Sileetris
15-06-2005, 08:38
Ask a random question about anything in my country and I'll do my best to answer it! The questions can be on anyhing from big picture political ideologies to questions on local fashions.
I'll start logging the Q/As here and we'll see how far it goes!
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Q: How did the nation of Sileetris become named so?
A: Sileetris was once a family name adopted by the original royal family that has come to be passed on as an honorary title name(sort of like the papal names). The literal breakdown translation of Sileetris(in its own dead language) is:
Sil- Pure, true (like silver, means shining, white)
leet- Lead, leader
tris- person
Sileetris= true leader, pure leader, the best leader, etc.
So therefore the Kingdom of Sileetris translates to the Kingdom of the best leader.
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Q: How was their currency named?
A: Its the Relic Standard Piece because the region went through a large degree of turmoil many years back which left millions of people using money from governments that had collapsed. This combined with all the hassle of money changing between the quilt of nations that existed back then necessitated a change to a standard currency. As a measure of good faith, Sileetris was the first country to adopt it.
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Q: What was the darkest point in Sileetrian history?
A: Probably the pre-Relic days back in the NS equivalent of old Europe. The original King Sileetris, before then known as King Zarrelli, picked up the crusade of the Enlightenment and in the process offended the church and many neighbors, who took the opportunity to make a land grab. With invasion looming, the King followed the advice some of his political philosophers and decided that, rather than let the idea die, he'd move it to safety. A massive fleet was assembled, every crewman taking a vow of obedience (basically all of them were protestant so the Catholic Church wasn't too big an influence), that sailed to the new world and settled on the supposedly cursed Continent of Relics. It turned out not to be cursed (well, besides the creepy not-dead parrots), just covered with ruins of an extremely ancient civilization. It looked pretty bleak there for a while, but once we settled down we were pretty good.
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Q: What was Sileetris' worst defeat? What was their greatest victory?
A: Our worst defeat was probably in a naval battle with a Catholic colony nation that settled some of the islands off Relic, where poor navigational maps, bad weather, and disease ended up destroying any hope of the fleet claiming victory; this was known as the Scavenger Shoals Incident. Our greatest victory, besides our miraculous founding, was the preservation of order in the area now known as WARP, during the Great Collapse era.
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Q: What is the governing part of your nation, and what are its policies and ideology?
A: Supreme power is held by King Sileetris XIII though his direct word is rarely needed. The country is divided into 11 regions, each headed by a Count and an elected Minister. Royal families are not closed and ascendency is determined by peer voting among possible candidates in a royal school open to the most brilliant minds in the country(there is no inbreeding and technically a very intelligent citizen can(from an early age) be trained to become a nobleman). Ministerial positions are open to popular votes every 7 years. Ministers are impeachable by popular vote, Counts may be forced from standing by a vote of Counts or by decree from the King. Major policy is discussed every 5 years in an assembly between all of the Counts, Ministers, and the King. The Ministers each have a cabinet of 23 proportionally elected senators, responsible for insuring minority views are represented fairly. There are no organized political parties(aka no bundled package policies) and certain extremist views are not allowed representation. Laws and the judicial system are intentionally and incredibly simple and easily interpreted, and cases of mundane crime can be dealt with very rapidly. A special division of the government called the Inspectorate weeds out corruption with extreme prejudice(even inside itself, because inspectorate members are pretty close to royal petitions and the King isn't afraid to uproot large groups inside it based on proper evidence).
As for policies, we follow Utopian guidelines from a few classic sources and believe largely in Income Equality(the only super-wealthy are the nobility, a very small group, the rest of the country lives at about high middle class by most other country's standards), Universal Healthcare and Education, Long-Term and Renewable planning, and constant innovation in all fields(there are no vested interests and therefore no need to protect outdated systems). Our general view is to get the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people. We are practically self-supporting and very isolationist in terms of political entanglement, being allied very strongly to very few countries, and only rarely militarily in these cases. We have extremely high tarriffs on most goods so by recipricol our economy is viewed as horrible on the international market.
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Q: Is the economy, government and military of your nation interwined or mostly seperate, each running their own affairs with only neccesary interaction?
A: The economy and the government are inseperably close, being a planned system. The military is a side branch that is used for national defense(although it could very quickly be used to destroy another country's power structure), and is in no way is used to coerce the populace. It answers to the King but is constantly reminded of its greater duty to the country and it could never be applied towards tyrannical purposes.
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Q: How does Sileetris's unique internal economic system work?
A: Very long story...
We have a 9 day week divided into 3 sections. Everything is open every day, and the workforce is roughly divided evenly to support this. Everyone is entitled to one section off each week (married couples are given the same section off). Common menial jobs, if worked for the full 6 days allowed each week, pay roughly at the level of an upper middle class job in many other countries when things that are given out by the government are taken into consideration. More advanced professionals, like doctors, can work for less days a week and receive the same pay, or they can work more and get paid more at the same rate (overtime pay is only given in urgent situations). Unless they are unable to work, or are immediately between jobs, people must work to earn an income.
The money to support this comes from the division of profits from every industry. Once operating costs are accounted for, the remaining profit goes into a national pool. The national pool first pays money out to businesses that need it to expand, then to fund the start of viable businesses, then the national pool gives out money to the people. There is a national benchmark set for fulltime workers that pays out up to that level. There is also a national poverty line that no one can go below as long as they work. There is no incentive for a business to pay its workers less, because the profits go to the national pool anyway (aka no shareholders to worry over profit margins). A business is not allowed to overpay its workers. The only people to make exceptional amounts of money are those with extremely rare skills (specialist doctors, etc.), and the nobleman (to prevent them from being bribable).
So lets say that an average menial worker would make $25k a year, working a 6 day week (his full time), and a doctor would make $25k for only 3 days a week (his full time). The national fund would give them each say, $25k, since the national benchmark is $50k for fulltime workers. The doctor could work twice as much, 6 days a week, and potentially get $50k from the national fund, and this is fair because he is technically working more than full time in value. Conversely, if the menial laborer decides to only work 1 day a week, he will only get $4k normally, and only $11k from the national fund; just enough to put him above the poverty line of $15k.
The effect of this is everyone who works lives pretty well, and the economy is never stagnant for lack of purchasing power. There are a lot of other details past this but covering them would take too long, and I'd rather leave them as seperate questions.
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Q: How many completed projects started with the phrase "Wouldn't it be cool if..."?
