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National Factbook of the Kingdom of Seythennia

Seythennia

The Kingdom of Seythennia



Flag



Motto: "One country, forever one"


Anthem: "Glory to Seythennia"


Coat of arms:


(variant)




Location of Seythennia (red)



Population

15,761,000,000

Capital

St. Vincent

Largest City

St. Vincent



Official language

None, de facto Setan and English

National language

Setan

Minority languages

English
Portuguese

Demonym

Seythennian



Government

Unitary absolute monarchy

King

Joseph

Heir apparent

Crown Prince Adam

Legislature

National Parliament



Independence

from Kingdom of Sothan

Declaration of Sovereignty

June 12, 1792

Adoption of the Seythennian Constitution

April 23, 1803

First Union Treaty

April 23, 1828

Second Union Treaty

July 17, 1832

Nationalist Party coup d'état

August 18, 2016

Seythennian Reformation

March 7, 2019



Currency

Seysmark gilden (ϻ) (SMK)

GDP

ϻ2.877 quadrillion
(ϻ182,572 per capita)

HDI

97.87
very high



Date format

mm/dd/yyyy

Calling code

+14

Driving side

right

ISO 3166 code

OS

Internet LTD

.os


The Kingdom of Seythennia (also known simply as Seythennia) is a country located in South America, though it geographically lies on the Nazca Plate and politically belongs to the South Pacific. Seythennia is a unitary absolute monarchy, headed by a King or Queen. The current monarch is King Joseph, who took power following the forced abdication of his father, Grand King Castor I. Seythennia's capital and most populous city is St. Vincent, a modern megalopolis with an estimated metropolitan area population of 1.5 billion. For most of Seythennia's history, the country was a federal republic made up of several states which held moderate autonomy under the federal government, a system inspired by that of the United States. However, after the Seythennian Reformation of Castor I and the subsequent reforms of King Joseph, Seythennia is a unitary state subdivided into fifteen districts, all under royal authority. Seythennia also holds control over one dependency, the Dependency of the Outlying Islands, which is not counted as a district and has no representation in the National Parliament.

Seythennia emerged out of the Kingdom of Sothan, itself a rump state of the Marigedese Empire, whose successors remain the only pre-Columbian civilization to have resisted European conquests. Tensions and unrest over the Kingdom's despotic government led to the Seythennian Revolution (1788-1792), which culminated in the new country's Declaration of Sovereignty and execution of the defeated King Weliam. Seythennian expansion in the 19th century led to the annexation of other Marigedese rump states, the neighboring Kingdom of Aumarigeda in 1828, and later the Patriarchy of Marcolen in 1832. Since then, the borders of Seythennia proper have remained largely unchanged. Seythennia has the world's 7,370th largest economy by gross domestic product, 16,152th most efficient economy, and 2,379th highest human development index rating. Seythennia is a part of the region of the South Pacific and a member of the World Assembly. During the Federal Republic, Seythennia ranked highly in both civil rights and political freedom; presently, Seythennia is at the top 28% of the world's nations in terms of civil rights and bottom 9% in terms of political freedoms. These areas of Seythennian life had begun a sharp decline during Nationalist Party rule, but civil rights have been on the rise during King Joseph's tenure.

Etymology



Seythennia is named after Nikolaus Sey, the revolutionary that helped to found the country, and the dictatorial Kingdom of Sothan, from which separatists would establish Seythennia. The current Seythennian Constitution codifies the country's full name as The Kingdom of Seythennia, and the standard way to refer to a citizen of Seythennia as a Seythennian.

It is unknown exactly when the term "Seythennia" was developed, but it (and early variants such as "Seythan" or "Seythenia") had already become widespread by the time of the Seythennian Declaration of Sovereignty. One early draft states that "by the Will of our People, this Federation shall be known as Seythennia, to honor Our Hero Nikolaus Sey and to remind us of the Tyranny from which we broke free." An overwhelming amount of proposed names for the new federation incorporated Nikolaus Sey's name, among them such proposals as "Seysland", "Nikolaussia", and even simply "Sey". Other, less popular, proposals invoked the name of the Kingdom of Sothan: "New Sothan" and "Free Republic of Sothan" were proposed early on, mainly used by moderates and royalists who supported change but not overthrow.

