Saranzio

I'd rather they forget my birthday so I can guilt them into giving me more things as apologies for forgetting my birthday.

Searching for a parking spot is one of the most agonizing experiences there is.

Overview
Kingdom of Saranzio
Regno di Saranzio (Vinato)
Regnu di Saranzziu (Lavinu)
Ònei sho Saranzio (Aztintzen)
Motto
"Progress is the greatest triumph of man"
Anthem
"The Neon Stars"
Capital
Saranzio
Official languages
Common - Vinato - Lavinu - Aztintzen
National language
Vinato
Ethnic groups
[WIP]
Religion
[WIP]
Demonym
Saranzese
Government
Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Head of State
Patrizio II di Montalti
Head of Government
Viceroy Abathun Mengistu
Legislature
Parliament
Area
6,654 km²
Population
8,502,301
Density
1,277.7/km²
 
The Kingdom of Saranzio (Vinato: Regno di Saranzio; Lavinu: Regnu di Saranzziu; Astintzen: Ònei sho Saranzio), is a small country located on the east coast of central Nur, with an area of 6,654 km². 

[WIP]
 
 

The Infinite Empire of Aukera
Lòkhà Nha sho Auken Rà 

Motto: Dhòr zekòl sho khòz, thul ira vohan
(I am the vigil of stars, the herald of truth)
 
A Stylised Map of Aukera

Culture
Government
History
Other
 
 

The Land of the Gods - Zòn ekh Jaikoà - An Early History

Long ago, before the world had a name, there was shaped a great archipelago to the North of Nur. It was a beautiful place, with lush forests, sweeping plains, and towering mountains. The land was bountiful, and held all that might be needed in abundance. Yet, in these ancient epochs, man had not yet sat foot on such pristine soil, and so it was that it came to be the exclusive domain of the divine.
Wise readers know these islands, in modern times, to be the "Pala sho Aken Rà" - the lands of the Orthodoxy of Sacred Gold. So named for the being who would become principle among countless deities, Aukera's more formative state is still represented in the local term for the main island; "Zòn ekh Jainkoà." The land of unnumbered Gods.
In the ages before the coming of man, divinities in their thousands resided in the sacred archipelago. Some held dominion over territories as vast as mountains, others as small and serene as a forest glade. Many of the thousands of smaller islands has their own resident divine. In this era, gods of wind raced over the golden fields, and deities of water held court beneath the springs. 
In earlier years, the unnumbered Gods fought violently against one another,  shaping the land with the ferocity of their bouts. Great craters and gouges in the landscape are, to this day, attributed to those first battles, when constraint had not yet been forced upon them. In time, as the land's rulers reached the limits of their strength, a natural peace began to settle. Bereft of human worship, the fledgling Gods could not extend themselves beyond their means, and so settled into their carved domains and allowed the land to heal.

When man first set his foot upon the Zòn ekh Jaikoà, he did so tentatively. Surviving archaeological evidence suggests that the islands were inhabited more than twenty thousand years hence, in the form of scattered tools and signs of cave habitation. These early migrants, who are believed to have originated from the Southern continent and arrived by sea, subsisted as hunter-gatherers within the domains of whatever God would abide their presence.
An abundance of recovered artifacts shows that early humanity found patronage beneath a forest divinity of Nemikh, whose image was later proscribed. Depictions of Gìorezh, a deity resident within the canton of Oshk Zhei, are also apparent. As man spread and grew toward sedentism, they began to draw the attention of countless others.
While natural limitations had drawn the borders of the archipelago's Godly domains, its residents had never been happy to settle. Ambition, that most valued tenet of Azten theology, inhabits every immortal being in abundance. Humanity, to this end, became the new battleground through which the most eager Gods sought control. 
Humanity's growing presence on the isles is marked by various depictions of regional deities. In Kastal, a cave mural shows a tremendous being of starlight teaching its disciples the means of creating tools. Carvings in the mountains of Fizhisk uniformly portray a serpentine divinity swallowing stormclouds.  In the highlands of Aria, several sites are marked by a depiction of the sun with the great horns of a stag.

