Tasnica Republic (Neo)

The Tasnica Republic, as of 140 WR as it appeared in Kupopolis Neo.

Land

The Tasnicans control their heartland of the Quad, the Upperland forest, areas of the Ice Country, and several space colonies in mana.

Population

The population of the Tasnica Republic is about 300 million people. Humans are the majority; nekos, moogles, RT-series robots, Todo walruses, and dwarves form the largest minorities.

Religion

Rainericism is the largest religion, as Rainere is the patron Goddess of Tasnica. Rainere represents magic and trade and the body of her religion has come to include many archetypical Tasnican values (freedom, reputation). The Raineric Church itself is run like a business in many ways, but all proceeds go to charity.

Elemental worship forms the second largest religion. Elementalists worship spirits believed to embody the forces of nature.

Economy

The webwide economic depression has put Tasnica in a strange position. Tasnica has always been on of the wealthiest nations in the Web, so it has weathered the plight better than most. Almost uniquely in the Web, Tasnica does not have to worry about having enough food or energy. The flip side, however, is that Tasnica’s political power has always been inextricably tied with its mercantile power, and the depression has tended to reduce its importance in the Web’s economy.

Tasnica is still home to most of the Web’s largest corporations. Kuat Consortium is far and away the Web’s largest. Some economists believe that Kuat is so massive as to be inefficent and the inability of its CEO, Damien Walker Gavalian, to run it effectively is a large factor in the Web’s economic woes.

Tasnica still conducts interdimensional trade with anyone willing and able to do so, although the volume of trade has substantially decreased in the past two decades.

Law

In the heydey of Tasnican Conservatism (under Prime Minister Rhodes Palmerston), ownership of all but military weapons was unrestricted and only the most blatant offences (use of force or threat of force against other citizens) was illegal. The Populist movement has tightened Tasnican laws substantially, but it is impossible to change the fundamental spirit of things: Tasnica’s government is still among the Web’s most libertarian.

Business law and taxes have always been favorable in Tasnica, and this will probably never change.

Tasnican Law is almost always written with the interests of the individual in mind, rather than the interests of the state.

Government

(For a more thorough treatment of Tasnican Government, see Tasnica)

Tasnica is a Republic, and so its leaders are elected. The center of domestic power lies in the 156 members of the Senate. The center of foreign policy power is the Prime Minister. Some of these roles have become blurred (the Prime Minister gained veto power in 85 WR, for example, but could be overridden by two-thirds of the Senate; the Senate, for their part, formed a Military Affairs Committee, infringing on the traditional role of Prime Minister as Commander-in-Chief of the military).

The Tasnican Prime Minister is still considered to be one of the weakest executives in the Web relative to his own government. Most Prime Ministers rely not on their official power but influence that comes from media exposure and ‘chocobo trading’ tactics.

By around 100 WR, Tasnica ceased to use states as electoral districts for Senators and assigned them independently of gubernatorial administrative regions. The Senatorial districts, as a result, often have weaker identities. Each planetary colony has an elected governor and the Ice Country and the Upperlands each have a governor. The Quad Megaplex has a unique method; it has an Administration Board, with one member from each of the quarters plus a chairman.

The political parties are still divided into the Conservatives and the Populists. The two have stolen so many programs and ideas from each other over the last hundred years it is almost impossible to tell their core ideologies apart any more.

Internal Politics

The Conservatives and the Populists hate each other’s guts. They have effectively deadlocked the Senate. The Populists believe the government should provide social services to provide relief to the citizenry; the Conservatives charge that the tax increases required for such services would drive Tasnica (if not the entire Web) deeper into depression.

No election thus far has mandated one party’s side or the other. Although a Writ of Accountability was considered, it bogged down as both sides argued how to apply the ancient practice to the Megaplex’s new government system.

Foreign Politics

Tasnica still has a fair amount of respect in the realm of Foreign Politics. They are, however, a fallen empire, and most people know that Tasnica’s ceremony is greater than its reality. Some countries are resentful of Tasnica’s age of imperialism; others are envious.

Tasnica maintins cordial relations with almost all of the Web’s countries...as a trading nation in a time of economic crisis, they cannot afford to alienate any customers. This has lead to an affable, passive foreign policy that has come under heavy criticism from those seeking to restore ‘the Glory Days of the Republic’.

