries: College Textbook Sales, Gambling, Other Book Sales, Translation, Pornography, Selling Plush Toys
Major Natural Resources: Timber (accessibility hindered by environmental regulations), Stone, Agricultural Land, Lots of Fish, Aluminum
Electricity Production by Source (approximate)
Nuclear: 35%
Wind: 25 %
Hydroelectric: 20 %
Solar: 10%
Coal: 10 %
Consumer Goods Per 1000 People
Automobiles: 56
Telephones: 216
Televisions: 106
Radios: 805
Personal Computers: 114
Operating Systems Per 1000 Personal Computers
both OSes counted on dual-booted computers
Linux: 520
MS-DOS: 312
Mac OS: 119
Windows 95, 98, 2000+: 88
Emacs:* 67
Other: 123
*turned into independent operating system
Military
Services
(approximate proportion of military budget included)
20% Serpentian Feathered Army
50% Serpentian Feathered Navy
30% The Winds of Heaven (Serpentian Feathered Air Force)
size of military: approximately .6% of population
defense spending: approximately 5% of GDP.
conditions of service: voluntary in peacetime, provisions for wartime draft in place
Serpent Country's military is designed for self-defense. While it is relatively formidable around the archipelago, it has little projection capability beyond that.
In most fields of technology the military is lacking, being perhaps ten to fifteen years behind current developments in tanks, radar, targeting systems, and missile technologies. However, its communication system is very robust and secure. Logistically, the Serpentian military is well equipped for a defensive battle, with an excellent supply of fuel, ammunition, and spare parts. However, Serpent Country lacks a sufficient supply of tankers and long ranged landing ships to extend its supply lines overseas.
Because the nation is located on an island chain, the Navy receives the largest share of the military budget. Feathered Naval ships are divided between long-range and coastal defense ships, long range ships being intended for convoy escort and wartime raiding missions. Close to home, the Navy relies on mobs of ground based fighter planes and ASW dirigibles for aerial support; far from its shores it would likely be outclassed.
The under-funded army is designed to fight a guerrilla war, utilizing bunker networks and forested hills to hide and regroup while gradually wearing the enemy down. Decently supplied with anti-personnel weapons, light artillery, and anti-tank weapons, the army is lacking in its complement of tanks. Serpent Country has no separate marine force; rather, certain army units are trained specially for amphibious operations.
So far, most arms have been produced domestically under a number of local contractors closely intertwined with the government, which has enacted strict laws against the export of weaponry without Parliament's express approval.
So far, Serpent Country has no nuclear weaponry, and does not stock weapons of mass destruction. However, the Social Technology Party, the Feathered Nationalist Party, and some members of the Dragon and Socialist Workers Parties have repeatedly proposed nuclear weapons programs. While popular opinion is solidly against the research of chemical and biological weapons, whether or not Serpent Country shall seek to acquire nuclear arms in the near future is a matter for debate. Should such an initiative be done, they will have no shortage of reactors to provide weapons material.