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Tibby's Graphics and Grab-Bag Thread.

Seventh Party System Infoboxes: 2019 Bismarck, MS
After the 2018 Mississippi election, the Reform-Pirate-Green coalition got to working on transforming Mississippi into their vision. As every party was tainted with corruption apart from the government parties, the polls went irresistibly higher and higher for them. Nobody could defeat them. Nobody.

Enter Jack Dayton. Incumbent Labor mayor of Bismarck, the capital of the state, for two terms, he was from a very old political dynasty and the son of a Governor in the 90s. He was the epitome of what the United Left portrayed disparaging as ‘labor aristocracy’. Union to his bones, he grew up on his father’s knee learning of the importance of helping other people out. Or at least that’s what he says to voters.

Affably known by the city as “Bismarck Jack”, he was before all the scandals sank Labor an unbeatably popular mayor who seemed set for a third term. As he looked at his polling, he realised one cold hard fact – if the people was voting for the party, he would lose. Labor was seen as too corrupt. But if they were voting for the person, well that would be a different story.

Local parties at a city level is not an unknown phenomenon in America. But since the collapse of the Bismarck German-American Bund in the 40s due to an embezzling scandal, it was not present in Bismarck. Dayton chose to move quickly, and pulled in a few contacts in the city council, and declared in one snowy day in February 2019 that he was leaving Labor to found a party that would work ‘for all’ - Bismarck for All.

In his speech, he peppered in some suitable criticism of the state Labor Party but carefully chose to avoid any of the city’s own politicians, even those under assault by the Pirate hackers in their quest to take over the city. Then he announced he would run for a third term under that party label.

Even as Pirates and Reformists lambasted Dayton’s new party as ‘Labor with a new coat’, they knew that Dayton was a formidable beast who held the treasure that the Pirates so desperately sought, that of the title of Mayor of Bismarck. The state was one thing, but if they could deny Labor their last statesman, they could complete the revenge on the party they left.

The polling showed Dayton, shorn of the unpopular Labor brand, surging from 13% to 19% and leapfrogging the Republican, Reform and Green candidates in the bargain. Of course, those three, and the Pirate one even, was generic candidates, but it had ill portents for the coalition’s chances. But they would win! After all, the voters wouldn’t re-elect a Labor man! He’s too corrupt! They would see sense, and the hackers would make sure of that.

The first of the main four opponents to Dayton to be nominated was the Green Andy Gordon. Andy Gordon was a long-time Green politician since he first won election to the Bismarck City Council in the 1980s. Gordon was of the more centrist bend in the Green Party, more influenced by the southern Missouri Greens than any more left-wing variety, and this showed in his rhetoric where he pledged “a more progressive and renewable Bismarck”.

The second of the four was Reform, hot on the heels of the Green announcement. And they picked a “star” candidate in former Senator Fred Quie. Quie was ex-Labor and often bemoaned of the growth of ‘identity politics’ in America as a whole. His curmudgeonly rants would prove popular on the radio and get many old heads nodding along sagely to his incoherent wisdom. “The one thing I will say to the youths of this great country of America – you didn’t build it! We did! We need a leader who respects elders!”.

The Pirate ‘establishment’ [for lack of a better word] was concerned about Quie. After all, his rants were often more directed at bemoaning the youth, which tended Pirate, than parties like the Republicans or Labor. But surely those worries weren’t concrete. It was too soon for the coalition to fray. Polling still had them with a strong lead in the preferences.

The Republican candidate was announced in April. The Bismarck branch seriously considered just endorsing the Libertarian candidate and focusing on securing as many council seats in the anti-establishment wave as possible. But then the twenty-something scion of a multi-millionaire confectionery family Matt Cawthorn promised to fund their entire campaign, including down-ballot, if he was the mayoral candidate.

With the national and state Republican Party withdrawing funding from Bismarck proper in favour of the outer metro, the local branch agreed to nominate Cawthorn. Once he was introduced as the candidate and took the stage to speak, they realised just what an utter out-of-touch loon he was. He kept talking about ‘small million-dollar loans’, ‘ensuring that every poor person is able to set up a start-up with a wealthy investor’ and the most damning - ‘the trains would be sold to my father who would manage them well’.

The Republicans scrambled to replace him, but with many of their local candidates already accepting his money it was clear that it was Cawthorn, or oblivion. In the end, the head of the Bismarck Republicans decided to give Cawthorn a ‘crash course’ on politics to salvage their chances.

After one too many hair pulling moments, Cawthorn finally was pushed back on the stage for a ‘relaunch’ and this time sounded more like the average wealthy Republican. Bit too Dewey-like for some tastes, but this wasn’t rural Mississippi, this was Bismarck. As long as the state party isn’t giving them funding, they would skew more moderate if it was necessary.

While the saga of Matt Cawthorn’s rocky start in electoral politics was going on, the Pirate Party held their e-primary in June, and in the end chose Facetuber and blogger Sophie Osnes in a landslide. Her acceptance video was exquisite and well-choreographed, just like what people grew used to expecting from her. Her message was of course oriented around ‘cleaning out City Hall’, listing the city Labor Party’s many crimes, including some that was floating around to be Dayton’s. She was a candidate well-suited to the Pirate base of young people desiring an alternative to establishment corruption.

With the line-up of the five major candidates completed – Cawthorn, Dayton, Gordon, Quie and Osnes – the campaign entered the second phase, that of an intense few months of feet on ground and big rallies, with a solitary debate near the end between the five despite attempts by the Libertarian, Black Panther and Asian Action candidates to enter.

This hectic period was always the hacker’s paradise, and they had one target in mind, that of the Mayor. A key part of Dayton’s message was that he was not like state Labor, that he had clean hands and could be trusted to look after the city well. This message, to the hackers, had to be shattered.

The hackers released sources that alleged that Dayton was embezzling the city’s funds and released ‘statistics’ that showed money ‘mysteriously’ disappearing from the balance each month, presented in a very biased and ‘scandalous’ light. They thought they got him. This attack was a tried and true one that would take down many politicians.

But as ‘Bismarck Jack’ walked to the podium, he held up a huge black folder, overflowing with bookmarks and groaning under the weight of the papers stuffed into it. Putting it on the podium, he began “Now, you may have heard concerning stuff about some statistics, so I’ve got the budget book out. I have got permission from the treasurer to show this to you, the voters, since you deserve to know the truth.

I almost believed those news, don’t get me wrong, but then I realised one thing that this city under my leadership has never done. It has never uploaded the budget to the Internet! You can’t hack a piece of paper!”
. This was said with a light laugh, then he pledged to release the year’s budget statistics as a summary to every voter so they could judge for themselves.

The hackers seethed. ‘Bismarck Jack’ came out of it smelling of roses.

Meanwhile, Fred Quie was seemingly zeroing in his favourite target, the youth, with a radio rant all about how ‘the internets are addling our youth’s brains’, laced with not too subtle implications about Osnes’ mental health. This got Ross Ventura [under urging by his Pirate cabinet members] to phone him and ask him to ‘settle down about the young people’. This just led Quie to explode at Ventura and question him ‘how much of those cockamamie Pirates have ever had a proper job? Answer me that, Ross. Answer me!’.

Faced with this, all the Governor could do was hang up and shrug helplessly. At this point for the Pirates, they concluded the mayoral election was less a cherry on the sundae of victory and more a poisoned apple that threatened to collapse the entire thing.

The campaign continued. Matt Cawthorn was, to the surprise of everyone including himself, a good campaigner once he was shook into sense. The fact that when he saw a person with a problem, he acted like he did to any problem he encountered, he promised to throw money [either his own or the city’s] at it, helped to inflate the GOP vote beyond what it normally would have been, even if the more ideological aspect of the party bemoaned this ‘socialism’ and a few voters trickled to the Libertarians.

The below is one such example of the sort of campaign that appealed to people who wouldn’t normally have voted Republican.

"I've been struggling to look for a home. What will you do to fix the homing problem?"
"Well, I'm sure we'll find something. Money is no object when it comes to helping people after all."
"So that means you'll promise to spend more on housing?"
"Sure. I'll even phone up a friend of mine, heard of Dennis Lath? He's good at building houses. I'll ask him to build houses here and cover the expense on behalf of the council if I'm elected."
"... You are truly a great candidate."
"Thanks! Mother said that too."


Andy Gordon was unlike the others, a rather boring candidate. Unlike the bombastic rhetoric of ‘Bismarck Jack’, the choreographed personality of Osnes, the incoherent rants of Quie and Cawthorn the man rich in money but poor in sense, Gordon was just a simple man. He would promise well-funded services, point out they would be balanced in his budget plan, highlight his long years as a local politician, and promise to be an honest Mayor.

But when has that ever been appealing? But Andy Gordon wouldn’t give up, that much has to be said. Getting out of bed every morning, even to stagnating polls, he would regularly meet voters, shake their hands, and even throw a barb at a fellow candidate here and there. But he preferred a ‘bread and butter’ campaign on ‘the basics’ than whatever the others did.

The debate came in October. By then, the city was sort of roused up by the intense campaigning, and wanted to see what the five were like in a debate. Osnes was by that point still leading in polls, even if the preferences in the second round was slimming as more and more Reform voters put Dayton above Osnes. This debate had to be crucial for her.

