Finally providing some info for my faction (same map as shown before).
Country Name: The Arctic Accord
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Government Ideology: Political - Oligarchic Libertarian Separatism, Religious - Postapocalyptism (see description below), Transhumanist - Visionary Thought and Terraformism (see description below).
Political Ideology description: The Arctic Accord is a loose coalition of multiple monopolises (self-sufficient isolated cities), connected together by the need to trade, share and exchange various aspects of knowledge, industrial production, and gene pool between each other. While monopolises differ in terms of laws, individual freedoms, and economic practices, the Accord in general is characterized by extreme level of independence of its components, be they corporations, private military forces, communes, or social cybernetworks. Such competitive and decentralized social format counterbalances the Accord’s isolation from the rest of the world, and provides Arcticans with enough social dynamism to protect their social institutions from degeneration.
Religious Ideology description: Religion and spirituality never played an important role in the life of the Arcticans. The only exception to this was the development of romantic retrospecticism in post-WWIII Greenland, which was not too dissimilar to the trend that affected other Scandinavian societies after the global catastrophe. As the Greenlandic culture gradually reconnected with its ancient Viking roots, some paganistic sects in Nuuk started to compete in analyzing the spiritual side of the WWIII and collapse of the global civilization. This religious competition eventually led to a fusion of several most prominent sects into what became known as the Postapocalyptist movement. They argued that the WWIII could’ve been what was known to the ancient Norse as the Ragnarök (or the Armageddon, for those who were more familiar with the Judeo-Christian tradition). Yet, the Day of Judgement did not bring the world to an end, and humanity obviously endured. Perhaps, the postapocalytists argued, civilizational collapse, global catastrophes, epidemics and famines are just natural milestones of our development as a species. Perhaps, instead of living in fear of the next Ragnarök (or being naively oblivious to its approach), we must prepare for it as our Manifest Destiny. This strange fusion of fatalism and undying optimism eventually found plenty of supporters in various monopolises of the Arctic Accord and today is probably the most popular direction of spiritual thought in the coalition.
Transhumanist Ideology description: Tracing its origins to various corporate communities engaged in resource exploitation of the Arctic, the Accord is naturally technocratic. Visionary Thought is quite popular, as relatively low population and high industrial output allow almost any citizen to modify his or her body with various cyberimplants. Directionism, on the contrary, is viewed very negatively after a number of particularly pro-eugenic isolated monopolises vanished along with most of their population, having become victims of genetic experiments gone wrong. Meanwhile, hostile ecologic environment and dependence on various machines for survival has pushed Arctic transhumanist thought in another unique direction. Labeled as “terraformism,” this futurist philosophy is closely intertwined with religious postapocalyptism and is based on the assumption that adaptation to natural environments is an inherently flawed survival strategy, as it makes civilization dependent on the whims of nature. Instead, humanity should actively terraform the planet in order to reach desirable climatic conditions. Major ideologists of terraformism admit that thoughtless manipulation of natural processes could indeed be damaging for humanity even more than for the environment. However, they still find that the pros of a scientifically viable terraformation outweigh the cons of possible mistakes.
Power Base: Corporate. The Arctic Accord is a decentralized corporate state, with even its military capabilities being for the most part outsourced to private armies.
Legitimacy: Elected. The legislative branch of power is represented by the Board of Directors that consists of 360 CEOs and managers of the most influential companies and corporations. 15 Assessors are elected from among them every year to lead the executive branch of power. Due to widespread use of informational technologies, elections are very streamlined and fluid and happen on annual basis. Judicial branch is almost entirely located on municipal level, with each monopolis having its own legal system, with very few coalitional laws existing above them.
Economic Liberalism: 98%. Almost entirety of Arctic economy is driven by private or corporate efforts, with taxation mostly staying on municipal level. When the government does need to generate some economic effort, it tends to outsource its projects to corporate conglomerates via contracts.
Abridged History: In the late 20th century the North Pole was rapidly becoming a major attractor of economic activity for various resource-oriented corporations from Russia, Canada, the USA, Great Britain, Denmark, and Norway. This led to migration of well-paid work forces to rapidly expanding northern cities, which, in turn, created a dynamic market for pharmaceutical, medical, cybernetic, nautical, and other high-tech corporations. Gradual globalization of world economy turned the Arctic Circle into a supranational entity that found itself relatively unscathed during the WWIII. Collapse of the global community cut the major source of wealth and even basic goods for the isolated polar communities. Some communities tried to migrate south to never be seen again. Those that stayed chose to fully restructure themselves to become self-sufficient closed communes (monocities) that treasured their scientific knowledge and productive capacities as their guarantee of survival. Gradually, some of them achieved almost total autarchy and started to explore the Arctic in search of humanity’s remnants. Eventually monocities of the Arctic shores established contact with each other. Mutual suspicion and paranoia ended up being counterbalanced by the need of scientific, industrial, and genetic exchange. New Arctic civilization was discovering itself.