Military

The Tasnican military is better known for its fearsome looking design than its combat effectiveness. Even the Specials, once the finest forice in the Republic Aerospace Fleets, has become more elitist than elite.

Republic Marine Corps

The Republic Marine Corps (or RMC) constitute the ground forces. The heart of the RMC is still battlesuited soldiers deploying from dropships, but they have a greater degree of more conventional forces (tanks, mecha, motorized infantry) than were employed at the height of Tasnican military power (around 40-42 WR). The battlesuited soldiers consider only themselves Marines and reserve the term trooper for all others.

Republic Aerospace Fleets

The Republic Aerospace Fleets (RAF) are the space forces of the Republic. The names of the various divisions are often more impressive than the fleets themselves; the First Main Battle Fleet, Second Main Battle Fleet, and Third Main Battle Fleet have only one large capital ship each. The Special Combat Fleet (or ‘Specials’) ostensibly maintains higher levels of training and equipment than the rest of the fleet, but in reality they only maintain a higher level of prestige and pageantry.

Corporate Mercenaries

The corporations still maintain their own military forces. Kuat has far and away the largest. Kuat’s Arms Experts are still the corps security guards, sales reps, and shadow ops men all in one. Kuat’s elite force is the Black Omega. Black Omega soldiers are the best money can buy, and are often tricked out with cyberware (still relatively rare in the bulk of the Web). Black Omega is supported by its training cadre, Black Alpha.

People

Damien Walker Gavalian

Damien is the CEO of Kuat Consortium, the largest Tasnican corporation. He inherited Kuat from his father, Damien Aranason Gavalian. By 140 WR, Kuat is immensely larger than it is in Proper, having purchased rival AAAs Forge Mechanicals, Hoplite Biotech and Tuna Newsmedia. Damien Walker (“Dubya”) does not have the business savvy of his father and is having problems running the behemoth that is Kuat. Kuat has become too comfortable in its dominance and has become too massive and bureacratic to respond to market changes. This is one of the factors of the depression. Kuat still maintains its position as the leading supplier of weapons and aerospace technology.

Dubya is at least as ruthless and egotistical as his father. Although some of his personal projects hurt Kuat’s bottom line, no one dares object to him. With 25 percent of the stock, he is Kuat’s second-largest shareholder.

Leisha Kress Gavalian

Leisha is the daughter of Damien Arnason and the sister of Dubya. She is about a hundred years old, but her father could afford to have her genetically engineered for long life so she still looks thirtyish. With 26 percent of Kuat stock, she is the largest shareholder (and the richest person in the Web). However, the conditions of Damien Senior’s will stipulate that Dubya votes Leisha’s stock.

Lofwyr

The CEO of Saeder-Krupp is still around in 140. S-K is the second largest AAA after Kuat, but that isn't saying much. He’s a Blue Dragon, and one of the few characters with enough innate longevity to appear in both Neo and Proper. Although Lofwyr had to concede Damien Arnason a grudging respect, he feels no such respect for Dubya and actively works against Kuat.

Helmut Vekored

Tasnican Prime Minister at the start of Neo. His career has been long but not particularly distinguished. Still, he enjoys a certain position of respect in the Web community. He is currently serving his third five-year term as Prime Minister.

Salomo von Konigs

Proconsul of the Tasnican Senate, and later Prime Minister. He grew up on stories of the days when Tasnica was glorious empire and longs for it to be so again. Salomo engineered Tasnica's entry into the Triad with Crystal and Trianglon.

Hector Midge

Admiral-Supreme of the Republic Aerospace Fleets (RAF). He was a graduate of the last class of the SRAN Academy. The RAF is better known for its flashy, impressive-looking ship designs than its fighting ability. Hector worked his way up through the Special Combat Fleet (‘Specials’). Originally formed by Rycar Mountbatten as a veteran fleet with advanced technology to combat piracy, the Specials have now become more elitist than elite. Hector took a few advanced strategic classes under the direction of Celiose Cole himself. He is considered one of the finest commanders in the Web today, but he has not fought in any engagement other than pirate skirmishes.

Avarael Cole

Is reputed to be as good a soldier as his grandfather, Celiose Cole. Certainly he’s inhereted his grandfather’s incredible sense of duty. His only living relative is his grandmother, but Avarael is far too absorbed in his work at Kuat to care. He is in charge of the elite Black Omega Combat team, who have the best of everything money can buy, including cyberware. All their equipment is personalized, and they're as lethal in person as in their mecha. They are supported by their training cadre, Black Alpha, and the Kuat Arms Experts.