In the end, a campaign ran entirely out of prepared videos, fervent students and mudslinging hackers failed entirely to hide the one weakness of Osnes. That she was crap at speaking ‘from the hip’. The charisma fell apart as she began mumbling incoherently and failed to provide anything but rehearsed soundbites. You could just swear that over the course of the debate, Dayton’s smile got even wider than before. Meanwhile, Dayton and Quie exchanged banter as the two got on very well as the ‘elder’ candidates in the race.

The hackers panicked and ended up releasing their ‘Mother of All Bombs’ a few days after the debate, hoping to salvage their candidate’s victory. It was lurid, graphic, and tried to portray Dayton as a man who exploited his staffers for his personal sexual gratification.

The Mayor stood at the podium once more, with his wife next to him and people sat behind him, and stated, with the utmost confidence – “We have had lies and statistics. Now we have damn lies. There’s nothing true about those allegations, and in fact those staffers are here today to give their side of the story, not what some sicko in a mask says. I believe women, not hackers.”

The ‘Mother of All Bombs’ was a dud. They believed Dayton would react like other politicians would have, hide away even if it was false. The hackers were chewed out by people back on the Pirate Galleon [what they called the HQ, yes you can tell they’re mostly students] for being utterly lazy and treating Dayton repeatedly like a normal politician when he was nothing of the sort.

Despite all of that, the polls were still tight, even as Dayton took a lead in the preferences for the second round. Osnes released much more videos, each of them designed to look ‘casual’, and her students became so fervent in their campaigning that some even fell asleep on the street. There would be one final event related to this before the voting happened.

The Mayor was looking out of the window as his guard drove, and he noticed a young man sleeping face first on the pavement. Ordering the car to stop, he smelled a new PR win for him, and gently shook the young man awake. Upon getting an explanation of why the young man was there, the Mayor asked the guard to take him home, and he himself would walk the rest of the way to his destination.

This was of course frontpage news the next day. And arguably sealed his victory, dashing the final fragile hopes of an upset.

1607066565215.png

The make-up of his second-round victory, surprisingly enough, came primarily from Reform and Republican voters. The Reform voters became increasingly second-preference Dayton after the warm exchanges between him and Quie, but the shift, as poll analysts would say, ultimately began with the budget fiasco when Dayton declared he preferred to do it paper, rather than online.

And the ones who went Cawthorn first, Dayton second? They were mainly people who were primarily middle-aged and struggling, and appreciated a politician who seemed to speak to their concerns, even if one was just promising to throw money at it, and the other already had eight years to fix it.

There were political commentariats afterwards that were sure of a possible extrapolation of the ‘Bismarck case’ to the whole of Mississippi, or even suggested a merger of Labor and Populist to form ‘Mississippi for All’, but this was quickly shot down by people on the ground there who pointed out that Bismarck was an unique case and Reform’s greater strength elsewhere would doom any ‘Mississippi for All’ endeavour.

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Flag is that of a modified proposal for Minneapolis I found on Reddit, produced by mattcscaz that I recoloured in Imperial German colours.
Pictures are, as always, courtesy of FaceApp.
 
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Muddy Red Water
This is set in a Britain where Blair somehow gets his way up to... 2007 or so. Everything rapidly falls apart after that.

First Ministers of Wales
1999 - 2003 - Alun Michael (Labour)
2003 - 2006 - Rhodri Morgan (Labour - Plaid Cymru)
2006 - 2007 - Rosemary Butler ('UK' Labour - Liberal Democrats)
2007 - 2010 - Adam Price (Plaid Cymru - Conservative - Liberal Democrats)
2010 - 2012 - Adam Price (Plaid Cymru - Cymru Goch - Liberal Democrats)
2012 - 2019 - Neil McEvoy (Cymru Goch - Plaid Cymru - Liberal Democrats)
2019 - 2020 - Hywel Francis (Cymru Goch - Plaid Cymru - Liberal Democrats)
2020 - pres. - Mick Antoniw (Cymru Goch - Plaid Cymru - Liberal Democrats)
 
Seventh Party System Infoboxes: 2018 Media California (Korean LB)
The Korean Language Board was reflective of its very middle-class and conservative base. The Progressive Party dominated for the first two elections, winning comfortable majorities due to a perception that it was above all a minority-interests party. Asian Action, through its Daehan Gukmin Dang branch, struggled to break through. After all, in many Korean-American voters’ thinking, why vote for the Asian Action branch when the electorate is wholly Korean?

The Progressives’ increasing ties to the Social Justice Alliance [widely known as the Feminist-LGBT Alliance in common parlance] in the 2000s disturbed many Asian-Americans who were still of the socially conservative thinking. This led to a common swing against the Progressives in those boards. Still, the Korean Board Progressives managed to fracture the swing against them, with voters going to Daehan Gukmin Dang and the Progressive Conservatives in equal measure. The final result was 7 Progressive, 5 Daehan Gukmin Dang and 3 Progressive Conservatives.

A deal was rapidly made, and DGD got its first Superintendent. As the Progressives increasingly became more liberal due to the SJA and Green influence, up to absorbing the former, the more middle-class and socially conservative Asian-American voters swung away from them heavily. Compounding this was that in the Korean Language Board, Daehan Gukmin Dang moved to utilise the Board’s powers that the Progressives chose to neglect.

The Progressives baked in extensive powers over language provisions and even cultural representation into the Boards, as a way to sabotage any attempt to undermine what they perceived Media California to be, a ‘rainbow state’. The Progressive Conservatives however, was a very different beast to the Republicans that they expected. The bulk of the people who made up the merged party was more Hispanos Unidos than Republican, and their coalition partners too liked the idea very much.

So the Progressives’ expected clash with a more centralising or bigoted conservative party just… didn’t happen. And while that was happening, they were losing more social conservative voters by the day. The status quo, after 20 years of Progressive rule, was essentially their perfectly-crafted crystal and they didn’t want to change anything about it. Then along came Daehan Gukmin Dang.

Daehan Gukmin Dang was notably contemptuous of Progressive ‘stagnation’, and elected to use the ‘cultural provisions’ power to the maximum extent, carving out several areas of Media California where de facto it was the Korean Language Board that was the main government, with many ‘Koreatowns’ emerging in the San Fernando Valley. It was even noted that there were even quite a few towns that worked in the Korean language first and English second.

This growing cultural isolation ended up benefiting it, even as the Progressives started to get wary. They were supportive of multiculturalism, but this? This smelled like separation. And there were increasing rumours that those isolated ‘Koreatowns’ were embezzling funds, or even acting as a hub for spies for Greater East Asia. When the Progressives got back in power in 2010, it was via a coalition with Social Justice and the Greens, and hence they could act on this suspicion.

The 2010 Korean Language Board election delivered an outright majority for Daehan Gukmin Dang, as it span the ‘cultural provisions’ into supporting struggling Korean-owned business via fiscal support, a far cry from mere ‘wider cultural awareness campaigns’ the Progressives intended that to mean. The Korean-American middle-class, anxious of not falling into the working-class, deeply appreciated this very much. But the Progressives fumed. This was increasingly looking like its own government and not a mere ‘language board’.

In 2012, just before the elections, the Progressives authorised a raid of several Korean-American businesses, sure that they were embezzling funds or even sending it overseas. The public backlash was immediate. Progressive support with Korean-Americans collapsed and they swung to voting Asian Action even in the House and Senate, even winning a few geographical seats in the latter. However, despite this, the Progressives as a sum gained due to other demographics swinging to favour them after a successful two years of recovery. The embezzlement, it proved smaller than they expected, and the so-feared sending money overseas? It was to family and relatives.

Daehan Gukmin Dang won a two-thirds majority in the Board as a result of this, and it was a boon to other Asian Action affiliate parties too. With political capital on this matter for the Progressives collapsing with even internal polls showing a distressingly high amount of Hispanic voters open to voting PC if the Progressives touched the power of the Boards, they elected to abandon the idea.

After this humiliation, the Progressives chose to take a different direction, that of quietly accepting the new status quo while quietly doing their best to chip away at the insularity of the ‘Koreatowns’. A key weapon was strengthening road infrastructure, and trying to get Korean businesses to see the State Government as the main organisation to turn to. Lowering taxes for ‘diverse’ businesses once the budget recovered from the start of the Second Great Depression worked wonders too.

But their increasing social-liberalism, including the absorption of the Social Justice Alliance, and the growing strength of the political right in Media California, hobbled efforts. The best result since 2012 was in 2016 when they managed to pull a respectable 4 seats due to high-effort and several charismatic candidates, and deny Daehan Gukmin Dang its two-third majority.

So how did it go all wrong in 2018? The slow grind of the Depression forced the Progressives to remove those ‘diversity tax exceptions’ to maintain a sustainable budget led to a backlash, but it was something completely different that would wipe them out and return Daehan Gukmin Dang to two-thirds. The Revolucionarios.

The Revolucionarios in Media California had a very vocal element that portrayed whites and Asian as privileged ‘colonisers’. Korean-owned businesses tended to employ Hispanic workers because of the cheap labour, and hence they were quite anxious of stuff such as trade unions being more powerful or the workers becoming class conscious. But the racial tint to such radical rhetoric becoming more popular gave a deep chill through every Korean-American’s bloodstream.

And hence they turned once more to the party that always had their back – Asian Action, and hence Daehan Gukmin Dang. The Asian Action party ran 2018 exclusively on ‘protecting Asian values’ and encouraging a reflexive vote against the Revolucionarios.

