Tulgary
17-07-2005, 17:34
This is one of two manifestations of Tulgary that may exist long-term. The first one, described here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=416996), works with the rapidly growing population taken from the game engine itself (around four hundred million at time of typing) and with a backstory of military collapse and resultant introspection and backwards technology and society. Since that is arguably more specialist, it sometimes is hard to find RP partners, and I intend to keep it on the back-burner for opportunist one-offs and for the possibility of nursing it into a world power at some distant future point. The second starts here! The little nation that could!
The Grand Duchy of Tulgary, also known as the Tulgarian Catholicon, is a happy nation -don't let the suicide statistics fool you- of some five million persons, showing stable birth versus death rates and migration. It is thus vastly out-numbered by the many massive nations that surround it. The Archduke, currently the decrepit centurion Felvarosh, is now little more than a living museum with ever declining influence.
http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/tulgary.jpg
GOVERNMENT
Tulgary considers itself a strong democracy, supposedly protected by the Archduke whose continued wealth is theoretically dependent upon upholding the people's will against the special interests of fleeting political careers. In spite of this, Tulgary has no political parties, just a Chamber of Deputies to which citizens are elected based on their individual merits and manifestos. The Archduke resides as ancient Grestovar Fortress in Trepestina, near the national capital of Trepest.
Administrative Tiers
Citizens are nominated -or nominate themselves- at Parish Council level based on their achievements, standing, and respect within that local community, and with sufficient support from the Parish's roughly five-thousand citizens they run either for a vacant spot on the Parish Council or against a sitting Councillor. Individual Parishes determine how many elections there may be in the period of a year, and referenda can be called to alter the number.
Accomplished Parish Councillors often progress by further elections to represent their Parish at Department Council level, each Department being of some fifty-thousand citizens or ten Parishes. Finally, beyond this lie twenty Counties of around quarter of a million citizens or five Departments.
Administrative divisions then are around one thousand Parishes, one hundred Departments, and twenty Counties, each with elected Councils, and these combine to form the Catholicon, at the centre of which is the Chamber of Deputies. There are ten Council seats in each Parish for ten-thousand nationwide, and from these are drawn one thousand Department Council seats with each Parish sending one ex-councillor to the relevant Department Council of ten. The one hundred Department councils each send two ex-councillors to their prospective County Council, meaning that each of twenty County Councils has ten councilors for a total of two hundred. Finally, each County sends one ex-councillor to the Chamber of Deputies, which is as a result some twenty strong.
The Chamber of Deputies elects from its own number individuals to serve such positions as Deputy for the Chancellery, for Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Industry, Defence, and so forth. Traditionally, the Archduke presents the People's Seal to each of these Deputies but has the unused power to withhold it in the event of some grand subversion of the people's will: such an event is not precisely defined, and has the potential to create a constitutional crisis if an unlikely conflict of this magnitude were to occur. The Archduke, Felvarosh Papan, often serves as ambassador at home, essentially working for the Chamber of Deputies, though officially the relationship is the other way around.
Just seventy-five thousand Tulgarians above sixteen years of age are required to put their name to a motion for national referendum on any issue, be it a matter of law or policy, and voting is compulsory for all citizens of the Catholicon, though a mark of abstinence is accepted on official voting forms. Similar functions are applicable on a reduced scale at County, Department, and Parish level.
ECONOMY
The Tulgarian economy is generally robust and expansive. The small nation has fairly rich natural resources in its mineral-rich mountains, and fertile soils in its valleys. Being out-muscled in most regards by the other nations of earth, the Catholicon does everything in its power to stay ahead. One apt example is that a number of grand gambling resorts exist on the short coastline, with casinos being state-owned and run for profit.
In fact, most business is state-owned and run by managers elected by the applicable community, with some profit going back into the community (thus encouraging it to elect successful students and proven businessmen and to call for a referendum when incompetence or corruption is implied). Other profit is put into investment accounts, some of which are controlled by the manager and used to develop the business concern while the rest is essentially a tax fund that grows until the appropriate council requires to draw upon it. Minimum wages exist and are considered to be slightly higher than is typical of smiliarly strong economies, and maximum earnings for the managers are tied to their company's investment in the community.
Gambling is a profitable part of the Tulgarian economy, but it is aimed primarily at wealthy foreigners, with Tulgarian citizens being required to establish National Gambling Accounts if they wish to legally gamble in any serious way. How much they may pay into these accounts initially and again each year depends upon their earnings, and further infusions must be through winnings or else at the start of the new financial year and again tied to earnings. This is to prevent problem gamblers from destroying themselves and turning to criminal means of replenishing their lost gambling stakes.