History



The Kingdom of Sothan

The centuries-old Marigedese Empire, a great power at the time, sought to expand its territory further. Initial westward exploration campaigns were commissioned by Emperor Sauxa III in the 10th century AD. Exploration parties reported the area viable for settlement, and shortly afterward the first settlements were established by prominent statesman Andor Ormund, and the area was incorporated as the province of Sothan, the westernmost bastion of the empire. Sothan was declared a duchy and Ormund's family was granted nobility, and the new House of Ormund would rule Sothan for eight hundred years. The duchy era of Sothan was marked by prosperity and relatively high civil liberties for the time. With newly-found ripe lands, settlers were steadily incoming and birth rates rose as townships were established under the provincial government. Sothani populations grew rapidly, and the Duchy of Sothan became more autonomous as the Marigedese Empire began its decline and turned inward to focus on governing its core provinces. The Sothani government became more and more decentralized as localized governments were increasingly established, with elections open to nearly all free men (and women after 1322).

In 1450, during the collapse of the Marigedese Empire, the Duchy of Sothan de facto seceded as Duke Carol IV declared Sothan to be a kingdom with himself being crowned king. Sothan never formally declared itself independent, but the declaration of a kingdom was treated as a declaration of independence under Marigedese tradition. Sothani kings would periodically make claims of Sothan being the legal successor to the Marigedese Empire, although this was contested by the claim of the Kingdom of Aumarigeda (New Marigeda) and Sothani claims were almost completely ignored. The transition to a kingdom marked the beginning of tyranny, as now-King Carol saw decentralization and local autonomy as threats to the new kingdom's central government and reversed many of the landmark decrees made by his predecessors. The new kingdom quickly became authoritarian - not unusually so for the time, but unprecedented in Sothan - and turned toward medieval European-style feudalism and serfdom. This system would endure until the end of the Kingdom of Sothan.

The Marigedese rump kingdoms of Sothan and Aumarigeda had tense relations with each other at best, but upheld a policy of mutual defense, retroactively named the Marigedese League but then known as the kauxanas ("mutual brotherliness"), given their frosty relations with neighboring empires. Before the Spanish conquest, the Inca Empire had made four separate incursions against Aumarigeda and Sothan. The Kingdom of Sothan made first contact with Spain in December 1520, when the Magellan expedition made a stop in a Sothani harbor, and the newly coronated King Nitha (r. 1520-1572) welcomed the strange ships with festivals and parades. Nitha's reign was marked by growing exposure and cross-contact between the Marigedese League and Spanish Empire, coming to a head decades later when the Spanish would come to make multiple attempts to conquer the League; these are today known as the Spanish-Marigedese Wars, where the two kingdoms consistently upheld the kauxanas and thwarted Spanish attempts at colonization. In 1577, the Treaty of Lima definitively established Spanish recognition of the sovereignty of the two kingdoms, leaving them the only pre-Columbian civilization to resist European colonialism.


1652 Portuguese map by António de Olivença
depicting the southeastern coast of Aumarigeda

The Spanish-Marigedese Wars left a lasting impression and when Francis Drake's 1578 circumnavigation made the Marigedese League aware of the existence of other naval powers, it reacted by closing its ports to foreign ships - particularly those belonging to Spain, which was the only empire present in the area at the time. Drake brought news to England of a civilization beyond the Straits of Magellan, the existence of which had previously been a Spanish state secret, but his expedition had led to a renewed Spanish presence and even attempts to colonize the Straits, and while England was interested in this mythical "Transmagellania" it was not interested in risking a provocation. Aside from the occasional Spanish vessel which veered off course, the League would not encounter foreign ships again until the arrival of Dutch explorers in 1616 and faded into disuse. Over the following years, the sporadic English and Dutch expeditions through the Straits of Magellan were allowed to dock in Aumarigedese or Sothani ports, facilitating future contact between the nations and leaving a small but lasting Protestant influence.