A: A study shows that roughly 68% are, the other percentages being 21% "For the hell of it" and 11% "What the hell were these guys thinking doing that when they could have just done this?"
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Q: Why isn't Sileetris in the UN?
A: At one point, we were. Originally, we had joined as a show of good faith to the rest of the world that while we were intensely individualistic, we weren't planning anything in secret. As the years went on and the political climate of the world changed (basically the end of the cold war era irl if there is any correlation in NS history) other nations began to use the UN to get money for things they honestly should have taken care of themselves. Many experts pinpoint the exact moment as the passing of the resolution for single-hulled tankers, something Sileetris had long ago banned, and the resulting fee they asked for to help bring others into compliance. Sileetris, tired of footing the bill for rich countries looking for a way to do things without personal effort, quit the same week and never looked back. Apparantly, no one really noticed at the UN, so that was over.
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Q: Is Sileetris involved in any major economical, political or military alliances?
A: Our region, Relic, has numerous military and trade agreements including a combined defensive army and a standardized currency. Outside of that we have a few continual contracts to provide military consulting for some unnamed parties.
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Q: How many embassies does Sileetris have? With whom?
A: Officially, zero, but we have offices in countries we frequently deal with. Besides, we prefer the whole 'diplomats from a faraway land' treatment.
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Q: How difficult is it to get an embassy in Sileetris?
A: Considering how little work would occur there, a better question might be; "How many political competitors can I route into a dead-end job at our Sileetris embassy?"
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Q: Does Sileetris want to open diplomatic contact with [insert nation here]?
A: Seeing as we've never heard of you or dealt with you in any way, you are pretty much like every other country on the planet that we have no dealings with. We don't have dealings with nearly anyone because it doesn't benefit us to have them.
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Q: How interested would Sileetris be in a joint marketing approach which would drasticly increase it's income, at little or no actual effort or expense?
A: How many people can it employ and when can they start?
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Q: How does your nation view Imperialism and Colonialism (as in colonising empty land)?
A: Imperialism we view with extreme contempt because we are a largely self-contained isolationist country. Colonization we think is very important, but proper measures must be taken to insure the protection of the area being colonized.
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Q: What are your leaderships views on the imperialistic expansion of a military power through lands already populated?
A: Outright disgust... Although we won't intervene unless it affects us.
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Q: Has Sileetris actually had to use any of it's military hardware in anger?
A: No, but we do see small armed conflicts regularly due to nationless pirate fleet attacks and the occaisional corporate uprising in our economic free zone, WARP.
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Q: How is the Sileetris military divided?
A: There are 6 branches:
Army: In charge of winning the ground war, comes with its own seperate army airforce geared towards ground attack. Our army is extremely mobile, having a fleet of VTOL dropships at its disposal. The army is smaller than probably all countries of our size, but it is extremely well trained and equipped. Our preffered method of victory is striking in high concentrations on important targets.
Occupational Reserve Forces: Essentially an army of military police, the ORF is called into action only when a country is destabilized by a destroyed government. Highly trained in countering insurgency and keeping the peace, the ORF can turn a collapsing nation into a stable democracy in record times.(results may vary)
Navy: Functions as the transportation and heavy artillery of a campaign. The battleship is still alive and well in the Sileetris Navy, as are countless brown-water support vessels. In cooperation with our own traditional navy, we operate a fast attack fleet that consists of various types of hydrofoils and arsenal ships designed to encircle conventional fleets.
Air Force: Serves to win the air war, destroy crucial targets, and provide reconnaisance data to the rest of the forces. Cooperates very closely with the Army Air Corps to provide cover for the numerous ground attack vehicles employed. The Air Force also controls the space warfare systems of Sileetris.
Logistics: As a seperate entity, the logistics branch is able to accurately balance the needs of the other branches against one another and ensure no supply crisis ever erupts (to this end it has many cargo planes designed to airdrop in supplies, en masse, at almost any time)
Intelligence: Gathers the recon data from all the force and its own special units and combines it into a holistic view of the situation to be redistributed to other branch commanders. The intelligence branch can view the whole situation and optimise unit placement with great efficiency.
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Q: What is the appearance of the typical Sileetric citizen race-wise?
A: There is no average Sileetris citizen race-wise; the largest group is caucasian, but they do not hold a majority of the total population. Intermarriage between racial groups is extremely common. There is no native race in Relic.
http://tinypic.com/6qbsz6.gif
(incase my pie chart stops working)
35% Caucasian
24% Asian incl. Pacific Islanders
14% African
8.5% Indian
7% Hispanic
6% Interbred
4.5% Middle Eastern
1% Other
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Q: Any current trends in the populace?
A: If you mean any population groups that are rapidly growing, then no. We've struck a pretty balanced mix since immigrating is pretty difficult.
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Q: What are Sileetris's policies on religious tolerance? Also, what is the religious distribution of Sileetris?
A: The free practice of religion is uninhibited, though certain groups are considered cults and disallowed from collecting money (a popular example might be Scientology), and certain extremist interpretations of existing religions are banned (no Taliban). Religions with caste systems are still allowed, so long as the people on the lower castes are actually willing to submit to the system on their own free will, but our society tends to frown on racism even in this case, making the caste division almost purely social. Religion is not given any voice in politics where our predefeined secular humanist code already has an opinion, but when new issues arise, religious leaders may be questioned on positions when determining how to structure new laws. There are almost no flamboyant, opulant, televangilist religious activities, people being well educated and raised evenly enough to stick with the more mundane and understandable versions. Many people that surveyed as athiest do have a seperate system of beliefs that include very specific ethics. The numerical breakdown is something like:
Athiest 40%
Christian 15% (Protestant 75%; Catholic 25%)
Discordian 23%
Islamic 5%
Hindu 5%
Chinese Tradition 4%
Buddhist 4%
Jewish 3%
Mysticism 2% (Other 60%; Sileetris Tradition 40%)
Tenrikyo 2%
Other 1%
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Q: Do you have a National Healthcare System?
A: Yes, and we have the healthiest citizens in our region :). Our hospitals are incredibly well staffed, thanks to our free higher education and a rank of doctor between full doctor and nurse. Immediate treatment can be given for most injuries as soon as you walk in the door. Also, our hospital system is partially decentralized as we have small emergency centers in most crowded areas.