Other vital areas of the Catholicon's economy are its banking and financial services, its information technology and light industry sectors, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and metal processing as well as the mining of industrial and precious ores, collection and processing of timber and paper products, and tourism especially regarding ski resorts and urban cultural centres. Power generation by hydro-electrical plants and extremely modern clean-burning coal is also far beyond national needs. Finally, Tulgary is known for its well-bred horses and its world-class stables produce fine beast for work, police and military duty, and valuable racing thoroughbreds.
Geography
The Tulgarian Catholicon covers 75,097sq.km. of snow-capped mountains and lush valleys, which in places spill out on to low rolling hills. Forests cover some hills and fill a number of valleys, climbing mountain sides in sufficient quantity as to provide great wilderness and significant economic opportunity. The terrain also contains massive reserves of coal, and not insignificant quantities of gold, silver, copper, and lead, while the mountains themselves provide excellent slate and granite. From the mountans flow a great number of rivers, mostly quite small, and a plethora of natural springs are also exploited for economic gain. The climate is generally cool temperate, but is variable given the changes in altitude that characterise the mountain ranges. Tulgary has only a small coastline with just Jezerovo and Severeb providing the Grand Duchy with ports.
DEFENCE
To be recognised as a Citizen of the Tulgarian Catholicon one must enrole in the Catholicon Defenders by age sixteen, which means that more than eighty percent of the population -or four million Tulgarians- are officially part of the nation's defence arrangements. In practice, of course, it is hard to imagine fifteen year old boys staying out of the nation's defence in a deadly crisis while their sixteen year old friends pick-up regulation petrol bombs, but more to the point it is inarguably the case that most eighty year old women aren't really expected to fight in any circumstances, though they are quite free to try. It is believed that better than thirty percent of Tulgarians -some one and a half million people- would in the event of invasion actively resist in some capacity, and have the means to do so. This is not to say that they are professionals, nor that they can or would ever be deployed aggressively or beyond the nation's borders.
The Royal Tulgarian Armed Forces comprise the Army, Navy, and Air Force, which represent the regular national defences, and enrole approximately 27,500 men and women, equivalent to 0.55% of the population, which usually is an all volunteer force, though it is thought to be close to the maximum sustainable level without conscription. There is provision for conscription in the national constitution, but more usually when force levels temporarily fall, the nation is either content to wait for recruitment drives to bear fruit or else to recall retired personnel for a short period of time. In times of peace, volunteers may join the military at seventeen but are not usually posted to so-called front-line units or roles until age twenty-one.
The Chamber of Deputies is currently reviewing a number of fairly radical defence plans, and is also open to the possibility of association with international treaty organisations.
The Grand Duchy of Tulgary, also known as the Tulgarian Catholicon, is a happy nation -don't let the suicide statistics fool you- of some five million persons, showing stable birth versus death rates and migration. It is thus vastly out-numbered by the many massive nations that surround it. The Archduke, currently the decrepit centurion Felvarosh, is now little more than a living museum with ever declining influence.
http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/tulgary.jpg
GOVERNMENT
Tulgary considers itself a strong democracy, supposedly protected by the Archduke whose continued wealth is theoretically dependent upon upholding the people's will against the special interests of fleeting political careers. In spite of this, Tulgary has no political parties, just a Chamber of Deputies to which citizens are elected based on their individual merits and manifestos. The Archduke resides as ancient Grestovar Fortress in Trepestina, near the national capital of Trepest.
Administrative Tiers
Citizens are nominated -or nominate themselves- at Parish Council level based on their achievements, standing, and respect within that local community, and with sufficient support from the Parish's roughly five-thousand citizens they run either for a vacant spot on the Parish Council or against a sitting Councillor. Individual Parishes determine how many elections there may be in the period of a year, and referenda can be called to alter the number.
Accomplished Parish Councillors often progress by further elections to represent their Parish at Department Council level, each Department being of some fifty-thousand citizens or ten Parishes. Finally, beyond this lie twenty Counties of around quarter of a million citizens or five Departments.
Administrative divisions then are around one thousand Parishes, one hundred Departments, and twenty Counties, each with elected Councils, and these combine to form the Catholicon, at the centre of which is the Chamber of Deputies. There are ten Council seats in each Parish for ten-thousand nationwide, and from these are drawn one thousand Department Council seats with each Parish sending one ex-councillor to the relevant Department Council of ten. The one hundred Department councils each send two ex-councillors to their prospective County Council, meaning that each of twenty County Councils has ten councilors for a total of two hundred. Finally, each County sends one ex-councillor to the Chamber of Deputies, which is as a result some twenty strong.