Some Progressive branches emphasised their strong rejection of Revolucionario ideas, like the Tagalog one where it was noted that at times they sounded very like the Nacionalistas in rhetoric. But by 2018 the Korean Board Progressives was badly managed and couldn’t fight off a deep and strong upsurge in Daehan Gukmin Dang support.

1608094470623.png

Benefiting this upsurge was the Dang’s structure. Unlike a lot of other parties, it relied extensively on the insularity of Korean communities to cultivate extensive personal connections of the voter with their politicians, and actively encouraged both high turnout and a distinct view of the Korean Board. A common sentiment expressed by a Korean-American voter in 2018 was ‘I vote for the party in the House and Senate, but for a friend in the Board’.

The Progressives failed to construct such networks, finding them distasteful and distracting from the actual issues. This seemingly distant and aristocratic politics, combined with lingering distrust from 2012 and growing fear of the Revolucionarios, doomed them. They lost two seats and fell down hard.

Now with Asian-Americans’ greatest fear realised as Progressives and Revolucionarios shake hands, the Progressives look to a wipe-out in the Korean Language Board as even staunch Progressive voters declare they will vote Daehan Gukmin Dang. The Progressive Conservatives on the other hand, has started to grow comfortably as the main opponent to the Progressives in wider state politics, with their Korean Language Board seat won in 2016 and held in 2018 expected to be accompanied by a second, or even a third, come 2020.

Helping them is the disunity of the Korean Language Board Democrats. Emerging on the bloc in the 2012 Progressive collapse as some Korean-Americans who distrusted Daehan Gukmin Dang ended up voting Democratic, it ended up dominated by its two elected board members, which had totally different views for the Party vis a vis the Board.

Jay Choi was of the more nationalistic bend, albeit not of the type of Daehan Gukmin Dang. He wanted the Democratic Party on the Board to aggressively promote Korean-American nationalism, deploring the idea of Koreans working with East Asia and saw Daehan Gukmin Dang as undermining his vision. He believed intensely in Korean-Americans having the capability to be full-blooded Americans. Also notable is his deep distaste of ‘mixed-race’ Korean-Americans, comparing them negatively to ‘purebloods’ like himself.

Contrasting to him was his fellow board member Steven Kim who wanted to focus on turning the Board to religious matters, being a member of the Pact of Christ faction. Kim wished for further cooperation between Democrats and Daehan Gukmin Dang on common religious lines, and even reached out to mixed-race Korean-Americans [of which there wasn’t much, but Kim was unusual for a Democrat] as fellow ‘children of God’.

Choi’s race-based American nationalism went up against Kim’s deep religiosity and in 2016 it proved too much and the party split when deciding on who would be the official leader after years of putting it off. Choi, believing that the wider Democratic Party would push for Kim, withdrew to form the Korea Democratic Union for the election. In the end, the majority would vote for Choi’s Korea Democrats above Kim’s rump Democrats. Before the 2018 election, the two would merge with Choi at the helm and Kim was promoted to top of the list in an Orange County constituency for the House.

But the Korean voters who voted for Kim, they were mostly motivated by religion, and combined with the pre-mentioned fear, would flee the Democrats for Daehan Gukmin Dang, losing them Kim’s seat in the bargain. Choi would hold on as the party’s sole board member, but the wider Media California Democratic Party would look at the party in confusion and frustration.

[New computer, so wikiboxes will look a little different. Flag is Los Angeles one, pictures courtesy of FaceApp, blah blah].
 
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Notes on Treforic Culture: Traditional Time-Telling
Trefor has a traditional way of stating the time, known as the ‘time of quarters’ [amser pedwerydd] for dividing the day and night in three quarters each.

This is a shifting system based on the rough average of when the sun rises in the morning, and for peasants it was exclusively based on that, but as desire for some standardisation grew with the intellectuals influenced by Sinsic time and its regularity, one man would eagerly rise to the task. This man was Aneurin ap Llyr Gwalchmai, and he was every bit the ‘modern Treforic man’ in the tributary era.

His system was nothing short of genius. He took the ‘time of quarters’ idea of dividing the time into chunks of fours and elaborated it on a higher level, dividing the Treforic year of around twelve months into four quarters. Trefor did not have seasons like the West would think of [it’s mostly one of dry and wet], but the higher four fours would be widely seen in the West as an equivalent.

So what was Scholar Gwalchmai’s system? Taking the names from the moon phases, his four would be defined as the ‘new’, ‘waxing’, ‘full’ and ‘waning’ month-phases. In a ‘new’ phase, the day starts at 8:00 Treforic Time, and is widely considered by the West to be equivalent to winter. ‘Waxing’ and ‘waning’ fundamentally works the same, with the day starting at 7:00, and are seen as ‘spring’ and ‘autumn’ respectively. The ‘full’ is to the West ‘summer’, and started at 6:00.

This helped cement some regularity to the system. But what was the system in the first place? To understand it fully, we should go through a normal Treforic day. And a normal Treforic night as well, for the Treforic system is notable for elaborating on night as equal as day, unlike the more flexible system found in the East, or the ‘day-oriented’ system of reference in the West. In Ashfield, you wouldn’t say something like ‘aftermidnight’ or have an equivalent of a morning for the night. But in Trefor, the equivalents are widely used. You can see this also in their way of referencing a calendar day, as night is baked in as well as day – ‘Dydd Taen’, but ‘Nos Daen’.

Depending on if the month-phase is full, waxing or waning, or new, the day properly starts at 6:00, 7:00 or 8:00. It is said to be ‘one on sun’ [un ar haul], and this continues, with the next hour being ‘two on sun’ [dau ar haul] all the way up to ‘four on sun’ [pedwar ar haul]. This quarter-day is defined by the sun arriving. It ends at 10, 11 or 12, depending on the phase.

The next phase is the ‘high’ quarter. There is an equivalent in Herish where 12:00 is ‘high’ noon, but that is more a specification. The ‘high’ quarter is defined by the sun being high in the sky. It goes on for four hours, from ‘one on high’ [un ar uchel] to ‘four on high’ [pedwar ar uchel], and goes on to 2, 3 or 4 PM using Western/Zalivian phrasing.

Then comes the ‘low’ quarter. This phase is defined by the sun visibly starting to go down to the horizon. Once again, the system goes from ‘one on low’ [un ar isel] to ‘four on low’ [pedwar ar isel], and the day officially ends at 6, 7 or 8 PM by Western phrasing.

Now we enter the aspect that people in the West are often confused by, but the quarters essentially reset for the night. The moon’s arrival [or in the systematic version, when isel ends] heralds a new quarter as the hour is ‘one on moon’ [un ar lleuad], goes up to ‘four on moon’ [pedwar ar lleuad], ending at 10, 11 or 12 PM and then it repeats the ‘high’ and ‘low’ quarters, without elaboration, for context is often enough. ‘High’ ends at 2, 3 or 4 AM, and ‘Low’ at 6, 7 or 8 PM, which starts the following day.

But when it is necessarily to elaborate if you mean ‘high’ or ‘low’ in the day or night sense, you say something like ‘three on high moon’ or ‘one on low sun’ [tri ar lleuad uchel and un ar haul isel respectively]. The omission of the article you would normally encounter [on the moon is ar y lleuad] is down to the y being a schwa and hence easily skipped over.

The days as in calendar days are simpler however. Treforic days, thanks to centuries under tributary rule, are based on the Sinsic, but it is not a calque, but rather a ‘Trefisation’ of the Sinsic words for the days. Monday to a Herish person would be Dydd Ei to a Treforic [or Nos Ei, don’t forget the nights either!], Tuesday Dydd Ier/Nos Ier, Wednesday Dydd Sen/Nos Sen, Thursday Dydd Gweu/Nos Weu, Friday Dydd Lleu/Nos Leu and Sunday is Dydd Taen/Nos Daen.

To go further in than the hours and quarters, we get to the minutes. In Trefor, the hours were divided in thirds, and those thirds were divided in half, to make something equivalent to ten minutes per ‘half-third’. The thirds were called ‘notches’ [rhiciau] due to being used by sundials during the day. The Sinsic phrasing of ‘first’ and ‘central’ did not sink in the hour, but it did the half-thirds in a way.

The notches were divided in shallow and deep notches [rhiciau bas and rhiciau dwfn respectively], but Trefor often associates deep with central. Despite the wording, only the deep notches count as notches [rhiciau] and hence are the ones referenced to by the word unelaborated. The shallow ones are more time-indicators than ‘true’ notches.

They are referenced to by their number. The first [deep] notch of one on the sun in the waning phase is 7:20. Before that, it is the first shallow notch [7:10] and before that it is llyfn, ‘smooth’. A further division of the half-notches, what is commonly known as ‘scratches’ [crafiadau], was primarily created by the 1400s, but never quite took off with the people until the Zalivian conquest. Zalivia was known for its exacting time standards, and ‘scratches’ were adopted as a way to further get exacting time. It is notable that the original ‘scratches’ were one sixths, but the Zalivian decimal system led to one tenths dominating and becoming the accepted standard.

The Treforic second, unlike the rest of all of this, is very much one created in modernity and the 1700s, and is called the ‘moment’ [eiliad]. It is a further elaboration of the Zalivian system, taking their 60 seconds and renaming it ‘moments’. There is no system associated with the ‘moment’, unlike the rest.

All of the above is the Treforic traditional time-telling, from the phases all the way to even the moment. Those days, globalisation has led to more of a universal standard, including clocks built around the Zalivian idea of midnight and noon. But when you chat with a Treforic at 1:20 PM in December and ask them the time, they will look at their Zalivian-style watch and say with no hesitance – ‘un rhic ar ôl un ar uchel’. One notch after one on high.
 