There are waiting lists for non-emergency operations; they can be skipped partially if you are an important ranked citizen (based on expertise of profession). We do provide computer-brain interface chips and robotic limb replacement. People with genetic dispositions to some organ failures can have a clone organ kept in storage.
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Q: What illnesses are still untreatable in Sileetris?
A: Some genetic based problems, in particular ones dealing with the immune system; even with our advanced gene therapy it may be impossible to treat some things without the body rejecting itself. Cancer has been put down thanks to targetted viruses, bacteria, and precise ultrasonic tissue destroyers. HIV and other viruses have been carefully pried apart and vaccinations and antibodies created. We can clone organs in the event of failure although we can't yet correct for organs that function improperly due to inherent genetic flaws unless we catch them in the womb. Alot of our health though is due to more concious lifestyles and mandatory routine checkups (people have been doing it since they were kids so its no big deal).
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Q: Are Sileetris citizens healthier then most?
A: Thanks to a more health concious lifestyle and mandatory physicals, yes.
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Q: How many people wear glasses or contacts? What about corrective surgery?
A: While I can't give an exact number, people that require vision correction are pretty much split like a normal society over glasses or contacts. More people choose to wear glasses however because options like titanium and flexible frames, and transition lenses, are given at no extra cost. Many choose to get glasses with transition lenses to protect their vision further and because they look totally awesome in sunglasses. Corrective surgery is provided for free by the national healthcare plan, but the waiting lists are very long, especially for citizens whose jobs rank low on the technical value scale(if you are a doctor the wait time is much shorter).
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Q: How does Sileetris deal with their criminals? Re-education, prisons, Capital Punishment, or something else?
A: Thanks to good education and a very balanced wealth distribution system, crime is very low, however the few that do choose to break their contract with society must pay it back in triple(AKA 3x the cost of medical bills of the person you beat up) and then some if that is too short. Prisons in Sileetris allow criminals to continue doing the job they did before incarceration if possible, but they cannot earn private property beyond books and occaisionally music. Food and electricity is paid for out of their salary. Cells are more comfortably furnished than prisons in other countries, and are private, however luxuries like television and radio are not permitted. If they choose to act up and destroy their furniture, so be it, they will sleep on a metal table with a blanket until their labor saves up enough to buy a new bed. The prisoners are closely monitored and prevented from forming groups other than sports teams, boardgame groups, and book clubs; gangs are non-existant, as is violence(violaters are automatically given a double sentence of assault added on to their sentence, with no way to remove it without a special investigation proving they acted in self-defense). Use of cigarettes/marijuana(its legal) is strictly limited to certain areas after certain times and by amount. Capital crimes are murder, rape, theft of over a certain amount(harmful to the wellbeing of the state, basically, you can't impoverish a large amount of people for personal gain), distribution of especially harmful drugs, and treason. Execution is performed by cyanide injection, or hanging.
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Q: Do Sileetris Police carry guns?
A: Yes, although just like most police they rarely if ever need to use them. Part of our military, the Reserve Occupational Forces, are pretty much police officers that leave for other countries when we need to do occupations, they do have full military training though so they are very capable of defending themselves in any civilian criminal circumstances.
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Q: What are Sileetris's policies on civilians and weapons? Are any banned? Are concealed weapons permitted?
A: Its a complicated issue, not because it causes problems, but because the Sileetris view on weapons is pretty different. Weapon ownership in Sileetris is a long established custom that is well respected, and its effects are very visible in everyday life. Weapons are incredibly symbolic, but almost never used.
In early Sileetris history, sword duels were an extremely common method of resolving arguements. As this became more and more socially unacceptable, swords became canes and actual fights (almost) never took place. To this day canes remain an important symbol in social interactions, and basically everyone who has grown up in Sileetris knows how to use one as a weapon.
As for more modern weapons, the only things banned are machineguns with more than 50 rounds per magazine/drum/chain, and grenades. All guns must be registered and all users must recieve training in order to acquire one. Concealed carry requires further training and licensing. The training and licensing is provided for free. Back when the Relic region was going through severe political turmoil, the government purchased vast quantities of SMGs to be distributed to the public to deter rogue armies from moving in. The annual amount of deaths by firearm in Sileetris is ~4,000 (in a country of 5.286 billion).
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Q: What is the capital of Sileetris?
A: Leetria, a massive city with a population of around 1.4 billion. Surprisingly to outsiders, it functions very smoothly because it was designed with serious expansion needs in mind and many places are overengineered to accomodate for more people than would ever be expected to use them. Sweeping shaded boulevards and giant greenbelt parks are interspread throughout. Leetria is also the home to numerous superstructures, including several arcologies, a few city-domes(featuring extra layers of building space), and a swath of record height(by RL standards) skyscrapers. Everything in fact seems to be built on a giant scale, sometimes to serve many purposes; the aqueducts are large enough, and many are kept full enough, to allow for serious shipping trade to occur, and the reservoirs are popular places for watersports, sometimes being kept as artificial beaches(complete with wave makers in what look like sandbars or seawalls). Pollution control is taken extremely seriously, and through a combined effort of low emission quasiturbine engines, strict industrial emission controls and updated manufacturing processes, large stretches of parkland, and (experimentally) banks of air filters along buildings and rooftops, air pollution levels are kept to a minimum. Plenty of space is reserved for pedestrian traffic only, because everything a person could need is within walking distance of their apartment. Mass transit takes many forms, including busses, subways, elevated trains, metro-movers, and free taxi services.
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Q: What is the Flora and Fauna of Sileetris?
A: The original ecosystem of Sileetris was a pretty basic great plains ecology with buffalo etc., the only striking difference being the Not-Dead Parrots, which resemble parrots that have recently passed away, that serve the role of vultures. Nowadays things are quite different. Farming wise the buffalo now control much less land and are herded in migrational loop ranches. In some places, the ecosystem has basically been terraformed with irrigation, allowing large tree farms and gardens to spring up. Small(relative to landmass) areas of tropical climates and ecosystems exist in the north(we are in the southern hemisphere) and some pretty rugged mountains exist in the west and south. Some species have been introduced to the system, mainly species of trees that live on small amounts of water, and farm animals(interesting note; Sileetris is an alternate history for the Dodos, which are farmed for food). Sileetris prides itself on being environmentally concious in its agricultural practices and takes many lengths to avoid using pure chemical fertilizers, instead using compost, nitrogen fixing plants and grasses, and algae. In some sense, the naturally dull ecosystem of Sileetris is what inspired the longheld and well cultivated traditions of gardening and terraforming that exist today.