Fara Somers

The Mana Knight, who due to some weird Mana Knight mojo is able to appear in both Proper and Neo. Fara is rather tired of this life; all her friends are long gone. She remains only to find and train the next Mana Knight, adn then she will be blessed with the gift of eternal sleep.

Miles Cross

The next Mana Knight. Lucky him.

Cities

The Quad Megaplex

Once, this area was a wonderful, beautiful place, with hills and trees, birds, and pine coves all around....now, it's the Megaplex.

Population: 200 million

The cities of Tasnicaport, Egmont, Centwerp, and Olivawk have grown so large that they form one massive cityscape, called the Quad Megaplex. The old cities are now referred to as ‘quarters’ (‘Tasnicaport Quarter’, ‘Egmont Quarter’, etc.) The Megaplex houses about two-thirds of Tasnica’s population of 300 million people. The very rich have their own penthouses, or even private space stations. The upper classes have their own protected, safe neighborhoods. The middle class lives sequestered in massive arcologies that each house hundreds of thousands of people, including undersea habitats. And the poor live in the urban Blight that consumes the bulk of the city. Police only go into the Blight in APCs with helicopter backup. The police tend only to try to ‘contain’ the Blight, and rarely patrol it. A new city square was built for the Quad Metroplex. Palmerston Square has a statue of Rhodes Palmerston, arms spread slightly, with planets orbiting him.

Notable sites in each Quarter include the base of the Void Bridge in Olivawk Quarter, the Web Stock Exchange in the Centwerp Quarter, the Prime Ministry and Senate in the Tasnicaport Quarter, and Kuat Interdimensional Headquarters in Egmont Quarter.

Heinlein (Mana IV Colony)

There was a time when we thought we could play God on this planet. But before we finished, we were no longer godlike.

Population: 32 million (planetwide)

The terraformation of the fourth planet of the Mana system was to be the next grandiose project undertaken by the Tasnica Republic at the height of its power, exceeding even the spectacle of the orbital tower called the Void Bridge. The Mana IV colony had originally been founded by the Guardians and Medinans (who called it Sanctuary), but when the Tasnicans gained control of it they rechristened it Heinlein and boadly proclaimed that in twenty years it would have an earthlike environment.

Unfortunately, halfway through, they pulled out of the project, leaving the job half-finished. The temperature is temperate, even tropical, but this was attained by introducing vast quantities of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere. As a result, a human needs a breather (but little else) to safely walk on the surface of Heinlein. Because the atmosphere is saturated with carbon dioxide, plants introduced to the planet have run amok and the entire world is a giant jungle.

Most postulate that complete terraforming would require the creation of oceans to facilitate the introduction of algae, which are more efficent at converting carbon dioxide to breathable air than land-based plants, but in the current depression this is one of the last things the government wants to worry about.

Heinlein has been in its current state for several decades, and when the Tasnicans abandoned the goal of total terraformation they realized it was much cheaper to build colonies on Heinlein than it was other planets because all that was needed was an enclosed tent, spare oxygen, and CO2 scrubbers. Heinlein hence became one of the largest colony worlds in the entire Web, with fourteen different cities of at least a million people each. Its rampant plantlife has led it to become a breadbasket, at least to those that can afford traditionally grown food instead of yeast or soy substitutes.

There are bizarre rumors about exotic flora and fauna on the jungle planet, but no one has yet verified this.

Contac

"Welcome to space.” -Rycar Mountbatten, first Admiral Supreme of the Republic Aerospace Fleets

Population: 500,000

One of the greatest projects of the Grand Old Republic was the Void Bridge, a massive tower reaching into orbit from its base in Olivawk. At the top of the tower a massive space station was built. This station, Contac, was an entire city in space. Contac is the site of RAF headquarters, and still the premier spaceport for the dimension, and its efficent ground access via the Void Bridge makes it one of the busiest ports in the entire Web. Contac has grown a massive assemblage of habitats, industrial bays and hydroponics farms from its central hub.

Living on Contac is expensive, and generally only the upper classes can afford it. As a self-sustaining, clean, controlled environment, Contac in many ways served as a prototype for the arcologies built later.