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TL;DR

Day is divided in day [stupid English] and night - each 12 hours. This divide governs if you call it 'Dydd X' or 'Nos X'.

Each of those are divided in 3 batches of 4 hours, the 'quarters'.

The quarters are divided in 3 batches of 20 minutes each, the 'notches'.

The notches are halved with 'shallow notches' noting 10 minutes between the last notch and the next one.

In between all of the notches are 'scratches', aka basic minutes. A minute is a scratch.

The scratches are contained of 60 'moments'.

And that's it.
 
Seventh Party System Infoboxes: 1975 Colorado
In the midst of the political turmoil that was America in the early 1970s, with the fall of the National Union and the rise of Conservatism as a major political force, Colorado was deeply uneasy. It was known to be a firmly socially-liberal state and the embryonic rise of Las Vegas as the major gambling centre of America was already on its way. But it deeply disapproved of the ‘Buckley’ and ‘Dewey’ Republicans alike for being out of touch to Coloradans’ views. The ‘Buckleyites’ were too conservative on social issues, and the ‘Deweyites’ were too accepting of the New Deal and Great Society, including the high taxes that were becoming more and more unpopular with Coloradans every day.

Hence the Republicans struggled to break through. Even when the alliance with the Democrats to form the Conservative Party succeeded at breaking through elsewhere, it only led to a revulsion in Colorado. 1971 was not a good year to be a Coloradan Republican. Compounding this issue was that the rise and rise of the Conservative Party went with increased Democratic influence outside the South now that it was free from the National Union.

This meant that more money could go to the National Independent Party of Colorado. But back up a bit. What is the NIP? Contrary to beliefs, the National Union-dominated party system was not a simple and clean one of it versus the Republicans. There were discontent even back in the days of FDR, with the most famous being the Texas Regulars which took the Lone Star State by storm and made Lyndon B. Johnson a household name in his unrelenting [and often dubiously legal] fight to hold the state for the NUP.

By the early 1960s, this vague discontent on the right ended with several conservative NUP people forming their own party, the Independent National Union, or as it became known after the threat of a lawsuit, the National Independent Party. They defined themselves via their die-hard American conservatism, heavy dislike of the NUP’s ‘socialism’ and most distinctively from later right-wing thought a deep disdain of the talk of states’ rights. However, this later one was to rapidly fall away as LBJ pushed on and on with his ‘radical’ proposals and discredited the idea of using the federal state as a force for conservatism via association.

The Colorado branch of the NIP emerged soon after LBJ suspended Deseret’s government. While its leader John Mecham would insist that the NIP was not a party of solely conservative Mormons, and would emphasise its cross-denominational appeal, it was undeniable that conservative Mormons, and especially Mormon fundamentalists of which there were a considerable presence in the state, would support the NIP to a great extent. The more moderate sort would switch from NUP to Republican however, with there being no People’s Party choice.

The NIP emerging would take the more ‘patriotic’ element out of the once-dominant Colorado NUP under Governor Carl Udall, but thanks to a crafty mixture of extreme gerrymandering and playing up FPTP and the ‘Buckley’ Republicans’ social conservatism it held power in 1969 and profited well in 1971 as the message struck stronger in the state’s revulsion against the Conservative Party.

But in 1973, a variety of scandals and the NUP’s rapid collapse on the US-level threatened Udall’s hold on power. The various caucuses of the party – the Labor, Populist and Constitution caucuses in particular – were increasingly at loggerheads with each other frustrating Udall’s efforts. His own cabinet forced him to reshuffle it to remove scandalous figures thrice, and he was caught on record cussing out a prominent conservative figure in the party [who went and defected to the NIP in response].

The day came and the people voted clearly for the Colorado Republican Party. And they got another term of Udall, as the gerrymandered boundaries delivered him yet another majority. The outcry led the Republicans in the state to turn against FPTP, with them calling for a proportional system, joining the opportunistic calls from the NIP.

As the year of the next election came, the outcome seemed uncertain. The Republicans were tainted by the sins of Nixon and the NUP could count on somewhat of a clear electoral background and parties of which to take funding from – namely Labor. There were rumblings of possible Hispanic or Native interests parties emerging, but Udall could confirm that they weren’t expanding into Colorado in time for the election.

Then a plane landed in Las Vegas and its passenger, respected Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, who was one of the few Republicans who could break through NUP dominance of the state, would declare on the pavement that ‘the Republican Party has left me, it has left you, and it has left this state’. The establishment of the Libertarian Party was in all but name a Colorado Republican rebrand and official sundering from the increasingly-unpopular Eastern Establishment and the growing socially conservative element.

This posed a problem to Udall. Goldwater was perhaps the one Republican he couldn’t take down, and now he was free of the unpopular Republican brand. Many voters who even in 1973 reluctantly voted National Union was now cheering on Goldwater. Goldwater even caused some controversy when he declared that the state shouldn’t monitor people’s homes, private lives or families, a statement that many considered to be appealing to the polygamist fundamentalists. Nevertheless, that demographic would still vote NIP come November.

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The so-delicately drawn-up gerrymander that delivered the NUP a new term in 1973 was now smashed in 1975 as the Libertarians stormed their way to a two-thirds majority. Goldwater, now Governor Goldwater, promised a ‘new era of liberty’ as his fellow Libertarians eagerly got to work dismantling the NUP system and ‘cutting’ the bloat of too much government, using the constitutional majority to abolish the Senate, reduce the House to 125 Representatives and of course, making it proportional.

With Udall’s resignation, the factionalised and fragmented NUP would splinter at last, with the NIP absorbing the Constitution caucus [they would rebrand to Constitution and officially align with the federal party in 1981, even if curiously above Mecham’s objection], Labor and Populists squabbling up until both collapsed in 1987 and the Democrats lingered until 1991 before giving up the fight and merging with Constitution.

Meanwhile the Libertarians enjoyed unprecedented dominance. Colorado’s golden age was here.

[Photos for Udall and Mecham courtesy of FaceApp. Flag is partially made from a Reddit post by u/chxsewxlker that I tweaked a bit.]
 
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Oh and for posterity's sake, the flag of Colorado.

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Basically this is a sort of reversed Arizona flag, with the sunbeams now representing valleys rather than mountains, and the star is replaced by the Northern Cross to represent the night sky or something. Now, is this flag aesthetically rather poor? Yes. Yes it is. But it's an American state flag. So yeah.
 
Potential idea for a wikibox series -

All Thine Shall Be The Subject Main
It is 2020. (Or 2021, whatever). The world is united in the United Empire of Earth, formerly the British Empire and a few stragglers.

But its a gloriously dysfunctional one. The Kuomintang extorts every government to appease China, even if renewed independence is still off the table (the military would coup the government if that was offered). This has created discontent with the populists of left and right as many promising contracts go straight to up and coming Chinese corporations rather than British ones. Don't ask them what counts as British, they don't know either, only that it isn't Chinese.

Meanwhile the Parliament has to work around the complexity of Indian politics even if the Liberal-INC alliance still holds. Mostly. Sort of. Not really. It depends.

London is a multi layered nightmare. Parliament meets in Top Westminster, the highest city borough in the world. Below it is Central Westminster and we don't speak of Bottom Westminster. That is where the SpAds reside.

Top, Central, Bottom, those are standard names to distinguish between the various levels of the old boroughs, now boroughs in their own right. What's that? You think building out might be a good idea to relieve this extreme verticality? Nonsense! Must protect the Green Belt.

The Fifth American Rebellion still lingers in people's memories. The Minutemen still are holed up in Vermont, but the BBC says they'll be dealt with in the next few weeks. They keep saying that... every few weeks.

Many scholars has started talking of "Empires plural", pointing out that devo-max has made many places basically independent in all but name. The Government has tried to smack this down, lambasting them all as "experts" who "hate Britain".

Rationing is still happening of course. Everyone must suck it up and deal with it. After all, everyone must be fed. Ignore the fact that the food rationing is more lenient in white areas please. Well, that's mostly unless the government needs a vote from one of the Indian parties. Or the news look bad in Africa for the polls. Or if its politically convenient.

Breaking News: Prime Minister caused controversy by declaring "a return to morality is a return to Sharia law". This added on to the pile of controversies that has dogged him since he took over from Lula, and has led to calls for a leadership challenge from both the liberal and communitarian factions. He has remained defiant, refusing to apologise, and has dared his "haters" to challenge him.

Help. Britain is burning. And there's no alternative. Help.

=========

Anyway, that's my idea. Britain wank, but Britain is still Britain and still as horribly dysfunctional as ever.
 
Anyway, that's my idea. Britain wank, but Britain is still Britain and still as horribly dysfunctional as ever.
“...why do you think the constituency of Baghdad South swung so hard towards Galloway in this particular electoral cycle as opposed to a more native candidate?”
”Well, Galloway has been known to be a fierce and convincing campaigner, and his outspoken support for arrested dissident Saddam Hussein has been very attractive to the people of Baghdad...”
 
Seventh Party System Infoboxes: 2001 Delaware
Delaware was always a unique state, but historically the party system did not reflect this. The Republicans, under their Dewey faction, enjoyed success over the state, even as the National Union often took government. But the National Union was fatally split between the Democrat and Labor wings enabling the Republicans to benefit from NUP factional woes.

