A change in pace - Documentation and effects after “Liberation Day”

[Flauschi918]

April to October 1422

A change in pace

Beginning of change

As the masses are shouting, the news are writing and things are doing their things... something is brewing in the government. Something, that should change the history of this country for the seemingly better....atleast for the people that is. For quite a while now, citizens of Fauthur have been getting increasingly more public with their opinion about the government, aswell as enciting what seems to be small scale protests across the whole nation. In a recent turn of events, there have been mass gatherings of around 2 to 3 thousand people in front of the West West Fauthur Halls in the capital city of West Fauthur which demanded a change to policies and overall government. Now, one could say that these protesters can be disregarded and just be thrown into jail or whatever, but not with this particular crowd. In this crowd were important people of media such as but not limited to; Streamers, vloggers, National Prize winners etc. There were also some high ranking government officials such as politicians. So, "removing" this protest wouldve been a huge scandal to the current government, which certainly won't help the situation relax more. This particular protest caught the interest of other government officials and more people and the crowd increased and the pressure was at high. They just were not staisfied with the current government and they were certainly being oppessed for now quite some time in their ordinary everyday lives. The people had enough of these antics and want a total change of government, even if they have to do it forcefully.

 

The Downfall

The Police couldn't keep the protesters in for long as before reinforcements could arrive, the protest evolved into a riot against the government, getting violent. Flares are being thrown, houses in the streets vandalised, shops looted..all in the name to get rid of the current State. Some rioters, as the protestors will be now reffered to, even managed to get past security and get before the doors of the office of Sir Avery Buntknecht, acting leader and "dictator" as the masses were shouting. They were removed quickly from the building.  Seeing as he was being forced to do something and the riot not stopping on its own, Buntknecht ordered the local Militia to step in and end the riot. This was done rather quickly as the rioters were, rightly so, scared of being shot or even killed, although there was still some resistance and even losses for both sides. This action therefore didn't go unnoticed and was used as a caption for further protests and riots across the country. "People Murderer" ,"Psychotic Dictator" the people were calling the Leader now. Even in the following meetings and assemblies in the West West Fauhtur Halls the politicians were increasing their pressure towards Buntknecht. With no other options left, he was forced to "Abdicate" the Leader position temporarily to avert bigger disasters. Buntknecht was promptly replaced with a secret advocate of the movement which was talked about previously and now reform after reform was pushed to relief the citizens and make the country overall less restrictive. The provisional new government also decided to plan out how the new government should be set up and what it shall do and purpose, to satisfy the needs of the population as much as possible.

 

The New Government

While the overall economy was at a severe risk due to these drastic changes, it still hasn't shown any signs of massive recession, although the new government could influence that quite hevaily with every decision they make. Now, for the government. After all these days and even more, the government now has a new government and a new ideology adding to that. Now, there are several political parties ranging from left to center-right, as the new government made any more extreme form of Authoritarianism void and banned it. Those parties, like in any democracy, will have seats in National Congress in the West West Fauthur halls. The populace may give a votes for parties they like every year and the party with the highest amount of votes will be able to elect a head of Government. Then, the head of government must choose 6 elegible candidates, whom may not be previous Head of State actors and at maximum only be 2 people from their own party, for the position of Head of State, which the populace would vote on. After the Head of State is chosen, he will have the power to elect a small cabinet of ministers who will then act as managers for their areas they are minister for. Law changes should only happen if the law in question gets enough support from the crongress to be instituted, changed, or be removed. The head of government holds a vote power that equals 5-10 seats in congress, varying on the size of congress. Citizens may also voice their opinion on certain things in the government and will not be punished for doing so. The Head of State, aswell as the Head of Government can call an emergency vote on ministers if they find that the minister in question is not doing his ir her job correctly. The populace will then be able to vote on replacing the minister or not. Every 2 years, a survey must be held by the government that ensures the population is indeed satisfied with the current government. The government is forced to do something about certain areas of the government, if close to, or over half the voting populace thinks negatively about said area. This may include certain Laws, politicians, ministers, both heads of state and government, aswell as other areas. The government may and shall never elect or support any authoritarianist policies and ideologies.For the current state controlled economy is not in rights with the soon to be constituted new government and policies, the form of the economy of Fauthur must change. For now, this will be a placeholder system awaiting further improvement and changes. The current government therfore instituted a Free Market Economy to act for said purposes.

 

This marks the end for this story as it still is in the progress. This is a significant change in the lives of millions of people, hopefully a good one.