In the middle of the 21st century, a series of Polar Wars took place between the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago Union (Russian-speaking militarized community) and the Yukon Conglomerate (Canadian corporate cartel with major presence of First Nations within its population). Both monocities found many allies among other Arctic communities and turned the North Pole into their battlefield. Novaya Zemlya eventually turned the tide of the conflict to their favor, but fell victim of their own diplomatic blunders. Ultimately, the Yukonians successfully played on the Novozemelian sense of military pride and “submitted” themselves and the rest of their alliance to the victors, while effectively keeping almost full economic and political independence. As the Arctic Accord was established and grew into a nation in its own right, military dominance of the Novaya Zemlya started to lose its significance, until the Archipelago Union eventually became just another member of the coalition. As of today, not a single monopolis or corporation has enough power to claim leadership in the Accord, with seats roughly equally distributed between all major corporations and regions.
Description of Society: Almost the entirety of the Accord’s population lives in monopolises located along the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Some outposts can be found deeper inland, but even those are surrounded by frozen tundra wasteland. Each monopolis can produce its own agricultural goods through vertical hydroponic solutions and in-vitro meat farms (needless to say, GMO products are widespread). Energy is generated mostly through renewable sources, using thermal, wind, and wave power production, although several overpopulated monopolises in Siberia have to resort to nuclear power for that matter, making them dependable on uranium mines found in the Siberian Traps. Industrial output is heavily based on the advanced 3-D printing technology, with materials ranging from natural and rare metals to artificial carbon-based ceramics and plastic. High-tech heavy industry production used to be prevalent before and during the Polar Wars, but signing of the Arctic Accord created a sky-rocketing market for various consumer goods, since monopolises started to trade with each other and could exchange surplus of goods uniquely produced in each particular monopolis for the surplus of wealth and other exotic goods from other Arctic regions. Limited resources and size of each monopolis means that only a limited number of manufacturing lines can run there, so each monopolis has something more or less unique to sell, and even similar types of trade goods from different regions may range significantly in terms of features and quality.
Cybernetworking and interacting with informational technologies comprises a significant part of life of an average Arctican. Monocities are connected into a network known as the Omninet via a web of undersea cables. Almost all banking, administrative and political activity is enacted through online presence, and cybercrime is also much more common than the physical one. Even in everyday life, people tend to use augmented reality simulators in order to add some style and color to the bleak labyrinths of their cities.
Cybersports are the main attraction, with the most prestigious (albeit, rather elitist) being an annual cybersecurity war game between major cybersecurity corporations' teams (winners get a lucrative year-long government contract for cyberwarfare and law enforcement). Surrogate immortality through digitation of one’s personality is available to only a few members of Arctic elite.
Healthcare is universal and is mostly based on nanosurgery, advanced pharmaceutics, and cyberimplants. Epidemic diseases are practically nonexistent, although at a cost of very weak immune system among general population. Genetic diseases are common due to a small gene pool, and inbreeding is not unheard of. In order to combat this, lottery-based migrations and sperm-bank exchanges are enforced between different regions, and Greenlanders have recently proposed another solution (pseudo-archaic, as everything about their culture): raiding the remnants of humanity for their gene pool.
Transportation inside monopolises is mostly based on public monorails. When venturing into the tundra, geological and military expeditions tend to use aerosani, all-terrain buggies, and heavy hovercraft (ranging from light armor vehicles to gigantic marine desant ships based on pre-WWIII Russian hydroplanes), which also provides Arctic military with exceptional amphibious assault capabilities.
On the rare occasions when transportation of large cargo is required over land routes, lumbering “tundra crawlers” can be utilized, which are essentially short all-terrain armored trains. They may be supported by snow scooter reconnaissance infantry and gunship drones.
Infantry technologies mostly revolve around use of snow scooters and jet packs for transportation of individual soldiers, with light troikas and hovers being utilized as IFVs. Individual weapons range from light railgun rifles to smart missile anti-tank systems. Augmented reality is widely used to provide soldiers with tactical information and terrain orientation. Larger than human size mechs are practically never used, since they become very easy targets on an open terrain.
Military aircraft ranges from vertical-takeoff all-purpose fighters to heavy aerial assault gunships “troikas” (after the Russian word “troika,” meaning “the number 3” and “sleds pulled by three horses,” also hinting at the ability of the gunship to perform “3-D maneuvering”
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Civilian aircraft is based on hypersonic high altitude aircraft, but is employed relatively rarely due to a number of atmospheric phenomenon, including the polar lights. Limited distance air delivery is performed by high-tech airships, in order to preserve fuel.
Marine transportation is probably the key area of technical expertise for the Arctic Accord. Short distance cargo delivery is performed along coastal routes by nuclear icebreaker ships of various sizes. Intercontinental long range trade is done using nuclear cargo submarines capable of crossing the Arctic under the ice cap. In case of emergencies, a number of shaft stations is established across the Arctic ice cap, providing the undercap submarines with opportunities to dock, repair, replenish supplies, and, if needed, evacuate to the surface.
Long-range naval operations are mostly based on use of submarine fleet that includes kamikaze drone torpedoes, fast attack nuclear submarines, undersea battleships, and even several multirole submarine air carriers.
layer Ratio limit. Adding anymore, I feel, adds more work on my end than actual benefit to the game.