Come the Conservative Revolution, and Delaware’s tense two-but-really-three political system was blown apart. NUP Governor Charles L. Terry, of the Democrat wing, chose to ally with the Republicans in an unusual coalition that expelled the Labor wing over what he claimed was ‘weakness’ regarding a spate of minority protests that they lobbied for negotiation above ‘sending the police in’. The Republicans was in turn lambasted by some of their fellow Dewey Republicans for ‘selling out’. It was necessary to ally with the Democrats to stop LBJ, but certainly wasn’t in Delaware of all places.

This factional tension bubbled and led one man, a Republican staffer by the name of John Biden who worked for Labor leader Sherman Tribbit, to bolt and form his own one-man party, the Whig Party. He sold himself and his party as a ‘genuine liberal alternative’ to the Democrats and their Republican allies on one hand, and Labor on another. He managed to win one seat in the first election the Whigs ran in, and found that when he lambasted the ‘tripartisan’ system of seemingly no principles but power, he received the most applause and leant into that to surge every election.

By 1989 after seemingly every combination of Republicans, Democrats and Labor had their turn in government, the Delawarean people had enough. By that point the Whig Party cannibalised the once-formidable Dewey Republican faction, causing that party to become more equally-factionalised between it and the growing Buckleyites, shifting the party to the right, and took Labor’s more centrist faction, causing it to become more left-wing than the average Labor party. With both left and right ‘radicalised’ and yet discredited as parties of principle, the Whigs won a majority easily.

And John Biden delivered, causing him to become more popular and win several more comfortable victories. With the Republicans already split between Buckleyites and Deweyians, and the Dewey Republicans of a deeply ‘pragmatic’ streak, and the Democrats yearning for power above all else, the two signed a party alliance in 1996. Biden lambasted this as yet more of the same ‘empty power-hungry politics’ that motivated the Whigs to emerge against, but it was appealing. Fundraised by the du Pont family (the wealthiest family in Delaware), the Democratic-Republican alliance managed to deny Biden his majority.

Turning to Labor for a coalition, Biden had to make several concessions to the left, which gradually alienated some of his centrist voters even as his deep charisma covered it, and there were murmurs that the Whigs ‘sold out’ like the others did. The Democrats and Republicans, eager for success, furthered their alliance into a united electoral label for 1999, the Democratic Republicans. In exchange for even more fundraising, the head of the du Pont family, Michael du Pont, was made the leader.

They cut into Biden’s majority even further. The Democratic Republicans were feeling triumphant, and moved to centralise the parties into one coherent organisation, the Democratic Republican Party. That was perhaps their sole blunder. For even though the Republicans and Democrats were dominated by ‘pragmatic’ politicians, not all their voters or politicians were so understanding about the permanent end to the parties.

The first split was led by Christy Robertson, daughter of former federal Pact of Christ faction leader Gordon J. Robertson and Delaware resident for a decade. The key difference was that the Democratic Republicans were theoretically a secular party that focused on economics and at most vaguely ‘Christian values’. And the economics weren’t even to the Pact’s liking, as it smelled too… libertarian. But with the federal Democratic Party, dominated by Wallacites, firmly backing the Democratic Republicans any possible Democratic split was killed in its cradle. However, the tension was too much to prevent a split from happening at all.

The Delaware Christian Coalition was declared in 2000 and immediately splashed in the polls, even as news came out that the Constitution Party, disgusted by their economic policy, refused to work with them. Many Pact of Christ members unofficially funded the Christian Coalition, mostly motivated by a sense of wanting to aid their beloved [and by then late] leader’s sole daughter in her quest to bring ‘salvation’ to Delaware. This was much to the Wallacites’ displeasure, but no concrete proof could be found that any top politicians were involved.

Meanwhile, on the other half of the Democratic Republicans, one Dewey Republican had an idea. Biden himself was a Dewey Republican once, and he benefited from splitting. So why couldn’t he do the same? Deeply disturbed by the growing racism in the party as Wallacites pulled it further and further away from Dewey’s ideals, Tom Ting would announce the Independent Alliance of Delaware in early 2001, branding it as ‘the real party of Lincoln’s values’. He got some interest, but most Dewey Republicans by then wrote off Delaware, or even secretly supported the Whigs above this unknown upstart’s party.

Michael du Pont however, was certain that no matter what, Delaware would not vote for yet another term of John Biden and his Whig-Labor coalition. The Christian right and the Don Quixotes would squabble, but most of Delaware knew the only game in town was Biden or du Pont. And they would vote accordingly. The Democratic Republican advertisements paid no heed to the Christian Coalition, Independent Alliance or even Labor. According to them, it was a two-horse race between the Democratic Republicans and the Whigs. And they proved so perversive that nobody could last a month without being exposed to one.

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And the voters did indeed vote accordingly, much to now Governor Michael du Pont’s satisfaction. John Biden however, scrambled for a solution. He found it via centralising his side so it would fight against the Democratic Republicans much more effectively – the Whig-Labor Party. And hence started Delaware’s new duopoly, only thirty years after the last one collapsed.

[Flag was created by 'rubberduck3y6' on DeviantArt and portraits are, as always, courtesy of FaceApp.]
 
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List Ideas
Ideas to incorporate in future lists

Keir Starmer the Radical Leftist [inspired by that excellent list done by someone else]
Cornish Nationalist Rab Butler [the guy really did identify with the Cornish language, so it isn't that implausible]

Others yet to come
 
Seventh Party System Infoboxes: Gordon J. Robertson (Democrat-South Virginia, 1930-1999)
Full write-up tomorrow or so. But for now enjoy this blurb.

Mention the name of Gordon J. Robertson, or lightly allude of his final fate, and you get Democrats tearing each other apart.

It may be more than 20 years after his death, but memories still linger. His successor as Pact of Christ leader, Bill Huckabee, is still of the firm belief that the Wallacites signed Robertson's death warrant, figuratively. The Wallacites on the other hand, believe that Robertson was just an upstart who lost a political fight and the Pact is stupid for being sore about it.

The one thing the Wallacites and Pact of Christ agree on, though, is that because of the mess around Robertson's fate, the Democrats was permanently shut out of major party dominance in the state.

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Despise Not Death - Egyptian Commentaries by Pishoy
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The Commentaries on the Language and History of the Egyptians, often shortened to simply the Egyptian Commentaries, is one of the most relied-upon secondary sources for Ancient Egyptian history, and has made its author a name to be known in Egyptologist circles as well as Roman.

The Penguin Classics Edition uses the manuscript version that was found in the so-called 'Roman Pyramid', the tomb of the Roman Emperor Appius Fabius Maximus Eumenius [or just simply Eumenius]. Eumenius was buried with many of those that he had his literate slaves write out on papyrus until he had a stockpile, which he then put in thick vases which after his death were sealed in with his tomb.

But awareness of the Commentaries was much earlier than that, as it was passed down and translated into many languages after the author's death. The Arabic scholars translated it extensively and it was noted to be a 'tale of an ancient land' in many parts of Europe. The art of the hieroglyphs led to there being a recurring fad from the 1600s on to write your name in the 'ancient script' of the land of Egypt.

The Commentaries, from the moment it was book-bound, was traditionally divided into three parts - the Histories, the Language and the Script. Those three are structured very differently, and were notably written at different parts of Pishoy's life. The Script was the first, and was created by him as a young man eager to preserve the glory of his homeland. This one is the one that was preserved best as he had it published most in his lifetime, and it gives an exacting definition of how each symbol works, and how to read it. A 19th-century Egyptologist frankly stated - 'If it was not for the Script, we would have to decrypt it out ourselves, taking decades, if not centuries'. Pishoy's Script is itself divided, by Pishoy himself, into what he noted to be High and Low versions, what we would consider the classical hieroglyphs and the second the 'Demotic' version, and noted that 'both are scripts true to the land of Egypt, the first the declarations of the ancients, the second by the people who live in the now'.

The Language is one of the most controversial works of Egyptology, as Pishoy, by now an older and more influential man in Roman society, focused on elaborating his version of Egyptian, a heavily Greek and Roman influenced version of a language shifting to Coptic, and consciously chose to emulate the legacy of Claudius and Etruscan. Many of the bold national declarations of the Script is gone, and in their place is a more staid and 'objective' look at the language, and every comparison was made to Classical Greek and Latin. But of course, it is primarily remembered for the final line - 'I write this because as a man from Egypt, I know the sands of time take everything. The more I write, the more my Nation holds true'.

The Histories is however, one of the most elusive manuscripts, and if it was not for a fluke of luck enabling an Arabic scholar to discover it in an Alexandrian market, it would not even be known by the 800s. It is considered one of the most in-depth and unique ancient writings on Egypt, and was written by an ageing Pishoy, now at the top of his power and wishing to complete his work. It is part fable, part fact, as it spins a complicated tale from the ancient mythological past where Ra emerged, all the way to the moment where he pens his book. He deems 'Egypt's history has not been finished with Roman acquisition. History never ceases and will not do so with this work.'. Pishoy was notoriously cagey about his identity, and all we know in the Commentaries of his position is from his oblique references to his writing station's quality.