[Flauschi918]

Following the government change…

 

Par on course - Everyday lives and effects

 

It has now been a long while since the government was basically overthrown by a large angry population. The back then provisional government, which could be described as a mere joke, took on a quite significant stance, changed multiple policies all over, instated new ones and brought democracy back. They weren’t lying about freedom from the oppression of the previous government when they stormed the government seat. The current government has now grown semi-stable but is still majorly overwhelmed with bureaucracy and the effectiveness of handling it can at best be described as lack-luster and only forced to work on. Of course, this covers a major scope such as enforcement of policies, lots of agencies for work, families etc., aswell as taxes and different forms for state issued IDs and much, much more miscellaneous concerns and issues. As already described, there’s a backlog. And it is huge. It is affecting everyday lives to the point of having to wait around 5 weeks for government mail to be delivered, which in many cases is already way too late for the origin problem. This eventually led to a widely frowned upon “pick up policy” which was instated to get the mail to the recipient in time. Very urgent to semi urgent mail now needs to be picked up manually by the addressee at the nearest city hall, financial institution, aswell as several different offices, and in rare cases the post offices itself. With this policy in place, the backlog of bureaucracy has been reduced only by a marginal amount, but the reduction is picking up pace with more government reforms, votes and general stability so forecasts see it only as a matter of time until that issue is resolved. 

 

The next point on the list would be general life, happiness, education, public transport, and health. For one, the government has been changed, that we know for sure. But what benefits or even drawbacks/ disadvantages affect the populace? A major point to address would be the now more liberal way of life. The previous government had enacted policies, such as bans on clothes in schools, very high tax rates, public surveillance and even curfews with armed patrols in some places in Fauthur. These were just a few examples but almost all “non-liberal” policies, as the government describes, are now reversed and to a very major degree non-existent. This has changed many a life for the better and gave a boost to production and overall freedom in the workplace, aswell as private and internet life, resulting in the overall population becoming more happy on average, seeing a whopping 18% increase since the government change. Furthermore, a lot of welfare policies and public services were enacted, as far as the budget allows to not draw even more debt to the economy - which we will come to later. A few examples are state provided healthcare and education, effectively making these sectors public and state funding, leading to an equal, tax free, also majorly cheap and effective treatment, aswell as state covered expenses for elementary and secondary school materials and the testing of introducing electronics, such as TVs and computers into some schools around the capital. This is being called “digitalisation of education” by the government and has received, in contrast to the pick-up policy, huge popularity, especially with the youth. Another aspect would be the started expansion of the rail network. As known from a long ago time until the change, the Fauthurian rail network is majorly outdated, in need of repairs, underfunded and has a plethora of other issues going on. Even though it strained the budget, the government also decided to take over the rail sector into a state-owned status, providing and covering expenses to the national rail company to expand the network, build more train stations and overhaul the overall system, with the goal of firstly, getting it to even work. The out of date rail system has been a major economical issue in Fauthur for generations, cutting off major travel routes internationally, inconveniencing industries and leading to a GDP decrease, in turn increasing car and truck usage, polluting the environment.

With the now ongoing repairs and overhaul of the rail system, upgrading, restoring and building stuff, the country is set for a reintegration of public transport by train and more industry productivity by the end of 1425, if done well. The government is allocating major ressources and incentivised workers for this long term project to speed it up, but still have surveillance over all the safety regulations and faulty systems elimination.

 

Bus Transport in connection to schools has also been slightly expanded overall, with students now getting free bus passes if they reside more than 3 kilometers of flight distance from the school they are attending too, and also establishing extra bus lines just for students. Whereas sadly, the bus ticket prices were raised by 50 Presence Coin (Presence Token form of European cent) which the, government stated, would be a “fair exchange of services”.

 

Current traffic laws and road maintenance was also impacted in the change, with the government changing speed limits, setting up speed traps, overhauled specifically only very bad highway and main city connections, and enacted, with a surprisingly major acceptance, a ban on very low miles per gallon cars, needing every car to be produced by new efficiency standards and wanting to complete transition away from low MPG cars by the end of 1427, prompting many people with low MPG cars to seek alternatives. The government also incentivizes this but a little, making it not really attractive to transition, but many people seeing it as a forced transition of sorts. This was a heavy blow to the already struggling automobile industry in the country, now more heavily reliant on Kalmash car imports and already in connection to expand the contract.

 

Recent changes on the international political stage in contrast to the government change has spiked a change in overall hostility, especially against citizens of Fauthurian nature, aswell as several other non-ethnic Fauthurian groups, prompting a more secluded and pessimistic way of life for Aftokratorian population centers in Fauthur. Whileas in other aspects, the government decided to institute more small-ish national parks, due to the size of the forests still available, protecting more forest and also still untouched natural habitats for flora and fauna to thrive alike. In the industrial and agricultural heartland of Fauthur however, the forestry industry is booming with widespread deforestation with the reason of “expanding the available industrial and agricultural space”, which is seen as an honest, but not condoned reason by locals.