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Q: Does Sileetris have any particularly dangerous or poisonous flora or fauna? Any particularly virulent or lethal pathogens? Would Sileetris be willing to export them?
A: Nope, we pretty much live out in an open field, our tropical region contains the usual array of poisonous snakes, nothing super special though. We could strap bombs to cows if you like.
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Q: Where does Sileetris get the bulk of it's natural resources from?
A: As a plains region, we have decent oil reserves. We get our mineral resources from the mountains to the south and west. We have some timber, though we tend to grow more exotic woods for quality furniture, we to need to import construction grade wood in bulk from other countries(we are very quickly reducing this dependency by using steel-framed houses and more concrete). We buy Uranium off neighbors or off the world market when someone dumps surplus out. We do a lot of recycling and actually employ many people in sorting stuff out to get higher returns.
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Q: What are your main exports and imports?
A: We are largely self-sufficient, so our trade market makes up a very small amount of economic activity, there is basically no difference between major and minor exports so we don't bother to differentiate.
Exports by Monetary Value:
Information, consulting services, book publishing
Military Hardware
Electronics
Technology, licensing
Agricultural goods
Furniture
Hand made valuables, watches, jewelry
Imports by Monetary Value:
Rare materials needed for scientific research
Timber
Brand name goods (things made in only certain countries)
Entertainment
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Q: Why does Sileetris export so much military technology?
A: Because it fetches a high price and will probably never be used against us. All we are looking for when we export outside the country is money; even if we piss someone off and they put sanctions on us, we'll probably still make more money selling military hardware, so its a good deal. Plus the long service life of our military hardware means once we have finished producing stuff for our own military, the factories would have to be retooled to be used for something else entirely to remain useful; we'd rather not bother with that so we just have them keep building arms.
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Q: Have there been any major industrial or research-related disasters in Sileetris?
A: Only one, from which the country takes its unofficial slogan "We drink ritalin" from. For still debated reasons, the water supply to a large region of Leetria was dosed with noticeable concentrations of the medicine ritalin. The effects were odd to say the very least.
In normal cases, the frequency of disaster is very low since we keep to very strict safety standards.
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Q: What form of transportation is most common?
A: Depends on where you live and how far you need to go. In Leetria for example, it is perfectly rational to use a scooter or mass transit for everything(or just walk because you will most likely live close to where you need to go). The same thing goes for major cities in general although they tend to spread out wider and the difference between the city and the suburbs is less pronounced. Out in the country, you'll probably have a pretty large car, because just like the great plains of the US, its a very boring drive most of the time and its best to be at least comfortable. Whenever anyone goes a long distance thats still in-country, they will almost invariably go by train, which we have an extensive network of. The same way people fly in America, people use trains here, and since around the 1970s we have gradually made bullet trains the standard for long distance travel. Many people pack their scooters with them when they travel like this and rental services are used almost exclusively by out-of-country tourists.
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Q: What is the most common civilian vehicle?
A: In the city either a bicycle (usually with a little motor built in for longer rides), a scooter, or some type of small sporty compact. In the country, something more comfortable for long trips, which can be a variety of things. Young people love the recreated muscle cars with high performance Qurbines. Old people and big families like the Dymaxion car for its comfort and carrying capacity.
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Q: What is Sileetris' national airline (if it has one)?
A: Even though most of our travel is done by train, travel into and out of the country is mostly handled by Sileetris Skyways. Skyways isn't too competitive for terminal space and rarely expands, but it keeps up with yearly growth well enough for travel delays to be below average most of the year.
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Q: Does Sileetris have a tourism base?
A: Our beaches aren't world famous, but they are world class, and our capital is an amazing place, but not for much more than clubbing and staring at superstructures. If you're an archeologist, you might come to see the Relics our continent is named for, but there are so many of them that you probably already live here to study them. The thing a lot of people don't like about visiting our country is that the people here don't have an incredibly unique or old culture, but we also lack the safe warm feeling of mass produced starbucks everywhere. We're the kind of place that you travel to, find a neat local hangout, then come back year after year to see how it changes (or doesn't).
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Q: What entertainments are common?
A: TV-wise we tend to have more unrealistic fiction and storytelling than realistic human portrayals (more like anime than dramas), and we tend to have programming that asks questions about the big picture more than shows that focus on a very small portion of the world (interpersonal drama isn't so big). We are very interested in foreign culture though, and shows that portray different lifestyles meet good success. Thanks to careful calculations of bandwidth use and usually better recievers, we have many more radio stations per area than usual. We don't have an equivalent to clear channel and radio stations don't have to run as many advertisements to stay in business, so it remains a good source of hearing different and controversial points of view, and each genre of music will have at least one station. Just like anywhere else, people like music, and in many forms. The most popular form right now is Rock, in the same styles as it was in its heyday but with many more international influences (you can hear a spin from basically every culture rather often), not the more modern heavy hardcore stuff. Rock is almost our country's equivalent to folk music. We have rap and techno but they are more confined to the club scene, which they share oddly enough with the occaisional swing music. Classical music is still produced privately and sometimes actually contracted by the government (for museum openings or festivals, we figure its better than playing the same age old stuff all the time). The least popular forms of music right now are angsty rock, formulaic twangy country, and petty gangster rap. Cultured activities such as art and literature get a lot more attention than most countries IRL. See also the sports question below.
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Q: What entertainments are imported from other nations?
A: Our many interests in foreign culture combined with our love of music make Sileetris a great place for just about anyone to go on tour. We import (and produce) anime en masse. A few networks go to great lengths to find bizarre local programming and import it. We circulate fine art in larger volumes than normal. We import the same types of literature as everyone else, but it tends to sell a bit better than normal.
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Q: Does Sileetris have a national Sport?
A: No, because no one could agree on it, and most people just follow whatever fad sport is in vogue rather than sticking with one long lasting franchised thing. Martial arts are much more popular here than in other western countries, mainly because of the strong influences Asians have had on society, and in the recent years videogames have recieved national attention. BTW our football is soccer, not american football.
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Q: Do any Sileetrians hold Guiness records? If so, for what?
A: Maybe a few out of however many have to be spread among NS earth, but no unique new categories. We have the shortest and tallest men to juggle chainsaws, they have an act. We probably hold more records in our architectural and botanical achievements.
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Q: Why isn't patience a virtue in Sileetris?