Pishoy was for centuries treated as an unusually productive Egyptian writer, and nothing more. Then the Roman Pyramid was opened. It was a fascination of many, this pyramid created, according to Roman writers, of the half-Coptic Roman Emperor Eumenius, and one where it was rumoured, his tomb resided. Unlike many Roman Emperors, he insisted on being buried in the 'old Egyptian custom', creating outrage in his time, but it was ultimately followed out by his adopted heir and successor. The people who cleared the tomb noted that in many vases surrounding the sarcophagus there were copies of the Commentaries. The assumption was that Pishoy was funded by Eumenius, but then they noted that the hieroglyphics on the walls told a different story. Notably they did not use a form of Eumenius in the script, but instead the name Pishoy.

Historians then concluded that the Roman Emperor Appius Fabius Maximus Eumenius and the Egyptian writer Pishoy were one and the same, and it led to a scholarly dispute over how to reference the man that concluded with a consensus that in Roman history he would be Eumenius, and in Egyptology he would be Pishoy. Wikipedia has it as Eumenius for the title, but the start goes "Appius Fabius Maximus Eumenius, also known by the Egyptian name Pishoy". Further research into the different names led to an off-hand commentary by his father that 'my son's mother calls him a name from her race. I do not acknowledge such a name, but let it be for my own sake' found underneath a page of a medieval Irish Bible in 2017.

====

Decided to do something silly.
 
Political Party - Patriotic Labour Party
Faction Name - Sotasota ni Vakabauta kei na Tamata (Navosa) / League of Faith and People (English)
Faction Primary Language - Navosa
Players Involved - Turquoise Blue
Faction Tags - Native Issues, Pro-Worker, Socially Weird.

History and Ideology
Faction Founding
- Originally founded as an independent native issues party since the Great Depression [1934], and from that early time was dominated by charismatic Navosa preachers who invoked the traditional faith and syncretised it with Christianity to form a religion known as simply Vakabauta. The party itself proved successful in pulling Navosa voters, but as time went on and the National Unity Coalition sought to marginalise Native voters through many policies but especially via the abolition of the Native seats, the Sotasota weakened more and more up until its 1961 decision to ally with the Socialist Labour Party. Since then, it has been seen as the PLP's 'Navosa wing', despite its distinct identity and whatnot.
Faction History - As part of the PLP, it has consistently brought up issues such as Navosa income inequality, while resisting any attempts at getting the party to support weakening religious authority via anything like reducing church exceptions. Vakabauta is the core force of the Sotasota, and it will lobby hard as part of the PLP and outside it against anything that threatens Vakabauta.
Faction General Issues
Welfare Spending +2
"It is a moral and a righteous duty to eradicate the handprint of the past on the path to tomorrow. Let our government seek to enrich every Navosa that currently suffers in the shadows."
Environment vs. Economy +2 "The environment is something we should protect and treasure, but we must seek at balancing such protection with economic growth that benefits our peoples. We can live in harmony with nature."
Native Minority Rights +3 "We are the indigenous people of those lands, and we have long suffered. Pacifica must seek to clean its hands by starting the work of atonement. This goes hand-in-hand with the workers' struggle, but is a distinct struggle of its own and must be seen as such."
Tolerance of Sexual Minorities -1 "Morality must be upheld by the government, and any deviancy be rejected."
Contraception and Abortion -1 "While we encourage all Natives to be fruitful and multiply, we do not think this act of faith should be forced on the people by the government. Abortion however? That's murder. And sounds too much like eugenics."
Republicanism -2 "It was not the State that made the contract with our people, but the Crown. We are deeply interested in seeing those contracts continue, and hence we are a very pro-monarchy association. Republicanism is primarily a settler ideology."

Faction Specific Issues -
Native Cultural Protection "While we agree with the wider PLP that immigrants should be encouraged to assimilate, we must note that the Navosa were here first, and we must have our cultural protections be affirmed such and our rights as a people restored. Including giving us back our seats, ideally..."
Vakabauta Religious Recognition "Our faith has not been acknowledged by any government as legitimate. This must change. It is not one followed by every Navosa, but it is a significant force in Navosa community politics and hence should be acknowledged."
 
Notes on Treforic Culture: The Mari Lwyd
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The Mari Lwyd [마리・륃] is a complicated figure in Treforic culture. The first Rauist preachers noted that she was the Treforic 'Queen of Bones' and their chief pagan deity. It is widely accepted that this deity came from the indigenous Animatan faith and not the Sharastran settlers, as there exist little equivalent in the East, and Treforic settlers more or less adopted the native faith via intermixture after a few generations. The Rauist preachers, despite wishing to eradicate the pagan faith, took great pain to note down all of what they knew of the 'Queen of Bones'.

And it is this record, found in the Fabrizian academic halls, that we can glean out the origin of the Mari Lwyd, and also the modern understanding of the Treforic 'national-mother', Trefi. The ancestral 'Queen of Bones' was unusually enough, a maternal figure despite her skeletal appearance. She was the goddess of birth and of death, for the faith saw little difference. You were born, died and born again, never truly gone from the world. It was but a process, even if a terrible and yet blessed one. Life was the greatness, and the inbetween of lives were but a moment.

Perhaps it was this that made the ancestral Treforic people noted to be a race of warriors. But as the Treforic people converted to Rauism, many of their beliefs were syncretised into Rauism. However, the 'Queen of Bones' clashed a lot with traditional Rauist beliefs, and the preachers took great effort to shatter the 'bone cult' as they called it later on. It was circa this time that the first records of 'Trefi' emerged, the so-called 'national-mother' of Trefor. The stories of her and Cosan, the idea that her father was the Mangowl Emperor, all that, were not until later. Ancestral worship was not foreign to the Treforic, and indeed even traditional Rauism permitted such if it was understood that they were but 'interlocutors' to Hunkara.

But Trefi adapted many of the elements of the 'Queen of Bones', becoming seen as the 'great mother' [Treforic - 맘웈엘 - mamuchel] and ultimately 'nation-mother' [맘ᄋᆉ - mamwa]. Many fantastical stories were pinned to her, many originally about the 'Queen of Bones' and passed down through oral folklore. However, she was seen as primarily a national figure, and not associated specifically with the supernatural aspects of the old 'Queen of Bones'.

A few centuries later, we get the first written records of the Mari Lwyd. Rauism, even in its syncretic form, was only just starting to seep into the populace, truly, and the 'bone cult' was on its final rattling gasp. But many of its devotees went on to create the imagery of the Mari Lwyd, the Grey Mare. She was the other half of Trefi. While Trefi was the national personification and mamwa of the Treforic people, the Mari Lwyd took the more supernatural elements. Treforic Rauism was open to belief in reincarnation at this point, and folk beliefs in it remained strong. Old customs of getting drunk and singing songs about the deceased, originally to 'send them on their way', were still alive and well.

Treforic folklore rapidly acquired the belief that the Mari Lwyd was the one to truly sing you off to your next life, often with a musical instrument in her bony hands. Reincarnation was, like everything in Trefor, musical. The song of the Mari Lwyd would perfectly encompass your entire life and your purpose in that, and serve as the closure, the epilogue. It was said to be at once haunting yet profound. Clearly from the scratchy internals of a skull-horse yet the most beautiful song anyone would hear. Even the strongest of strong men would break down weeping as it took them apart.

As the song went on, it is said, the person starts to fade away. With their existence so summed up by the song, they become ready to move on, to be reborn. While more orthodox Rauists tutted at this 'folk-belief' and some murmured that it was still the old 'bone cult', it proved impossible to uproot, and once the new authority became Sinsic, they lost true state power to deal with this, something they wouldn't get back for almost a thousand years.

The Sinsic celebrated a winter solstice festival [Dongzhi], and although it wasn't completely unique [indeed, even the preachers noted some sort of winter festival celebrated by the ancestral Treforic, and Rauists elsewhere syncretised it to some extent], the Sinsic influence on the Treforic Solstice cannot be denied. The clan structure was already deeply in place by this point, but the Solstice was used by the clan leaders to maximise influence by gathering the clan once every year to reassert leadership and to expand their connection network.

As time went on, and the Solstice became more and more associated with clan and lineage, the Mari Lwyd assumed its other role it inherited from the 'Queen of Bones', as the granter of birth and of overall celebration. With many clan halls often having a horse skull decorated with the festive offerings of the year as a 'tribute' for a year of birth and deaths, it was only a natural step to associating it with the season overall. On the Solstice itself, people were now singing to the Mari Lwyd, singing to keep away death and to bring life. Theological interpretation of it as one of the avatars of Hunkara [the supposed omnipresent deity of Rauism] was now widespread in a syncretic religion without state power. The tradition of giving tangion [boiled coloured rice-balls, traditional Sinsic winter festival food that Trefor inherited] as an offering to the Mari Lwyd was first noted in the last years of Sinsic rule.

Under the Zalivian imperium, after a brief moment of independence, Solstice became known also for gift-giving. The Sinsic did not traditionally associate the solstice with gifts, but the Zalivians did. The Khothist festival at this time was noted for symbolic pottery gifting, and while the Treforic did not take the pottery, they did take the concept and while it started off as the clan leader building on connections by gifting his clan members gifts, the size of the clans rapidly made it unworkable. In the end, the Mari Lwyd became associated with the ritual of gifting as people would give others gifts under the horse-skull. But as the clan system became less tight and Trefor became so populous that clans gathering became unworkable, the Mari Lwyd was now the 'giver figure', coming around to grant the families presents as long as she receive tangion and a proper song.