 

In the final aspect before the economy - The government

As mentioned very often above, the government changed and a free democracy, now with a hint of socialism due to state owned industries emerged, facing many problems with just some listed above, but settling ok in their current position with neighboring countries and inside the state of Fauthur.

Of course, it is still in the process of stabilizing even itself, but it already brought great and liberal change to the people of Fauthur who still sigh in relief, that the terror imposed upon them by the previous government for generations on end, finally came to an end. It is hosting it’s own almost full fledged voting and appointing policies, aswell as a public voter integration which requires the government, by law, to hold a public referendum on law changes, law enactments etc., as also done with voting the parliament of course.

Things should get done more slowly now in the face of these regulations, as the emergency power-state of the provisional government came to an end with stability and an actual, internationally recognized state.

 

Fluctuation by the hour - The Fauthurian economy in retrospect to all the changes, regulations and budget cuts, aswell as budget raises in other places

As mentioned before, we will now dive a bit into the economical aspects of the changes, well, rather said a summary of everything.

———

Starting off with, surprise, the start, where it began. Immediately after the government change, the new provisional government had implemented a whole change to the economy, impacting multiple industrial sectors and sent prices fluctuating by the hour. The changes were so drastic however, that for a very brief duration of two weeks, the country had such an unstable economy, it had to print money to keep itself afloat. This resulted in a high inflation spike, with prices at it’s peak being 227% more expensive than normal. However, this caused several problems and maybe even a few crashes in some industries, that is was an absolute marvel the economy recovered as fast as it did to stop the inflation. Things seemed to be going to plan, for a short while atleast. The economy, along with it’s markets and industries strangely stabilized themselved in an unstabilized state, making drastic price changes by the hour, aside the recovery and 4 months after. New and more economy changes, some of them may even be last minute, brought the economy back on track either stagnating, or slightly growing in cycles. This was the case until just recently, as the government passed major policies and changes, such as the nationalization of the health and train industries, needing the government to dump extraordinary amounts of funds into these projects and even having to raise bus fare prices and put up a reinforced amount of speed traps, radar traps, and radar controls to gain some income to mitigate the nationalization somewhat. This used up all available funds and put the government in slightly more debt than it already is, leading to a higher interest rate and putting more strain on the economy.

Experts although forecast some stabilization, aswell as a GDP increase and economic production boost in the coming years, implementing itself slowly and will be barely noticeable but if compared to the past.

 

This was a brief summary and reflection of some events going on, with the change of government still pretty much in progress and establishing itself even more, gaining in popularity. The story goes on and we will await the next big update on the matter. Renaming topic to - A change in pace, Documentation and Effects after “Liberation day”, as the people now dub it.

[Flauschi918]

Accomplished

 

Exactly 574 days, or 18months and a couple of days have gone by since the last update on the effects of the rather sudden change in government. Democracy has cchanged, traffic has changed, the economy, public transport, laws and regulations, even general life has all changed. Fauthur is now a vastly different country than it once was, and that shows in all aspects of life, even in all walks of life.

On to the points of change. How have all these changes affected people and the country? Is the transformstion complete? How do thinks work differently? And most importantly, what is now in place to hinder a non-democratic government from going back?

Well, let’s start off slowly, with the points spoken about 574 days ago, and let’s elaborate a bit further on them, even bring out new points, all to comprehend the difference, the crucial change that has taken hold.

The government, as it can now call itself successfully, is deeply established, no more a provisional one that could make even the most reserved person laugh aloud. They brought in policies and changes, making the populace quite content with it. They’ve shown that they care about democracy, even reinstated elections, worked out a whole new process (which can be found in the factbook) and set many policies in place to remain as a stable government, showing promise and seeding relieve among the population. Back then it still had the problem of bureaucracy being far too much to handle, though they’ve made a lot of progress in modernization and evaluating, hiring and optimizing processes. Still, the backlog is still ever so present, showing the ineffectiveness of the prior administration. Estimates say that catching up to the present level of issues, it would take about 6 years of day and night shifts. The mail however has stabilized as it now takes on median just 1 week and 1 day to arrive, which is noteworthy but can be improved. 

The general life in Fauthur at this date is best to be described as a pool of opportunities waiting for people, present healthcare and education are a given at this stage. The previously enacted policies by the prior administration are now almost gone, with no real effects to feel anymore. Major cutbacks and liberations in place, there are for certain no more curfews, no more public surveillance, except for security measures in many buildings to reduce crime. Armed patrols are only used on the borders for the present. It is paramount to add, that the happiness in Fauthur, as surveyed by many independent surveyors, shows a 30% increase in contrast to the 16th of october 1423, though in recent events the happiness seems to have waned down to 22 percent, due to the international backlash of some of the governments actions taken on the world stage. Welfare policies remain the same, with marginal improvements, as the backlog of bureaucracy fades and public services are on the rise, as even citizens can, through a tedious and secure process, secure funding for several services in regions and cities where they are not so much present.