The kauxanas made a resurgence in 1696 when the first French expedition crossed the Straits of Magellan, in the form of a mutual agreement between Aumarigeda and Sothan in which all foreign ships could only dock at the Sothani port of Narral, which despite being heavily guarded became a hotbed of piracy as Sothani authorities turned a blind eye to pirates who targeted the Spanish. By this time, a steady English, Dutch, and Portuguese (after ca. 1650) influence had already established a presence in both Aumarigeda and Sothan. Linguistically, this would evolve into the related dialects of the Setan language spoken in Seythennia today, which itself developed from a line of Marigedese dialects. The lukewarm peace between Sothan and Aumarigeda would continue until the overthrow of the Sothani monarchy in the Seythennian Revolution.

Revolution and independence


1793 portrait of Nikolaus Sey
by Hoorn Seinexal

In 1739, Nikolaus Sey was born in Sothan, and during the course of his life he would campaign for civil rights and representation of the Sothani people. In 1772, he established a civil rights activist group named the Sothan Fraternity (SF); when it became clear that the royal government would never accede to SF demands, Sey and the other Fraternity leaders would come to call for the replacement of the monarchy altogether with a republican form of government. The SF was labeled as dangerous and radical by the Sothani government as membership continued to grow, even including parts of the royal army. After reaching 200,000 members in 1788, the SF successfully sparked a violent revolution, inspired by the success of the American Revolution. Over the course of four years, the Fraternity would overthrow the government in the Seythennian Revolution, culminating in the execution of King Weliam as well as the more anti-republican members of the royal family; the remaining members of the House of Ormund were permitted to live free lives and remain high-profile members of Seythennian society to this day.

In the morning of June 12, 1792, the Seythennian Declaration of Sovereignty was signed by the leaders of the Sothan Fraternity, cementing Seythennia's position as a new sovereign state risen from unrest. The signers of the Declaration of Sovereignty also made up a temporary ruling council, which would be the face of the newly independent Seythennia, with the missive of designing and implementing a suitable system of governance. However, the "temporary" ruling council of Seythennia found itself unable to agree on a final conclusion, and for the next eleven years, the hopelessly divided government bickered while barely keeping the new country from falling apart. The council was comprised of 17 representatives, including many future cabinet ministers, but bizarrely not Sey himself. The representatives came from different revolutionary factions of varying ideological backgrounds, with the intent of fostering a compromise that would benefit the majority; this would be the primary reason for their ineffectiveness and inability to come to an agreement. Failure to establish a central government made authority negligible outside the capital, and as banditry and piracy grew rampant local communities or regional warlords formed "committees" of their own to rule in place of the council.


Seythennia ca. June 1803 with contemporary
de jure district boundaries. The Harlow
Fields Committee was annexed that May.

This warlord period would finally come to an end on April 23, 1803, when the Seythennian Constitution was adopted and signed in the new capital of Seythennia City. Many of the regional "committees" were formed by well-meaning citizens seeking to maintain the rule of law in their areas, and willingly recognized federal authority after the adoption of the constitution. By the turn of 1804, the only regional authority which refused to accept federal authority was the Braid Authority, which had been engaging the "barbary republic" of Narral Bay in a guerilla conflict known as Braid's War since 1799. Braid made it clear that he intended to stand down as soon as the pirates were defeated but would continue to refuse federal authority until then.

The original Seythennian Constitution established the country as a unitary federal republic, made up of six districts under central authority, with a bicameral legislature. A provision in the preamble declared Nikolaus Sey to be "President for Life", and he would serve in this capacity for over 20 years until dying of natural causes on October 7, 1823. The policies of his tenure would be refined and established as Seyism, which would be a major force in Seythennian politics throughout its history. Sey had no Vice President to assume the presidency upon his death; the office of Vice President is held by the runner-up in the presidential election, but he was declared President and given the role without an election. Instead, his Minister of Defense, Carlo Mann, succeeded him and was reelected in the country's first presidential elections on February 29, 1824. Sey's death caused the country's politicians and political thinkers, once united behind him, to fracture and split into differing groups. The major political parties formed during this time were the Seythennian Continuity Party (SCP), a Seyist party made up of the supporters of Nikolaus Sey and Carlo Mann; the Grand Union Party (GUP), an early nationalist party mostly made up of Seythennian Army officers; and the Agrarian Party, which represented Seythennian farmers and laborers.