The Chamber of Deputies elects from its own number individuals to serve such positions as Deputy for the Chancellery, for Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Industry, Defence, and so forth. Traditionally, the Archduke presents the People's Seal to each of these Deputies but has the unused power to withhold it in the event of some grand subversion of the people's will: such an event is not precisely defined, and has the potential to create a constitutional crisis if an unlikely conflict of this magnitude were to occur. The Archduke, Felvarosh Papan, often serves as ambassador at home, essentially working for the Chamber of Deputies, though officially the relationship is the other way around.
Just seventy-five thousand Tulgarians above sixteen years of age are required to put their name to a motion for national referendum on any issue, be it a matter of law or policy, and voting is compulsory for all citizens of the Catholicon, though a mark of abstinence is accepted on official voting forms. Similar functions are applicable on a reduced scale at County, Department, and Parish level.
ECONOMY
The Tulgarian economy is generally robust and expansive. The small nation has fairly rich natural resources in its mineral-rich mountains, and fertile soils in its valleys. Being out-muscled in most regards by the other nations of earth, the Catholicon does everything in its power to stay ahead. One apt example is that a number of grand gambling resorts exist on the short coastline, with casinos being state-owned and run for profit.
In fact, most business is state-owned and run by managers elected by the applicable community, with some profit going back into the community (thus encouraging it to elect successful students and proven businessmen and to call for a referendum when incompetence or corruption is implied). Other profit is put into investment accounts, some of which are controlled by the manager and used to develop the business concern while the rest is essentially a tax fund that grows until the appropriate council requires to draw upon it. Minimum wages exist and are considered to be slightly higher than is typical of smiliarly strong economies, and maximum earnings for the managers are tied to their company's investment in the community.
Gambling is a profitable part of the Tulgarian economy, but it is aimed primarily at wealthy foreigners, with Tulgarian citizens being required to establish National Gambling Accounts if they wish to legally gamble in any serious way. How much they may pay into these accounts initially and again each year depends upon their earnings, and further infusions must be through winnings or else at the start of the new financial year and again tied to earnings. This is to prevent problem gamblers from destroying themselves and turning to criminal means of replenishing their lost gambling stakes.
Other vital areas of the Catholicon's economy are its banking and financial services, its information technology and light industry sectors, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and metal processing as well as the mining of industrial and precious ores, collection and processing of timber and paper products, and tourism especially regarding ski resorts and urban cultural centres. Power generation by hydro-electrical plants and extremely modern clean-burning coal is also far beyond national needs. Finally, Tulgary is known for its well-bred horses and its world-class stables produce fine beast for work, police and military duty, and valuable racing thoroughbreds.
Geography
The Tulgarian Catholicon covers 75,097sq.km. of snow-capped mountains and lush valleys, which in places spill out on to low rolling hills. Forests cover some hills and fill a number of valleys, climbing mountain sides in sufficient quantity as to provide great wilderness and significant economic opportunity. The terrain also contains massive reserves of coal, and not insignificant quantities of gold, silver, copper, and lead, while the mountains themselves provide excellent slate and granite. From the mountans flow a great number of rivers, mostly quite small, and a plethora of natural springs are also exploited for economic gain. The climate is generally cool temperate, but is variable given the changes in altitude that characterise the mountain ranges. Tulgary has only a small coastline with just Jezerovo and Severeb providing the Grand Duchy with ports.
DEFENCE
To be recognised as a Citizen of the Tulgarian Catholicon one must enrole in the Catholicon Defenders by age sixteen, which means that more than eighty percent of the population -or four million Tulgarians- are officially part of the nation's defence arrangements. In practice, of course, it is hard to imagine fifteen year old boys staying out of the nation's defence in a deadly crisis while their sixteen year old friends pick-up regulation petrol bombs, but more to the point it is inarguably the case that most eighty year old women aren't really expected to fight in any circumstances, though they are quite free to try. It is believed that better than thirty percent of Tulgarians -some one and a half million people- would in the event of invasion actively resist in some capacity, and have the means to do so. This is not to say that they are professionals, nor that they can or would ever be deployed aggressively or beyond the nation's borders.
The Royal Tulgarian Armed Forces comprise the Army, Navy, and Air Force, which represent the regular national defences, and enrole approximately 27,500 men and women, equivalent to 0.55% of the population, which usually is an all volunteer force, though it is thought to be close to the maximum sustainable level without conscription. There is provision for conscription in the national constitution, but more usually when force levels temporarily fall, the nation is either content to wait for recruitment drives to bear fruit or else to recall retired personnel for a short period of time. In times of peace, volunteers may join the military at seventeen but are not usually posted to so-called front-line units or roles until age twenty-one.
The Chamber of Deputies is currently reviewing a number of fairly radical defence plans, and is also open to the possibility of association with international treaty organisations.