"A masquerade can cover a sense of what is real to deceive us; to be unjaded and not lost, we must, then, determine truth."
-- Motto of Osea
This article and thread will detail my faction, the Osean Republic.
At a Glance
Nation Name: Democratic Republic of Osea (often called the Osean Republic or just Osea)
Territory: Ark system, located in Beta Quadrant; has no colonies
Technology Level: High
Economic Strength: Moderate but growing
Industrial Strength: Very High (faction specialty is mass production)
Military Strength: Large terrestrial military and large space fleet for its size; easily large enough to occupy territory and provide effective home defense. High tech.
Governmental System: Constitutional Republic
Economic System: What would on Earth be called Scandinavian-style socialism
Sentient Rights Record: Exemplary
History
The planet Oured of the Ark system was the first planet in Ark to develop life of its own; however, for a number of billions of years, that life had no sapience, let alone warp drives. Eventually, humanoid creatures appeared on Oured, and, through millions of generations, advanced to the Agricultural and finally Industrial Revolutions. After that came the Information Revolution, and finally the Interplanetary Revolution.
During this extremely long period of time, these humanoid creatures, known as Oseans, were fractured into hundreds of small politically divided nations. As time went on, however, the idea of a 'nation' was phased out-- slowly, and despite thousands of close calls including near nuclear wars, genocides, and no less than five world wars, the Oseans set down a few simple ground rules for common sense and gradually unified into a single federation.
This nation--the Oured Union--unified the whole planet. Even in its new state, Oseans, being sentient, free-willed creatures, continued to, occasionally, cause trouble. Despite this and other internal strife, Osea established space colonies on the moon of Oured, in orbit, and, finally, on Zekiel.
With space colonies established and the immediate needs of the population met, Osea turned to technology, advancing rapidly. Eventually Dr. Josef Asio of the planet Zekiel developed the technology known as "warp drive", allowing ships to travel at many times the speed of light.
With this discovery, the entire system could be colonized, and it rapidly was. Eventually hyperspace technology was created and the most valuable commodity in Osean society--energy--could be generated by processing of hypermatter.
Today, Osea is a new nation on the galactic scene, at war with some invaders.
Government
The federal government of Osea has three branches: the executive, legislative, and judicial. Through a system of separation of powers or "checks and balances," each of these branches has some authority to act on its own, some authority to regulate the other two branches, and has some of its own authority, in turn, regulated by the other branches. In addition, the powers of the federal government as a whole are limited by the Constitution, which leaves a great deal of authority to the state and local governments.
Osea's twelve planets have authority over their own affairs, each with their own executive, judicial, and legislative branches, but all are subject to federal laws and rulings.
Major parties include the Conservatives, Universalists (moderates), Liberals, and Social Democrats. The President is elected by popular vote amongst the whole Union, and votes are collected by secret ballot. Voting machines are not used, and the President serves terms of three years and may serve two consecutively.
The Osean People's Constitution are the supreme legal documents, and all work of the feral, state, and local governments takes place within that codified framework. The Constitution also details the rights of all citizens-- freedom of thought, of conscience, belief, and religion; the freedom of the press, other media of communication, and freedom of expression; freedom of peaceful assembly and association; the right to vote and hold a seat in any government body; and the right to life, liberty, and security. The Constitution also grants protection from any form of unreasonable search and seizure-- only if a person is threat to another, society as a whole, or themselves, may this occur-- and the right to a fair trial, habeas corpus, and legal counsel. The document gives equal rights to every person, regardless of race, religion, belief, sexual orientation, mental or physical disorder or disability, age, or any other attribute.
The Constitution was and is a deliberate attempt to diminish the threat of mobocracy (rule by mass psychology) thereby protecting dissenting individuals and minority groups from the tyranny of the majority by placing checks on the power of the majority of the population. The power of the majority of the people is checked by limiting that power to electing representatives who govern within limits of overarching constitutional law rather than the popular vote having legislative power itself.
Law, Crime, and Punishment
Osea has one system of law that is in effect throughout the entire nation. A Supreme Court exists as the only national court, ruling on other court's decisions. Each state has a superior court, which is one level higher than local county courts et cetera. Osea's law is codified and written-- civil law.