Public transport operates now free of charge in larger parts of Fauthur, excluding railway transport, as it can not be financed at this time. The government is moving on a thin line to manage spending and income and has to pay attention not to cut back or change too much in any aspect of Fauthur as it can cause volatile changes to the economy. The debt taken upon the government to stabilize the country after the change is enormous, but being paid off ever so slightly. With the recent events in the Aftokratorian Affair and the Viatic Ocean, the economy is attacked a major amount, leading to a slight decline in just about everything.

The education of Fauthur has been revamped and shows successful implementation of electronics into the system, though exams and tests are still written by pen and paper. The digitalisation of education plan has been almost completed and just about every school been fitted with TVs, brand new computers and other important electronics. This has led to a scientifically proven increase in productivity, but in a slight decline of writing quality.

Getting back to the point of public transport, the railway network was, or still is, majorly outdated and in need of a renewal. Significant funding has gone into the railway transport, but only for cargo being transported, this has the effect of still rejuvenating used tracks and letting the old reserve passenger trains run their course on the network, exempt from environmental regulations. It turned out that the expanding of the network and building new stations and tracks took too much of a strain on the budget, and was a bad decision as the monthly costs turned out too devastating to justify spending more. The administration is now working on a new railway plan, even planning to implement an independent railway infrastructure administration in every state, “starting from scratch” in all major regions. To this day, it remains a major money pit and economical issue that will be present in Fauthur for generations to come. As an addition, tram networks in major cities work fine. The planned reintegration of public transport by train by the end of 1425 was a far too ambitious target and will be moved to 1436 as a temporary and interchangeable date.

Transport by bus has been expanded in 1423,  now shining at the forefront of Nuran competition as it was the largest investment into Transport overall since the government change, leading to up to date busses in all but the most remote Fauthurian places, a voluntary fee of 50 Presence Coins to use the bus and the divide of compartments, allowing for women and children to use the bus services safely. As stated by the government in 1423 the ticket prices were a “fair exchange of services”. Reflecting on that and as a comment from the current government, it is now stating that “The ticket prices, or rather the voluntary fee was instituted to help reduce co2 pollution and incentivize the use of public transportation, as traffic plays a significant role in Fauthur. The infrastructure of public transportation is well-funded, but still gets 1,5 million Presence Token yearly just from voluntary fees, some even varying in amount.” Another point from the previous report was traffic laws and road maintenance. Here, the government changed speed limits, set up speed traps and funneled money into the highway and main city connections, which worked out well in reducing congestion in multiple parts of Fauthur and an improvement of noise and air pollution was reported. The government wanted change on another major issue, the low MPG cars. These are scheduled to be completely abandoned by 1427, though several reconsiderations came up and the date has been revised to the start of 1430, with more incentives plopping up across the industry. As the new production and efficiency standards hit the market, it was not well received and almost crippled the then current automobile industry irreversibly in many parts, though it has been rehabilitated, still heavily reliant on Kalmash car imports and retrofitting for the new guidelines.

The international political stage for Fauthur evolved for far worse than anticipated, with the Aftokratorian Affair already affecting citizens in 1423, sanctions and a more aggressive stance towards Aftokratoria  by a major margin. Hostility, pessimism and overall divide leads the sentiment of the citizens regarding foreign people and other countries. The citizens have proven to be quite xenophobic, especially since the majority of the population went through the era of oppression with the prior administration. The economy thus far is in a slight decline, which is a direct result of sanctions from other countries and the Aftokratorian Affair. A major step in the economy was stabilizing it. At the start of the new administration, the economy was a very volatile and drastic one, changing drastically every hour, using up all of the remaining money of the government for stabilization, leading to an uptake in government debt, which proved to be the much needed barrier to slowly stabilize the economy after such drastic overall changes. Before the sanctions in the Viatic Ocean Affair, a medium amount of debt was repaid as a measure of reducing debt to GDP ratio and reducing interest rates. So far, the stable but slight decline is nonetheless a positive thing, in that the market is largely stable as it is.

It has been an arduous time in Fauthurian history, as the radical changes happened all throughout the country, to ensure a quick and specific change away from the oppressive regime that once plagued its citizens.

Sure, issues still persist and will be major projects to be worked on, though no country can and will be perfect, especially not after such radical changes and so little time.

 

Give it time and it will prosper. Rush it and it will die off.

With this sentiment, although some and many times hard to go through with, is a rewarding and beautiful process, delicately letting you consider your choices and the choices your country makes.

 

Thus, this marks the end of the transition to a democracy, although flawed, it is one. And the citizens are proud of that fact, and no one can take that from them.