Domestic and foreign conflict in the 19th century

The 19th century, namely the presidencies of Carlo Mann and Abrahán Costa, marked a long period of GUP agitation and rising expansionism in Seythennia. In 1828, the GUP and the Agrarian Party threatened to halt the legislature unless Seythennia underwent an aggressive expansion program. Seythennia conquered its neighbors, ending in the First and Second Union Treaties. This power struggle between the SCP and GUP led President Mann to take steps to limit the size of the military after 1834. The GUP had hoped to make political gains from these expansion wars, but Seythennia's victories had been attributed to the SCP-led government, and the country's location off the coast of Chile had turned it into a major hub for trans-Pacific trade, which was greatly helped by the SCP's business-friendly economic liberalization policies.

Unfortunately for the SCP, the Texan Revolution, arising from Texas' secession from Mexico, would divide the party over whether or not to support the new country. Those supportive of Texas left the isolationist, establishment wing of the party led by President Mann, and moved to the GUP and Agrarian Party. The fledgling Republic of Texas had broad public support in Seythennia, and the SCP's isolationist and non-interventionist foreign policy of "enriched neutrality" began to lead to political losses, which the GUP eagerly picked up on. In 1840, the SCP lost its majority in the government; GUP influence in the new government was such that they aggressively worked towards fulfilling their goals upon election and were able to swiftly orchestrate the annexation and incorporation of the Territory of Dukes that same year. Mann would continue to serve as president until being voted out in the 1844 elections (Mann attempted to run for another reelection, but the SCP refused to sponsor his candidacy), where GUP candidate and Army general Abrahán Costa won the presidency. Costa and the GUP would remain in power for the next twenty years, with Costa going on to win a record five elections.


Seythennian expansion during
the early 19th century

The newly elected Costa administration took a firm stance in support of Texan independence, officially recognizing its independence and even going so far as to protest its proposed annexation by the United States. Unbeknownst to him, the Texan government was already in the final stages of secret negotiations on a treaty with US President John Tyler, which was framed to annex Texas and induct it into the Union as a new state. The annexation would likely have gone as planned, but the terms of the treaty had been leaked to the public while it was being debated in the Senate. When news of the leak reached Seythennia, President Costa publicly declared Seythennian support for Texan independence and vowed to "defend any incursions against Texan autonomy as if they were against our very homeland".

In the US, Texan annexation became one of the main issues of the 1844 election. The nature of the treaty caused a national outcry, the leading candidates of both major parties denounced the treaty, and now Seythennian posturing in defense of Texas further strengthened hostility towards President Tyler's agenda. In response, Tyler, already ejected from the Whig Party, quickly began to organize a reelection campaign as a third-party candidate in order to siphon off pro-annexation Democratic Party voters. He had hoped to persuade the Democrats to embrace a pro-expansionist platform, but the anti-annexation Van Buren wing held, and their voter base remained divided. In the end, Whig Party candidate Henry Clay won the election, pledging to block Texas annexation.

Seythennia's willingness to defend Texas brought it into conflict with Mexico, however, as there was a dispute over Texas' southern boundary with Mexico. After Seythennian attempts to arbitrate the dispute or buy the territory in question on Texas' behalf in 1846 went nowhere, Seythennia sent 50,000 soldiers to defend the Rio Grande in anticipation of a Mexican invasion that April; this act is likely what provoked the Mexican Army to attack in the first place, starting the War of the Rio Grande. A Seythennian victory left Mexico forced to renounce its claims and recognize Texas as well as the California Republic, which established itself during the war and was given Seythennian support.


Abrahán Costa in 1852

The establishment of Texas and California as Seythennian allies (and near-puppet states) also meant the creation of secure trade routes through them, which enlarged Seythennian access to Caribbean and Atlantic markets - goods could now reach the Atlantic by being shipped to the coast of California and moved by train to the Gulf of Mexico, instead of needing to go around South America. The remnants of the Tyler wing of the Democratic Party blamed Seythennian meddling for the loss of Texas and would continue to view it as a nuisance; pro-slavery lawmakers especially hated Seythennia as this further threatened the status of slavery in the United States. Seythennia would spend the proceeding years funding development in California and Texas, with the Grand Union Party remaining in power until the mid-1860s.