Civil cases are mediated by a judge, whereas in a criminal case convictions are handed out by an unbiased jury-- sentencing is then handled by the judge.
Convictions may be challenged by new evidence, or by appeal-- however, there is a finite limit on the number of times appeals may be performed. Evidence, however, can always turn over a conviction.
Prison terms tend to be handed out for all sorts of criminal offenses, with rehabilitation as opposed to punishment being the primary motive. The death penalty is not practiced, though life sentences (which are quite literally LIFE sentences) are handed down for offenses such as murder, rape, et cetera.
Military
Osea's military uses high-tech, well-trained, and loyal units in smaller numbers than other nations to achieve its objectives. Weaponry commonly uses some of the latest technological advancements available-- antimatter as a prototype, phasers, et cetera.
The Osean military is all-purpose, with ships and soldiers existing to fill all roles, but the first and foremost duty of the Osean military is to defend Osean soil. The military is divided up as follows:
- Federation Guard -- Space-based defense force with some ground capability.
- Interstellar Navy -- All-purpose space force for attack and defense. Contains the Space Recon subdivision, which does what it sounds like it does and also performs raids.
- Terrestrial Army -- Osean land force, obviously. Often supplements the Federation Guard on the ground.
- Planetary Guards -- Every Osean planet has a small military of its own, called the Planetary Guard. All-purpose force with limited space capabilities.
- Black Ops -- Intelligence agency for internal security and spying on foreign powers. Also useful when we need things blown up.
- Science Command -- Self-explanatory. Extremely small unit which tests stuff in space, on planets, and everywhere else. Technically not a military unit as it also includes civilian functions such as government research and civillian space programs.
Most Osean spaceships tend to be quite small, but incorporating advanced weaponry such as phasers and railguns. There are three Osean fleets-- the two assigned to the Interstellar Navy, and the one large one making up the Federation Guard. The Terrestrial Army, however, is divided into many, many divisions.
Recently the SCUMBAG (Self-Contained Universal Military; Bombs and Guns) program was put into development. This integrates all Osean units into a BattleNet network, and is also intended to update every aspect of the Osean military.
The infantry SCUM system (I-SCUM) consists of a new armor system, personal shield (a big step), and a full new series of weapons (an assault rifle, carbine, PDW/SMG, anti-material rifle, squad machine gun, sidearm, and anti-tank missile), as well as a greatly enhanced electronics suite and short range laser backup weapon. New vehicles, including a series of tanks with interchangeable turrets, are on the drawing board.
The weapons and tactics of the military will be explored in a later post.
Economy
Osea has a relatively average economy which is rapidly gaining strength under the new President. Osea's economy is socialist, similar to the economic system of the Earth nation of Sweden. Monopolies are routinely broken up to foster competition, and as a result Osea's economy continues to grow.
Agriculture makes up a small part of the pie chart, sufficient to feed the Union, with the service sectors followed by heavy industry being much larger. Manufacturing industries form a large part of the economy. The creative industries' growth has been steady.
The currency of Osea, the Kio, is represented by the symbol K. The Kio's purchasing power in the galaxy is relatively average, though it shows all indicators of a growing economy.
Demographics
Osea is extremely multinational with no truly dominant race or religion, however, due to the fact Osea has not yet discovered intelligent alien life, 100% of all citizens are human. Races however vary wildly, with no race being dominant.
Religiously, the Oseans are divided. Again, no one thing has established a dominant position. However, the majority of Osean "religions" are more spirituality than religion-- the idea of enlightenment.
The population of Osea, according to the last census, is 61,321,851,777. On average there are around 7 billion people per planet.
Education
Osea's literacy rate is 99% (normal by developed nation standards). Osean children must go to school for the first 18 years of their lives with both state-run and private universities and other secondary education options being a popular option. Public schooling is among the best in Beta. Most doctors, lawyers, business leaders, etc. (80%) come from public schools. Given the only recent discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life, peaking of languages not inside the Osean Union is a rare skill; the Osean Union has recently put into motion a program to correct this.
Edited by Dr. Pyth, 28 October 2007 - 04:55 AM.