A: It is, but only for things that can't go any faster. For other things, including Q/A threads, the process must be accelerated posthaste, monocles be damned!
I'll start logging the Q/As here and we'll see how far it goes!
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Q: How did the nation of Sileetris become named so?
A: Sileetris was once a family name adopted by the original royal family that has come to be passed on as an honorary title name(sort of like the papal names). The literal breakdown translation of Sileetris(in its own dead language) is:
Sil- Pure, true (like silver, means shining, white)
leet- Lead, leader
tris- person
Sileetris= true leader, pure leader, the best leader, etc.
So therefore the Kingdom of Sileetris translates to the Kingdom of the best leader.
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Q: How was their currency named?
A: Its the Relic Standard Piece because the region went through a large degree of turmoil many years back which left millions of people using money from governments that had collapsed. This combined with all the hassle of money changing between the quilt of nations that existed back then necessitated a change to a standard currency. As a measure of good faith, Sileetris was the first country to adopt it.
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Q: What was the darkest point in Sileetrian history?
A: Probably the pre-Relic days back in the NS equivalent of old Europe. The original King Sileetris, before then known as King Zarrelli, picked up the crusade of the Enlightenment and in the process offended the church and many neighbors, who took the opportunity to make a land grab. With invasion looming, the King followed the advice some of his political philosophers and decided that, rather than let the idea die, he'd move it to safety. A massive fleet was assembled, every crewman taking a vow of obedience (basically all of them were protestant so the Catholic Church wasn't too big an influence), that sailed to the new world and settled on the supposedly cursed Continent of Relics. It turned out not to be cursed (well, besides the creepy not-dead parrots), just covered with ruins of an extremely ancient civilization. It looked pretty bleak there for a while, but once we settled down we were pretty good.
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Q: What was Sileetris' worst defeat? What was their greatest victory?
A: Our worst defeat was probably in a naval battle with a Catholic colony nation that settled some of the islands off Relic, where poor navigational maps, bad weather, and disease ended up destroying any hope of the fleet claiming victory; this was known as the Scavenger Shoals Incident. Our greatest victory, besides our miraculous founding, was the preservation of order in the area now known as WARP, during the Great Collapse era.
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Q: What is the governing part of your nation, and what are its policies and ideology?
A: Supreme power is held by King Sileetris XIII though his direct word is rarely needed. The country is divided into 11 regions, each headed by a Count and an elected Minister. Royal families are not closed and ascendency is determined by peer voting among possible candidates in a royal school open to the most brilliant minds in the country(there is no inbreeding and technically a very intelligent citizen can(from an early age) be trained to become a nobleman). Ministerial positions are open to popular votes every 7 years. Ministers are impeachable by popular vote, Counts may be forced from standing by a vote of Counts or by decree from the King. Major policy is discussed every 5 years in an assembly between all of the Counts, Ministers, and the King. The Ministers each have a cabinet of 23 proportionally elected senators, responsible for insuring minority views are represented fairly. There are no organized political parties(aka no bundled package policies) and certain extremist views are not allowed representation. Laws and the judicial system are intentionally and incredibly simple and easily interpreted, and cases of mundane crime can be dealt with very rapidly. A special division of the government called the Inspectorate weeds out corruption with extreme prejudice(even inside itself, because inspectorate members are pretty close to royal petitions and the King isn't afraid to uproot large groups inside it based on proper evidence).
As for policies, we follow Utopian guidelines from a few classic sources and believe largely in Income Equality(the only super-wealthy are the nobility, a very small group, the rest of the country lives at about high middle class by most other country's standards), Universal Healthcare and Education, Long-Term and Renewable planning, and constant innovation in all fields(there are no vested interests and therefore no need to protect outdated systems). Our general view is to get the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people. We are practically self-supporting and very isolationist in terms of political entanglement, being allied very strongly to very few countries, and only rarely militarily in these cases. We have extremely high tarriffs on most goods so by recipricol our economy is viewed as horrible on the international market.
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Q: Is the economy, government and military of your nation interwined or mostly seperate, each running their own affairs with only neccesary interaction?
A: The economy and the government are inseperably close, being a planned system. The military is a side branch that is used for national defense(although it could very quickly be used to destroy another country's power structure), and is in no way is used to coerce the populace. It answers to the King but is constantly reminded of its greater duty to the country and it could never be applied towards tyrannical purposes.
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Q: How does Sileetris's unique internal economic system work?
A: Very long story...
We have a 9 day week divided into 3 sections. Everything is open every day, and the workforce is roughly divided evenly to support this. Everyone is entitled to one section off each week (married couples are given the same section off). Common menial jobs, if worked for the full 6 days allowed each week, pay roughly at the level of an upper middle class job in many other countries when things that are given out by the government are taken into consideration. More advanced professionals, like doctors, can work for less days a week and receive the same pay, or they can work more and get paid more at the same rate (overtime pay is only given in urgent situations). Unless they are unable to work, or are immediately between jobs, people must work to earn an income.
The money to support this comes from the division of profits from every industry. Once operating costs are accounted for, the remaining profit goes into a national pool. The national pool first pays money out to businesses that need it to expand, then to fund the start of viable businesses, then the national pool gives out money to the people. There is a national benchmark set for fulltime workers that pays out up to that level. There is also a national poverty line that no one can go below as long as they work. There is no incentive for a business to pay its workers less, because the profits go to the national pool anyway (aka no shareholders to worry over profit margins). A business is not allowed to overpay its workers. The only people to make exceptional amounts of money are those with extremely rare skills (specialist doctors, etc.), and the nobleman (to prevent them from being bribable).
So lets say that an average menial worker would make $25k a year, working a 6 day week (his full time), and a doctor would make $25k for only 3 days a week (his full time). The national fund would give them each say, $25k, since the national benchmark is $50k for fulltime workers. The doctor could work twice as much, 6 days a week, and potentially get $50k from the national fund, and this is fair because he is technically working more than full time in value. Conversely, if the menial laborer decides to only work 1 day a week, he will only get $4k normally, and only $11k from the national fund; just enough to put him above the poverty line of $15k.
The effect of this is everyone who works lives pretty well, and the economy is never stagnant for lack of purchasing power. There are a lot of other details past this but covering them would take too long, and I'd rather leave them as seperate questions.
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Q: How many completed projects started with the phrase "Wouldn't it be cool if..."?
A: A study shows that roughly 68% are, the other percentages being 21% "For the hell of it" and 11% "What the hell were these guys thinking doing that when they could have just done this?"