Otherwise, well there's plenty of dark scary stories of people who don't bother. None of which are based in fact, but it's always fun to scare people, especially impressionable young kids. Also emerging in this time was the belief that people who die on the Solstice enjoy singing a duet with the Mari Lwyd before moving on. With independence, the more 'orthodox' Rauists were now completely gone, replaced by a deeply nationalistic spirit eager to promote its culture abroad. Included was the Mari Lwyd, Trefor's skeletal bringer of birth, life, death and celebration in the darkest of days.

And the world went as one and went "what the FUCK, Trefor".
 
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Gang Aft Agley - Scottish UDI gone terribly, terribly wrong.
"Gang Aft Agley"

Prime Ministers of Scotland (2021-2024)

Nicola Sturgeon (SNP majority) 2021-2022
Damn Cherry. Damn everyone who won't damn Cherry. That woman managed to bind the SNP to unilateral independence in their November conference and then rushed the Parliament to vote for it. By a narrow one-seat margin, Scotland declared independence. Sturgeon was now the first head of government of an independent Scotland in centuries. But what should have been a triumphant declaration was now some rushed and probably illegal thing. And now Boris declared that he wouldn't stand for it and was now putting what remained of Britain's clout on isolating its unwelcome neighbour.

Any poll that would have been held about independence would have seen YES fall back below 50% after that. The gradualists lost the fight so comprehensively and Sturgeon herself lost control of the party. The leadership challenge was almost an afterthought.

Joanna Cherry (SNP majority) 2022-2024
The triumph of the fundamentalists in March 2022 came with more and more blows. An application to even consider joining the EU was rejected frostily, and President Biden refused to even meet the Scottish ambassador. Sure, there was some 'informal' acceptance here and there, including China. But none of it helped the Scottish economy, which was now collapsing like there was no tomorrow. Many economists attributed it to its historic dependence on the south, and the most charitable would say that this was a 'rough transitionary period'.

But for the average Scot, it was a nightmare as more and more jobs fled southwards. Boris, now successfully covering himself as 'defender of the Union' with his tough diplomatic talk, declared that there was 'no compromise on the Union', and even though Starmer adopted a more conciliatory tone, he was still firm that UDI was illegal and opposed by Labour. The diplomatic isolation was without end in sight. And out of a desperate move, Cherry signed more and more deals with China, giving them overt influence over the country. This did get Scotland more diplomatic recognition, but only outside the West.

As jobs vanished and poverty rose, including Covid-22 tearing apart the country in sickness worse than the UK in 2023, the people of Scotland turned angrier and against the SNP which promised such a rosy vision of independence and yet gave Scotland hell. In 2024, this would come to a boil.

Colin Fox (Scottish Socialist leading Revolutionary Government) 2024
They said it couldn't be done, that workers' revolutions didn't happen in this day and age. But Red Clydeside was back once more. With the SNP and Scottish Parliament successfully marginalised by a workers' uprising, Colin Fox declared the formation of the Republic of Scotland.

Prime Ministers of the Republic of Scotland (2024-????)
Colin Fox (Scottish Socialist leading Revolutionary Coalition) 2024-2026
2024: def. Ruth Davidson (Progressive Unionist), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP), Alex Salmond [in exile] ("Provisional" SNP), Patrick Harvie (Green)
Despite a stronger Unionist support than expected [one easily dealt with by a bill passed the first day expelling all members not supporting Scottish "national integrity"], Fox got his majority in the new People's Convention, and immediately moved with his policies. While many of them would see leftists down south start to agitate more for recognition of Scottish independence and saying that some of his stuff could be learnt from, it would cause their increasing marginalisation in British politics between a seemingly-dominant Conservative Party and a Labour Party anxious to not be associated with Scots.

Left unsaid was that Fox was in an unenviable position. The economy was still collapsing with no end in sight, and the only way he could solve it was by opening up further and further to China and other countries. Which would reduce Scotland to a mere economic puppet. In the end, he chose to put Scottish workers first and move away from those, instead prioritising a state-ran economy. This would see quite a bit of success at first.

But China, scorned by this move against any foreign economic influence, deemed that it was not worth the effort and declared that it 'respects the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom, as we hope the United Kingdom returns in turn'. The Chinese money left, leading to a panic and thousands of jobs lost in the blink of an eye. Christmas 2025 was the most miserable yet. Fox held firm and declared that "Scottish Socialism" would get the country out of the mess. But then he was thrown out by his own Convention in favour of a name that people thought was over.

Tommy Sheridan (Solidarity leading Revolutionary Coalition) 2026-????
2029: unopposed [SNP, Provisional SNP denied the ballot, Unionists forced to go underground]
A key element of the second rise of Tommy Sheridan was that he was part of a much more cynical streak emerging in Scottish radical left circles. One that believed that the world was against Scotland and that only Scotland could look after Scotland. A much more isolationist, insular viewpoint, but one much more open to autarkic ideas. But above all, the thing that defined Sheridan's government was its unrepentant hostility to criticism.

The press were heavily curtailed and opposition parties were consistently portrayed as suspiciously disloyal to Scotland by the Prime Minister. The main target of his attacks were the broad-tent Progressive Unionists. Being the child of the merger of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties and representing a broad "rejoin" attitude, it represented everything wrong with Scottish politics in his eyes. So to see that they were denied the ballot was unsurprising, especially as Sheridan centralised that to under his government's control.

But what was more surprising was that the two halves of the SNP, the official and provisional elements, were also denied it. The 2029 election returned a bunch of yes-men and yes-women [no yes-enbies though] and his control over Scotland cemented itself. Helping this was that finally the broken Scotland economy could start to rebuild itself. All jobs that could be lost were now lost, and Sheridan could continue Fox's project of "Scottish Socialist" state-controlled autarky. An uniquely-Scottish attempt at a command economy was now in full steam.

Meanwhile, Scotland's diplomatic isolation continued as Boris Johnson was followed by Priti Patel who promised to be every bit as tough - "if not more" - on the Scottish Question. By the time Sheridan drove opposition out of the convention, only the far-left in the UK backed Scotland. Labour was now fully committed to what was then a growing sense of British nationalism, built out of an instinctive reaction to what Scotland was. Everything Scotland was, Britain was the opposite. If Scotland is insular and closed, Britain is open to the world. If Scotland is state-controlled, Britain is for the free market. If Scotland is anti-European, well, let just say that Britain is now in the EEC again, but it says it's not. It's merely the UK-EU Coordinated Trade Market, which is totally not the EEC believe us.

The year is 2031 and the red sun rises above the grim brilliance of Tommy Sheridan's Socialist Republic. He is still in full grip of Scotland, but he is fully expected to hand over to his deputy Pat Lee in the coming year, yet still be greatly influential. Alex Salmond is still banned from returning to Scotland and is seen most of the time in Moscow. Joanna Cherry is still unrepentant about her pushing for unilateral independence, but is otherwise shunned by most people, even middle-class TERFs in the UK. And Nicola Sturgeon haven't been sighted for three years.
 
Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1968-1989)
Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland and Hong Kong (1989-present)

...
1968-1973: Roy Jenkins (Liberal Coalition [Liberal, Liberal-Labour, National Liberal, Liberal Unionist, Progressive, Cymru Fydd] majority)

1973-1974: Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal Coalition [Liberal, Liberal-Labour, National Liberal and Unionist, Progressive, Cymru Fydd] majority)
1974-1977: Sir Roy Jenkins (Liberal Coalition [
Liberal, Liberal-Labour, National Liberal and Unionist, Progressive, Cymru Fydd] majority)
1977-1982: Shirley Williams (Liberal Coalition [
Liberal, Liberal-Labour, National Liberal and Unionist, Progressive, Cymru Fydd] majority)
1982-1984: Dick Taverne (Liberal Coalition [
Liberal-Labour-Progressive, National Liberal and Unionist, Liberal, Cymru Fydd] majority)
1984-1988: Ian Wrigglesworth (Liberal [
Liberal-Progressive, Liberal, National Liberal and Unionist, Ecology] majority)
1988-1993: Michael Dibdin-Heseltine (Liberal [
National Liberal and Unionist, Liberal, Liberal-Progressive, Ecology] majority)
1993-1995: Richard Livsey (Liberal [[
Cymru Fydd], Liberal, National Liberal and Unionist, Liberal-Progressive, Ecology] majority)
1995-1998: John Major (Liberal [
National Liberal and Unionist, Liberal, Liberal-Progressive, Ecology] majority)
1998-2000: Enda Kenny (Liberal [[
Alliance], National Liberal and Unionist, Liberal, Liberal-Progressive, Ecology] majority)
2000-2003: Vince Cable (Liberal [
Liberal-Progressive, National Liberal and Unionist, Liberal, Ecology] majority)
2003-2005: Brian Wilson (Liberal [[
Alliance], Ecology, Liberal-Progressive, Liberal, National Liberal and Unionist] majority)
2005-2007: Cynog Dafis (Liberal [[
Cymru Fydd], Ecology, Liberal, Liberal-Progressive, National Liberal and Unionist] majority)
2007-2013: Emily Lau (Liberal [[
Democratic], Liberal-Progressive, Liberal, National Liberal and Unionist, Ecology] majority)
2013-2015: Andrew Adonis (Liberal [
Liberal, Liberal-Progressive, National Liberal and Unionist, Ecology] majority)
2015-2017: Naomi Long (Liberal [[
Alliance], Liberal, National Liberal and Unionist, Liberal-Progressive, Ecology] majority)
2017-pres.: Dominic Grieve (Liberal [National Liberal and Unionist, Liberal, Liberal-Progressive, Ecology] majority)

...