In due time, all of the land came to be thus — A hundred kingdoms, each presided over by the most ambitious of the divines. The scriptures teach that this state persisted for many years, in peace and war, with rise and fall. The influence of the Gods waxed and waned, though the conflict in its whole grew to a such fever pitch that it was clear such conditions were bleeding the land dry.
Toward the end of this chaotic epoch, from which little memory remains, there came to be a kingdom built around a mighty river. Along the waters of the Azten, at the heart of what would become the Aken Rà, grew the city of Ior Aria. The patron deity of this kingdom was a golden stag, from whose horns flowed purest water, and who shone with the light of the morning sky. He had long sat atop the mountains, by the spring from which His river flowed, and gazed peacefully into the sun.
Unlike many divinities of power, He had permitted the growth of His city unconditionally. Straddling the connection between the North and South of the island, Ior Aria flourished without the intervention of a god. For this, however, He was revered with equal fervour to even the most present deities. When at last He descended from the mountain, His people received Him with fervour.
For long had the God of Ior Aria stared into the sun. Atop the peaks, He had achieved communion with the Light, from which springs life and all that is good. When He descended, His eyes had been stained in gold, and His insight deepened beyond even the eldest of His kind. He preached freedom from conflict and from woe, and promised man both unending peace immortality.


At the beginning of all things, spoke the Light to the void, 'unfold'!
And lo, did the Unending Eye open, and all darkness burned away.
All that endures within this Light is as Gold.
That is Immortal, cast in amber radiance.
For memory is the purest form of being.
And I shall know all that is Good for all of time.

Overview
Kingdom of Saranzio
Regno di Saranzio (Vinato)
Regnu di Saranzziu (Lavinu)
Ònei sho Saranzio (Aztintzen)
Motto
"Progress is the greatest triumph of man"
Anthem
"The Neon Stars"
Capital
Saranzio
Official languages
Common - Vinato - Lavinu - Aztintzen
National language
Vinato
Ethnic groups
[WIP]
Religion
[WIP]
Demonym
Saranzese
Government
Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Head of State
Patrizio II di Montalti
Head of Government
Viceroy Abathun Mengistu
Legislature
Parliament
Area
6,654 km²
Population
8,502,301
Density
1,277.7/km²
 
The Kingdom of Saranzio (Vinato: Regno di Saranzio; Lavinu: Regnu di Saranzziu; Astintzen: Ònei sho Saranzio), is a small country located on the east coast of central Nur, with an area of 6,654 km². 

[WIP]
 
 

Overview
Kingdom of Saranzio
Regno di Saranzio (Vinato)
Regnu di Saranzziu (Lavinu)
Ònei sho Saranzio (Aztintzen)
Motto
"Progress is the greatest triumph of man"
Anthem
"The Neon Stars"
Capital
Saranzio
Official languages
Common - Vinato - Lavinu - Aztintzen
National language
Vinato
Ethnic groups
[WIP]
Religion
[WIP]
Demonym
Saranzese
Government
Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Head of State
Patrizio II di Montalti
Head of Government
Viceroy Abathun Mengistu
Legislature
Parliament
Area
6,654 km²
Population
8,502,301
Density
1,277.7/km²
 
The Kingdom of Saranzio (Vinato: Regno di Saranzio; Lavinu: Regnu di Saranzziu; Astintzen: Ònei sho Saranzio), is a small country located on the east coast of central Nur, with an area of 6,654 km². 

[WIP]
 
 

Overview
Kingdom of Saranzio
Regno di Saranzio (Vinato)
Regnu di Saranzziu (Lavinu)
Ònei sho Saranzio (Aztintzen)
Motto
"Progress is the greatest triumph of man"
Anthem
"The Neon Stars"
Capital
Saranzio
Official languages
Common - Vinato - Lavinu - Aztintzen
National language
Vinato
Ethnic groups
[WIP]
Religion
[WIP]
Demonym
Saranzese
Government
Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Head of State
Patrizio II di Montalti
Head of Government
Viceroy Abathun Mengistu
Legislature
Parliament
Area
6,654 km²
Population
8,502,301
Density
1,277.7/km²
 
The Kingdom of Saranzio (Vinato: Regno di Saranzio; Lavinu: Regnu di Saranzziu; Astintzen: Ònei sho Saranzio), is a small country located on the east coast of central Nur, with an area of 6,654 km². 

[WIP]
 
 

The Kingdom of Saranzio

 
Overview - [WIP]
 

I know 3 months isn't 104 days but that amount of summer vacation always had school come around to end it much too fast. I think I'd like a consistent break every month to keep me from going insane all year instead of just a 4th of it.