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Q: Why isn't Sileetris in the UN?
A: At one point, we were. Originally, we had joined as a show of good faith to the rest of the world that while we were intensely individualistic, we weren't planning anything in secret. As the years went on and the political climate of the world changed (basically the end of the cold war era irl if there is any correlation in NS history) other nations began to use the UN to get money for things they honestly should have taken care of themselves. Many experts pinpoint the exact moment as the passing of the resolution for single-hulled tankers, something Sileetris had long ago banned, and the resulting fee they asked for to help bring others into compliance. Sileetris, tired of footing the bill for rich countries looking for a way to do things without personal effort, quit the same week and never looked back. Apparantly, no one really noticed at the UN, so that was over.
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Q: Is Sileetris involved in any major economical, political or military alliances?
A: Our region, Relic, has numerous military and trade agreements including a combined defensive army and a standardized currency. Outside of that we have a few continual contracts to provide military consulting for some unnamed parties.
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Q: How many embassies does Sileetris have? With whom?
A: Officially, zero, but we have offices in countries we frequently deal with. Besides, we prefer the whole 'diplomats from a faraway land' treatment.
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Q: How difficult is it to get an embassy in Sileetris?
A: Considering how little work would occur there, a better question might be; "How many political competitors can I route into a dead-end job at our Sileetris embassy?"
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Q: Does Sileetris want to open diplomatic contact with [insert nation here]?
A: Seeing as we've never heard of you or dealt with you in any way, you are pretty much like every other country on the planet that we have no dealings with. We don't have dealings with nearly anyone because it doesn't benefit us to have them.
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Q: How interested would Sileetris be in a joint marketing approach which would drasticly increase it's income, at little or no actual effort or expense?
A: How many people can it employ and when can they start?
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Q: How does your nation view Imperialism and Colonialism (as in colonising empty land)?
A: Imperialism we view with extreme contempt because we are a largely self-contained isolationist country. Colonization we think is very important, but proper measures must be taken to insure the protection of the area being colonized.
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Q: What are your leaderships views on the imperialistic expansion of a military power through lands already populated?
A: Outright disgust... Although we won't intervene unless it affects us.
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Q: Has Sileetris actually had to use any of it's military hardware in anger?
A: No, but we do see small armed conflicts regularly due to nationless pirate fleet attacks and the occaisional corporate uprising in our economic free zone, WARP.
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Q: How is the Sileetris military divided?
A: There are 6 branches:
Army: In charge of winning the ground war, comes with its own seperate army airforce geared towards ground attack. Our army is extremely mobile, having a fleet of VTOL dropships at its disposal. The army is smaller than probably all countries of our size, but it is extremely well trained and equipped. Our preffered method of victory is striking in high concentrations on important targets.
Occupational Reserve Forces: Essentially an army of military police, the ORF is called into action only when a country is destabilized by a destroyed government. Highly trained in countering insurgency and keeping the peace, the ORF can turn a collapsing nation into a stable democracy in record times.(results may vary)
Navy: Functions as the transportation and heavy artillery of a campaign. The battleship is still alive and well in the Sileetris Navy, as are countless brown-water support vessels. In cooperation with our own traditional navy, we operate a fast attack fleet that consists of various types of hydrofoils and arsenal ships designed to encircle conventional fleets.
Air Force: Serves to win the air war, destroy crucial targets, and provide reconnaisance data to the rest of the forces. Cooperates very closely with the Army Air Corps to provide cover for the numerous ground attack vehicles employed. The Air Force also controls the space warfare systems of Sileetris.
Logistics: As a seperate entity, the logistics branch is able to accurately balance the needs of the other branches against one another and ensure no supply crisis ever erupts (to this end it has many cargo planes designed to airdrop in supplies, en masse, at almost any time)
Intelligence: Gathers the recon data from all the force and its own special units and combines it into a holistic view of the situation to be redistributed to other branch commanders. The intelligence branch can view the whole situation and optimise unit placement with great efficiency.
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Q: What is the appearance of the typical Sileetric citizen race-wise?
A: There is no average Sileetris citizen race-wise; the largest group is caucasian, but they do not hold a majority of the total population. Intermarriage between racial groups is extremely common. There is no native race in Relic.
http://tinypic.com/6qbsz6.gif
(incase my pie chart stops working)
35% Caucasian
24% Asian incl. Pacific Islanders
14% African
8.5% Indian
7% Hispanic
6% Interbred
4.5% Middle Eastern
1% Other
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Q: Any current trends in the populace?
A: If you mean any population groups that are rapidly growing, then no. We've struck a pretty balanced mix since immigrating is pretty difficult.
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Q: What are Sileetris's policies on religious tolerance? Also, what is the religious distribution of Sileetris?
A: The free practice of religion is uninhibited, though certain groups are considered cults and disallowed from collecting money (a popular example might be Scientology), and certain extremist interpretations of existing religions are banned (no Taliban). Religions with caste systems are still allowed, so long as the people on the lower castes are actually willing to submit to the system on their own free will, but our society tends to frown on racism even in this case, making the caste division almost purely social. Religion is not given any voice in politics where our predefeined secular humanist code already has an opinion, but when new issues arise, religious leaders may be questioned on positions when determining how to structure new laws. There are almost no flamboyant, opulant, televangilist religious activities, people being well educated and raised evenly enough to stick with the more mundane and understandable versions. Many people that surveyed as athiest do have a seperate system of beliefs that include very specific ethics. The numerical breakdown is something like:
Athiest 40%
Christian 15% (Protestant 75%; Catholic 25%)
Discordian 23%
Islamic 5%
Hindu 5%
Chinese Tradition 4%
Buddhist 4%
Jewish 3%
Mysticism 2% (Other 60%; Sileetris Tradition 40%)
Tenrikyo 2%
Other 1%
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Q: Do you have a National Healthcare System?
A: Yes, and we have the healthiest citizens in our region :). Our hospitals are incredibly well staffed, thanks to our free higher education and a rank of doctor between full doctor and nurse. Immediate treatment can be given for most injuries as soon as you walk in the door. Also, our hospital system is partially decentralized as we have small emergency centers in most crowded areas.
There are waiting lists for non-emergency operations; they can be skipped partially if you are an important ranked citizen (based on expertise of profession). We do provide computer-brain interface chips and robotic limb replacement. People with genetic dispositions to some organ failures can have a clone organ kept in storage.