Her Majesty's (Eternal) Government

Liberal Party

Still enjoying that majority, as with every election since 1968. But good luck trying to get them to agree to anything beyond vague Gladstonian-style bombastic declarations of Britain as a Beacon of Liberty in the World while being incredibly hypocritical about its colonial exploitation. Well, not even that, as there's still some who are trying to wind back on that. What a pity Naomi lost that leadership election.

It enjoys domination by three crucial factors. First is the long-lasting prosperity with only a few recessions. Second is the fact it can reliably portray itself as the 'sane' party in between the 'loony left' and 'rabid right' of Labour and the Conservatives. Third is its incredible ground game. Every constituency party is seemingly in deep with the local community and often holds events, funded by local politicians and all. As a New Englander politician once quipped - "All politics is local". The Liberals take this to heart far more than any other party does.

Societies - Perhaps the most factionalised of the three major parties, that's not a surprise as it essentially emerged from the gaggle of centrist parties defecting from either the Tories as they shifted rightwards or Labour as they collapsed in the 1930s and 1940s. But it does make PMs last rather... short.

National Liberal and Unionist Society
This one is all about not rocking the boat, being pro-business and ensuring that the Tories [Tories!] do not rise back up again in prominence. Britain has always been open for business since 1968, and they will seek to avoid any onerous business regulations, mind you. However, they're hardly libertarian either. You won't see any "cult of the invisible hand" with them, unlike the Tories. The Prime Minister sums it up rather well when he called it "One Nation Liberalism", as weird as that sounds. They're also the ones most sceptical of decentralisation, preferring to maintain a "home rule contract", whatever that means. I think it means every part has their government, but they're all subservient to the Government. Still don't get how that differs beyond tone.

Unaffiliated Liberals
Not technically a faction, but there's a fair lot of Libs who just don't want to be part of a faction. They tend to be promoted fast to PM due to the byzantine squabbles behind doors favouring party unity, but often have their own, ah, idiosyncratic ideas that often make them kicked out soon after. Oh yeah, and they tend to be the more... idealistic sort, the ones who stand for actual values. Values? In my Natural Party of Government?!

Liberal-Progressive Society
Formally it's the Liberal-Labour-Progressive Society, but they dropped the Labour bit in public branding when Labour started to inch back away from being just the party of the Trots and the radical trade unions [unlike the nice government-partnered trade unions, the LPS would have you know]. They're often the ones who vary between genuine social reform [the Progressive half] or pro-union but still socially-centrist [the Lib-Lab half] ever since Dick Taverne merged the two to stave off the left's marginalisation in the Coalition just before he merged the Coalition into The Party. You'll find the ones who declare themselves "socialist" while implementing some hardly-left-wing stuff here.

Ecology Association
Green Fields! Flowers! Protecting the verdant hills! Clean Power! Actual policies outside those? Erm... ask again. Okay maybe I'm a little harsh on them, but they're very much the "eco-centrist" aspect of the Liberals, prioritising those above all else, although those days when even the NLU accepts green energy and the Tories [Tories!] talk of climate change somewhat, it does beg the question, what do they stand for?

Alliance Party of Ireland
Technically not a society, but since the 1970s has essentially been just the Irish Liberal Party, much to some of their MPs' chagrin [remember when Anna Lo declared she wanted Irish independence and the Alliance all but fell over themselves to say she didn't represent all of them? That was a wild time]. Had a few PMs here and there, mostly because Ireland is still the second-biggest Home Nation in the UK and often elects some Liberals.

Cymru Fydd (translates as "The Wales To Come", apparently)
Also technically a party, not a society. Those days just content to stay to the Senedd and manage their long party dominance there, their MPs to Westminster tend to be mainly functionaries. Who remembers Kim Howells those days? But once or twice the party ends up selecting a Welshman, as in the cases of Livsey and Dafis because of this same tendency as they more or less stay out of the eternal, never-ending, factional infighting.

Hong Kong Democratic Party
The Liberal affiliate in Hong Kong, they tend to be one of the more left-wing sort of the Liberals since Labour shat its bed with most HKers once it embraced a form of anti-imperialism at a moment when anti-"mainlander" sentiment was high in Hong Kong. The main opposition tends to be the Tories who run as the "Unionist Party" here and play up social conservatism. The last PM who lasted for a while before Grieve was from here.

Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition(s)
Conservative Party

Once, once, they were the dominant party after the socialists fell apart. Then it all went wrong. They had a beautiful society of grey skies, stifling conformity, begrudging social reform every once in a while, and a world where Britain was Top. Then it fell apart. So quickly... Those days they tend to be the ones criticising the Liberals' more socially reforming tendency and is broadly seen as the more socially conservative party in Britain.

Factions - While not as factionalised as the Liberals [hard to be], there do exist some distinct factions in the Tories that sometimes come out to play...

Market Research Group
The more 'economically liberal' sort, they bizarrely try to claim the legacy of Gladstone while being Tories, leading to the unholy match-up of Gladstonian Tories and Disraelite Liberals. Is now firmly in charge and are trying to de-emphasise the more "social war" element, but well... yeah. The main obstacle they face is that they promise economic freedom, but when the good times keep rolling on with the Liberals, business tends shy to any change.

Cornerstone Group
The more socially conservative sort, they proudly declare for 'Faith, Family and Flag', being the chief lot who call for a roll-back of many of the liberalising reforms. But it does have to be admitted, even they have shifted. They've started interpreting 'faith' quite a bit more widely for one in a bid to win over more socially conservative immigrant voters. Surprisingly enough, this has started to get some results in a few seats.

Monday Club
Perhaps the most controversial of the factions inside the Tories, this one is a more right-wing populist one with a deep history of white supremacism and hostility to immigration. It sees the Cornerstone Group as too 'soft' on immigration and many of its members openly call for "sending them back". Quite a few of its MPs have been thrown out of Parliament for those beliefs being espoused, only to be re-elected much to the Liberals' dismay.

Labour Party
Trying in vain to moderate or at least modernise, the calls of the firmer hard-left, which is popular with the more political youth [most young people just prefer to drop out of active politics and then regularly vote Liberal], hinder such reinvention and remind people that Labour is the party of the Red Twenties [which has successfully been span as much more disastrous and nightmarish than it actually was by both Tories and Liberals].

Societies - It has a fair few.

Fabian Society
The "moderates" in Labour, it is the part that believes Labour needs to reinvent itself and sell itself as a party of the independent trade unions and of the wider working-class. Constructive socialism is the slogan it often throws around a lot. Very dominated by the working-class, it is often contemptuous of the other parts of Labour, which it sees as more "playing with politics". They fire back and say that the Fabians have no values.

Anti-Imperialist League
The sort that made Labour unpopular in Hong Kong, it is the one that calls for Labour to stand up against British imperialism and call for the disbanding of the Union as well, endorsing stuff like Irish independence. Which considering that generations have grown up thinking Britain is this sort of pleasant beacon of freedom and hope, isn't a popular message. But they keep on at it, declaring that Labour have to be the "conscience of the nation".

Militant Momentum
The explicitly Marxist aspect of the party, it calls for turning Labour away from what they describe as "failed" policies and towards a more Marxist perspective. Has worked quite well at capturing quite a few young radicals with its radical declarations of a workers' state and all. Although I hear MI5 is keeping tabs on them? Wouldn't be surprised honestly. They're even republican. Is that even allowed.

Alliance for Green Socialism
Basically it's just the Ecology lot, but think Ecology is too Liberal for them. Mostly just advocating green politics with a socialist twist those days.

Other Parties

Irish Parliamentary Party
- Irish regionalism, really just a gombeen party that Liberals sometimes rely on when they find votes thin on the ground.
Co-operative Party - Doesn't stand in elections, but endorses either Liberal or Labour candidates. I hear there was one Tory Co-op candidate even.
Scottish Party - Wants Scottish independence. Won't get it. Not because of any Westminster stuff, but because they only have one MP.
Codi Cymru! - The main opposition to Cymru Fydd in Wales. Most Welsh people don't vote for them because they're kind of the party of the Problems.
 
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520px-Flag_of_the_United_Arab_Emirates.svg.png

FACT SHEET - UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Country NameUnited Arab Emirates,
Trucial States (archaic, proscribed)
DemonymEmirati
Arab, Trucial (proscribed)
Constituent CountriesAbu Dhabi, Ajman, Bahrain, Dhofar, Dubai, Fujairah,
Hadhramut, Kalba, Oman, Qatar, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah,
Svatantrata, Umm Al Quwain.
Official LanguagesStandard Arabic (federal)
English, Hadhramutic, Hindavi (recognised minority languages)
GovernmentFederal elective constitutional monarchy
Subnational GovernmentHereditary semi-constitutional monarchy (most)
Presidential republic (Svatantrata)
PresidentTheyazin bin Haitham, Sultan of Oman and Dhofar
Formed25 July 1963 (Trucial Agreement)
ReligionIslam (official) - Sunni, Shia and Ibadi presence
Mormon presence (Dhofar)
CurrencyEmirati rupee
Universal Credit (legal alternative)
International AlignmentCommonwealth of Nations
Travel WarningSocialist uprising in the west of the Hadhramut. Avoid.
Crisis LevelSevere (Hadhramutic Uprising)
Official Government Websitedigi.safe//government.uae

Decided to do something different since I couldn't think of any interesting ways to take the write-up. Expect more of this in the future.
 
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