I do also agree a week off each month is a more effective cooldown from things.

I know 3 months isn't 104 days but that amount of summer vacation always had school come around to end it much too fast. I think I'd like a consistent break every month to keep me from going insane all year instead of just a 4th of it.

I have a limited regard for the past save a few specific subsets of it and would rather see where the indomitable spirit of mankind takes us in the future. Although if I were born in the future my thoughts would probably be the same. 

Space so Humanity can spread it's eggs to more baskets (some might call this bad for the universe as a whole, but I'm ever hopeful for humanity...even if the last decade has more than whittled away at my faith in humanity)

I'm generally a fan of space discoveries, though there's so much in our Earth yet to be discovered in the deep sea that I'm also very interested in that. So both!

Do you regard the exploration of the deep sea or outer space with more wonder/excitement/interest (including the development of technologies that better facilitate further space/sea exploration and habitation)

Space for sure! The stars are so pretty
 
I feel like the pressure of the sea makes it difficult to learn about the ocean, however so does the vastness of space

I'd love to live in whatever world Don Quixote (internally) lives in.
Living in Project Moon's setting would be less than preferable.
Book it is.

Author's Note
Few times in the history of the world has a single man been responsible for the founding of an entire nation. Many will claim their nation's descent from a great and glorious founder, of course, but few will put aside patriotic mythology for historical fact. The careful study of history has shown that many legendary founders are just that—legends. This has made others cynical about their traditional heroes. They remove all human agency from the equation of human civilization and insist instead that the national identity subsists in nothing more in a complex web of social interactions, intricately (but not intentionally) woven by the forces foretold in political science, economics, sociology, group psychology and the other social sciences. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Great men can be found in history, even if they often ride tidal waves of human emotion. Historical fact shows that a few men have been able to direct these titanic forces so many times greater than themselves towards their own ends—and that is why they are justly remembered as great men.

The true story of a founding father can be found in an unlikely place less than a century before our own time. Ostronia, the second-poorest country in Nur, the third-poorest in the world, was founded not by its notorious Kalmachian colonial overlords, but by the man who led its independence as one nation from them. That man's name was Adaku, and in this biography I will explore his extraordinary life as one of history's few great men.
Table of Contents
Author's Note
Chapter I: The Schoolboy
Chapter II: The Magistrate
Chapter III: The Activist
Chapter IV: The President

I rarely wish to take back what I say so being able to hear any conversation would be a preferred ability that I absolutely should not have.

I rarely wish to take back what I say so being able to hear any conversation would be a preferred ability that I absolutely should not have.

Government and politics
Government
The 1355 Treaty of Gida which granted Ostronia its independence from the United Nations of Kalmach also formally recognized the Ostronian National Assembly, then only an unofficial gathering of representatives from the colony's various provinces, as the supreme legislative body of Ostronia. The president of the National Assembly, Karl Adaku, was also recognized by the treaty as the new nation's chief executive. Although several drafts for a more permanent constitution were introduced in the assembly in the years after independence, fierce debate between the various proposals divided their support. The new president also appreciated the flexibility the lack of a formal constitution provided him, and thus opposed any proposed constitution. As Adaku's influence and popularity grew over the course of his five successive presidential terms, discussion around a formal constitution was mostly dropped except among the shrinking opposition.
The lack of constitutional limits placed upon the chief executive and assembly, however, exacerbated the ethnic tensions and civil strife leading up to the Ostronian civil war (1390-1392). The government banned all unauthorized media, confiscating printing presses and radio equipment and imprisoning journalists critical of its heavy-handed response to the crisis. Opposing political parties were also banned and their members removed from the National Assembly. These authoritarian measures inflamed the subsequent conflict.
At the end of the civil war, the Ostronian government met with rebel forces under international observation in the Ostronian Peace and Reconciliation Committee, which drafted the country's first constitution as part of the negotiations. This proposed constitution was ratified in 1392 by a nationwide popular referendum. The constitution enshrined the inviolable rights of all citizens and devolved the central government into a more federal system. Under the new constitution, the executive and legislative branches are separated and balanced against each other, and Ostronia's sixteen states are empowered with state legislatures that may draft new laws so long as they do not contravene existing federal law. The judiciary, especially the High Court of Ostronia, has also been given the power to strike down state or federal laws which violate the rights of Ostronia's citizens.
Anton Adebayo
Ostronian Minister for Trade
Henrik Dauda
Ostronian Minister for Foreign Affairs
Administrative divisions
Foreign relations
Human right violations
Security issues
Political parties