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Q: What illnesses are still untreatable in Sileetris?
A: Some genetic based problems, in particular ones dealing with the immune system; even with our advanced gene therapy it may be impossible to treat some things without the body rejecting itself. Cancer has been put down thanks to targetted viruses, bacteria, and precise ultrasonic tissue destroyers. HIV and other viruses have been carefully pried apart and vaccinations and antibodies created. We can clone organs in the event of failure although we can't yet correct for organs that function improperly due to inherent genetic flaws unless we catch them in the womb. Alot of our health though is due to more concious lifestyles and mandatory routine checkups (people have been doing it since they were kids so its no big deal).
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Q: Are Sileetris citizens healthier then most?
A: Thanks to a more health concious lifestyle and mandatory physicals, yes.
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Q: How many people wear glasses or contacts? What about corrective surgery?
A: While I can't give an exact number, people that require vision correction are pretty much split like a normal society over glasses or contacts. More people choose to wear glasses however because options like titanium and flexible frames, and transition lenses, are given at no extra cost. Many choose to get glasses with transition lenses to protect their vision further and because they look totally awesome in sunglasses. Corrective surgery is provided for free by the national healthcare plan, but the waiting lists are very long, especially for citizens whose jobs rank low on the technical value scale(if you are a doctor the wait time is much shorter).
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Q: How does Sileetris deal with their criminals? Re-education, prisons, Capital Punishment, or something else?
A: Thanks to good education and a very balanced wealth distribution system, crime is very low, however the few that do choose to break their contract with society must pay it back in triple(AKA 3x the cost of medical bills of the person you beat up) and then some if that is too short. Prisons in Sileetris allow criminals to continue doing the job they did before incarceration if possible, but they cannot earn private property beyond books and occaisionally music. Food and electricity is paid for out of their salary. Cells are more comfortably furnished than prisons in other countries, and are private, however luxuries like television and radio are not permitted. If they choose to act up and destroy their furniture, so be it, they will sleep on a metal table with a blanket until their labor saves up enough to buy a new bed. The prisoners are closely monitored and prevented from forming groups other than sports teams, boardgame groups, and book clubs; gangs are non-existant, as is violence(violaters are automatically given a double sentence of assault added on to their sentence, with no way to remove it without a special investigation proving they acted in self-defense). Use of cigarettes/marijuana(its legal) is strictly limited to certain areas after certain times and by amount. Capital crimes are murder, rape, theft of over a certain amount(harmful to the wellbeing of the state, basically, you can't impoverish a large amount of people for personal gain), distribution of especially harmful drugs, and treason. Execution is performed by cyanide injection, or hanging.
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Q: Do Sileetris Police carry guns?
A: Yes, although just like most police they rarely if ever need to use them. Part of our military, the Reserve Occupational Forces, are pretty much police officers that leave for other countries when we need to do occupations, they do have full military training though so they are very capable of defending themselves in any civilian criminal circumstances.
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Q: What are Sileetris's policies on civilians and weapons? Are any banned? Are concealed weapons permitted?
A: Its a complicated issue, not because it causes problems, but because the Sileetris view on weapons is pretty different. Weapon ownership in Sileetris is a long established custom that is well respected, and its effects are very visible in everyday life. Weapons are incredibly symbolic, but almost never used.
In early Sileetris history, sword duels were an extremely common method of resolving arguements. As this became more and more socially unacceptable, swords became canes and actual fights (almost) never took place. To this day canes remain an important symbol in social interactions, and basically everyone who has grown up in Sileetris knows how to use one as a weapon.
As for more modern weapons, the only things banned are machineguns with more than 50 rounds per magazine/drum/chain, and grenades. All guns must be registered and all users must recieve training in order to acquire one. Concealed carry requires further training and licensing. The training and licensing is provided for free. Back when the Relic region was going through severe political turmoil, the government purchased vast quantities of SMGs to be distributed to the public to deter rogue armies from moving in. The annual amount of deaths by firearm in Sileetris is ~4,000 (in a country of 5.286 billion).
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Q: What is the capital of Sileetris?
A: Leetria, a massive city with a population of around 1.4 billion. Surprisingly to outsiders, it functions very smoothly because it was designed with serious expansion needs in mind and many places are overengineered to accomodate for more people than would ever be expected to use them. Sweeping shaded boulevards and giant greenbelt parks are interspread throughout. Leetria is also the home to numerous superstructures, including several arcologies, a few city-domes(featuring extra layers of building space), and a swath of record height(by RL standards) skyscrapers. Everything in fact seems to be built on a giant scale, sometimes to serve many purposes; the aqueducts are large enough, and many are kept full enough, to allow for serious shipping trade to occur, and the reservoirs are popular places for watersports, sometimes being kept as artificial beaches(complete with wave makers in what look like sandbars or seawalls). Pollution control is taken extremely seriously, and through a combined effort of low emission quasiturbine engines, strict industrial emission controls and updated manufacturing processes, large stretches of parkland, and (experimentally) banks of air filters along buildings and rooftops, air pollution levels are kept to a minimum. Plenty of space is reserved for pedestrian traffic only, because everything a person could need is within walking distance of their apartment. Mass transit takes many forms, including busses, subways, elevated trains, metro-movers, and free taxi services.
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Q: What is the Flora and Fauna of Sileetris?
A: The original ecosystem of Sileetris was a pretty basic great plains ecology with buffalo etc., the only striking difference being the Not-Dead Parrots, which resemble parrots that have recently passed away, that serve the role of vultures. Nowadays things are quite different. Farming wise the buffalo now control much less land and are herded in migrational loop ranches. In some places, the ecosystem has basically been terraformed with irrigation, allowing large tree farms and gardens to spring up. Small(relative to landmass) areas of tropical climates and ecosystems exist in the north(we are in the southern hemisphere) and some pretty rugged mountains exist in the west and south. Some species have been introduced to the system, mainly species of trees that live on small amounts of water, and farm animals(interesting note; Sileetris is an alternate history for the Dodos, which are farmed for food). Sileetris prides itself on being environmentally concious in its agricultural practices and takes many lengths to avoid using pure chemical fertilizers, instead using compost, nitrogen fixing plants and grasses, and algae. In some sense, the naturally dull ecosystem of Sileetris is what inspired the longheld and well cultivated traditions of gardening and terraforming that exist today.