History
Prehistory
The partial remains of a fossilized human skeleton named Adda (a Fola name meaning "older sister") were discovered in 1311 by Kalmachian archaeologist Hans Jorgen Hessen in Folastat in southwestern Ostronia and initially dated as anywhere from 8,500 to 9,500 years old. However subsequent radiometric dating in the 1370s determined Adda to be 11,600 to 12,100 years old, indicating humans have inhabited present-day Ostronia for at least twelve thousand years.
The earliest human cultures in Ostronia were lithic: stone tools have been found across much of western Ostronia where the drier climate and soils have better preserved prehistoric artifacts. Complex societies evolved along the ancient shores of Lake Gotel, which was much larger due to higher rainfalls in the prehistoric era. Basic flaked cores were replaced by more sophisticated bifaces and later, as stone knapping became more precise, smaller and smaller points for spearheads, arrowheads and even fishhooks. Such tools were used in the construction of the Misau canoe, a dugout canoe around 8,500 years old discovered near the village of Misau, one of the oldest boats in the world and probably used to fish on the Dufuna River nearby. More recent stone tools have also been uncovered in eastern Ostronia.
While initially it was believed that metalworking was not present in Ostronia before iron-working appeared in the 1000s BF, more recent scholarship in the 1380s discovered evidence of basic copper working in modern Ausaland at least a thousand years earlier around 2200 BF. The techniques used were clearly indigenous and not imported: local sources of native copper were used rather than ores of copper, mostly to produce jewelry and other small items. Iron-working, also indigenous to the area, quickly supplanted any copper-working and promoted long-distance trade along the region's major rivers from sources of iron ore in the interior to the growing population centers in the wetter and more fertile central and coastal areas. These population centers would form the bases of power for the earliest recorded kingdoms in Ostronia's history.
Early kingdoms
[WIP]
[Ausa] Empire
[WIP]
Kingdom of [Ebo]
[WIP]
Trade with Kalmach
[WIP]
Crown colony (1228 - 1316)
[WIP]
Imperial dominion (1316 - 1355)
[WIP]
Independence and the Adaku era (1355 - 1376)
[WIP]
Post-Adaku era (1376 - 1390)
[WIP]
Civil war (1390 - 1392)
[WIP]
Modern era (1392 - present)
[WIP]

Saranzese Struggle to Remember Foreign Nations
With the 4th Rugby World Cup in full swing we decided to run a poll asking if citizens knew where each of the participating countries was. To our shock, only half answered yes on more than 60% of the questions.
To test this more we took to the streets where we asked random passers by where a given country was on a map of Esferos. "This is Andolia right?" says one woman pointing to Polaris after being asked to identify the aforementioned continent. "I'm pretty sure this is Dalimbar?" another man says gesturing towards the whole of Polaris. Most of the people we asked reported surprise after being corrected, and said they had only really ever seen labeled maps of Nur. 
After the first to matches of the world cup, the number of internet searches for questions like "Where is Varanius?", "Is Giovanniland good at rugby", "Why is Varanius so bad at sports?" and many searches asking if certain countries spoke a Saranzese languages skyrocketed. 
As Saranzio furthers its participation in international sports the general knowledge our nation is sure to increase, but it doesn't seem that will be anytime soon.
 

Saranzese Struggle to Remember Foreign Nations
With the 4th Rugby World Cup in full swing we decided to run a poll asking if citizens knew where each of the participating countries was. To our shock, only half answered yes on more than 60% of the questions.
To test this more we took to the streets where we asked random passers by where a given country was on a map of Esferos. "This is Andolia right?" says one woman pointing to Polaris after being asked to identify the aforementioned continent. "I'm pretty sure this is Dalimbar?" another man says gesturing towards the whole of Polaris. Most of the people we asked reported surprise after being corrected, and said they had only really ever seen labeled maps of Nur. 
After the first to matches of the world cup, the number of internet searches for questions like "Where is Varanius?", "Is Giovanniland good at rugby", "Why is Varanius so bad at sports?" and many searches asking if certain countries spoke a Saranzese languages skyrocketed. 
As Saranzio furthers its participation in international sports the general knowledge our nation is sure to increase, but it doesn't seem that will be anytime soon.