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Q: Does Sileetris have any particularly dangerous or poisonous flora or fauna? Any particularly virulent or lethal pathogens? Would Sileetris be willing to export them?
A: Nope, we pretty much live out in an open field, our tropical region contains the usual array of poisonous snakes, nothing super special though. We could strap bombs to cows if you like.
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Q: Where does Sileetris get the bulk of it's natural resources from?
A: As a plains region, we have decent oil reserves. We get our mineral resources from the mountains to the south and west. We have some timber, though we tend to grow more exotic woods for quality furniture, we to need to import construction grade wood in bulk from other countries(we are very quickly reducing this dependency by using steel-framed houses and more concrete). We buy Uranium off neighbors or off the world market when someone dumps surplus out. We do a lot of recycling and actually employ many people in sorting stuff out to get higher returns.
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Q: What are your main exports and imports?
A: We are largely self-sufficient, so our trade market makes up a very small amount of economic activity, there is basically no difference between major and minor exports so we don't bother to differentiate.
Exports by Monetary Value:
Information, consulting services, book publishing
Military Hardware
Electronics
Technology, licensing
Agricultural goods
Furniture
Hand made valuables, watches, jewelry
Imports by Monetary Value:
Rare materials needed for scientific research
Timber
Brand name goods (things made in only certain countries)
Entertainment
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Q: Why does Sileetris export so much military technology?
A: Because it fetches a high price and will probably never be used against us. All we are looking for when we export outside the country is money; even if we piss someone off and they put sanctions on us, we'll probably still make more money selling military hardware, so its a good deal. Plus the long service life of our military hardware means once we have finished producing stuff for our own military, the factories would have to be retooled to be used for something else entirely to remain useful; we'd rather not bother with that so we just have them keep building arms.
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Q: Have there been any major industrial or research-related disasters in Sileetris?
A: Only one, from which the country takes its unofficial slogan "We drink ritalin" from. For still debated reasons, the water supply to a large region of Leetria was dosed with noticeable concentrations of the medicine ritalin. The effects were odd to say the very least.
In normal cases, the frequency of disaster is very low since we keep to very strict safety standards.
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Q: What form of transportation is most common?
A: Depends on where you live and how far you need to go. In Leetria for example, it is perfectly rational to use a scooter or mass transit for everything(or just walk because you will most likely live close to where you need to go). The same thing goes for major cities in general although they tend to spread out wider and the difference between the city and the suburbs is less pronounced. Out in the country, you'll probably have a pretty large car, because just like the great plains of the US, its a very boring drive most of the time and its best to be at least comfortable. Whenever anyone goes a long distance thats still in-country, they will almost invariably go by train, which we have an extensive network of. The same way people fly in America, people use trains here, and since around the 1970s we have gradually made bullet trains the standard for long distance travel. Many people pack their scooters with them when they travel like this and rental services are used almost exclusively by out-of-country tourists.
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Q: What is the most common civilian vehicle?
A: In the city either a bicycle (usually with a little motor built in for longer rides), a scooter, or some type of small sporty compact. In the country, something more comfortable for long trips, which can be a variety of things. Young people love the recreated muscle cars with high performance Qurbines. Old people and big families like the Dymaxion car for its comfort and carrying capacity.
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Q: What is Sileetris' national airline (if it has one)?
A: Even though most of our travel is done by train, travel into and out of the country is mostly handled by Sileetris Skyways. Skyways isn't too competitive for terminal space and rarely expands, but it keeps up with yearly growth well enough for travel delays to be below average most of the year.
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Q: Does Sileetris have a tourism base?
A: Our beaches aren't world famous, but they are world class, and our capital is an amazing place, but not for much more than clubbing and staring at superstructures. If you're an archeologist, you might come to see the Relics our continent is named for, but there are so many of them that you probably already live here to study them. The thing a lot of people don't like about visiting our country is that the people here don't have an incredibly unique or old culture, but we also lack the safe warm feeling of mass produced starbucks everywhere. We're the kind of place that you travel to, find a neat local hangout, then come back year after year to see how it changes (or doesn't).
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Q: What entertainments are common?
A: TV-wise we tend to have more unrealistic fiction and storytelling than realistic human portrayals (more like anime than dramas), and we tend to have programming that asks questions about the big picture more than shows that focus on a very small portion of the world (interpersonal drama isn't so big). We are very interested in foreign culture though, and shows that portray different lifestyles meet good success. Thanks to careful calculations of bandwidth use and usually better recievers, we have many more radio stations per area than usual. We don't have an equivalent to clear channel and radio stations don't have to run as many advertisements to stay in business, so it remains a good source of hearing different and controversial points of view, and each genre of music will have at least one station. Just like anywhere else, people like music, and in many forms. The most popular form right now is Rock, in the same styles as it was in its heyday but with many more international influences (you can hear a spin from basically every culture rather often), not the more modern heavy hardcore stuff. Rock is almost our country's equivalent to folk music. We have rap and techno but they are more confined to the club scene, which they share oddly enough with the occaisional swing music. Classical music is still produced privately and sometimes actually contracted by the government (for museum openings or festivals, we figure its better than playing the same age old stuff all the time). The least popular forms of music right now are angsty rock, formulaic twangy country, and petty gangster rap. Cultured activities such as art and literature get a lot more attention than most countries IRL. See also the sports question below.
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Q: What entertainments are imported from other nations?
A: Our many interests in foreign culture combined with our love of music make Sileetris a great place for just about anyone to go on tour. We import (and produce) anime en masse. A few networks go to great lengths to find bizarre local programming and import it. We circulate fine art in larger volumes than normal. We import the same types of literature as everyone else, but it tends to sell a bit better than normal.
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Q: Does Sileetris have a national Sport?
A: No, because no one could agree on it, and most people just follow whatever fad sport is in vogue rather than sticking with one long lasting franchised thing. Martial arts are much more popular here than in other western countries, mainly because of the strong influences Asians have had on society, and in the recent years videogames have recieved national attention. BTW our football is soccer, not american football.
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Q: Do any Sileetrians hold Guiness records? If so, for what?
A: Maybe a few out of however many have to be spread among NS earth, but no unique new categories. We have the shortest and tallest men to juggle chainsaws, they have an act. We probably hold more records in our architectural and botanical achievements.
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Q: Why isn't patience a virtue in Sileetris?
A: It is, but only for things that can't go any faster. For other things, including Q/A threads, the process must be accelerated posthaste, monocles be damned!