The Crooked Deal of 1863

The driving goal of Seythennian foreign policy was to protect its allies from potential American expansion by keeping the US in check and preventing it from posing too large of a threat. The discovery of gold in California brought thousands of settlers from all directions, bringing the country to the attention of the same war hawks in the Democratic Party who were angered over the loss of Texas a few years prior. While the growing Seythennian-funded rail network certainly helped to accelerate the boom of the California Gold Rush, it soon began to be used to move Seythennian arms shipments. Throughout the 1850s, Seythennia would build new railways in California and Texas, connecting the two countries and allowing for arms to be shipped from San Francisco or Tijuana to Dallas or Houston through Santa Fe. The 1860s marked a change as Seythennia immediately attempted to warm relations with the new Republican administration of Abraham Lincoln.

Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, Seythennia refused to recognize the rebel Confederate States; slavery had been abolished centuries ago, thus popular support for it was nonexistent. The California Republic's constitution abolished slavery and the slave trade, borrowing the Seythennian constitution's phrase "all men are born free and equal", itself based on the United States' "all men are created equal". However, Texas was staunchly committed to slavery, with its constitution conversely making it illegal for the legislature to free slaves. The Confederacy had large public support in Texas, but the country could not officially support it due to Seythennian influence.

Despite this, the CSA secretly approached both Seythennia and Texas in 1862 and asked for aid in the form of smuggled arms shipments; neither knew that the Confederacy had approached the other. Texas immediately accepted due to its pro-Confederate sentiment. In Seythennia, the deal was desirable to the joint Agrarian Party-GUP administration of President Frederich Manuel Santo. While the government was anti-war and beginning to build good relations with the US, they felt that no matter which side won, supplying the Confederacy with weapons would lead to more bloodshed and thus a weaker US at the end, which aligned with the continuing desire to keep it in check. Additionally, the military's engineers had developed a new rifle design based on the Sharps rifle, and the Confederate proposition brought an opportunity to field-test it. By mid-1863, an estimated 4,000 rifles from Seythennia and Texas combined had been in Confederate hands. These rifles were increasingly being captured by Union troops who could not verify their origin due to the lack of markings, and spies in Texas were unable to uncover the truth. That changed on June 14, 1863, when a Union raiding party which had mistakenly entered Texan soil interrupted a shipment of rifles, which also happened to have a Seythennian Army liaison present to inquire on the new rifles' effectiveness.


Rail routes used by Seythennia to
smuggle arms into the CSA in 1863

When news of this discovery spread, it broke Seythennian credibility in the eyes of the US and nearly led to war being declared against Texas as an ally of the Confederacy. Politically, the scandal led to a sharp decline in the popularity of the Agrarian Party, as well as the GUP, whose dwindling membership caused it to shutter in 1869; culturally, the repercussions were far-reaching as a generation of Seythennians who had known two decades of stable, prosperous rule had their trust in government broken. A cultural reaction, which would be later termed the Lost Era, emerged as the public began to reconsider their government's actions and Seythennia's perception in the eyes of the world. Demonstrations and protests were widespread, with many bringing crowds which numbered in the thousands and consumed entire neighborhoods, especially in Seythennia City and St. Vincent. The SCP, which by now had renamed itself to the Whig Party, and the new Federalist Party, would fill the void in Seythennian politics left in the wake of the Crooked Deal and become a defining fixture of the Lost Era, beginning with the election of a Whig-Federalist government in 1864 under President Leopoldo Barnet II. The Agrarian Party would continue to hold a large minority - its propaganda machine very quickly turned on its former allies in the GUP and shifted most of the blame onto them once news of the Crooked Deal broke.

The Lost Era in the Belle Époque

Though the Lost Era can be considered to have begun directly in the wake of the Crooked Deal of 1863, the election of Whig Party candidate Leopoldo Barnet II the following year marked the beginning of its effects on Seythennian national policy. The Lost Era was defined by a sense of disillusionment with the status quo and Seythennian society in general, and anger at the perceived corruption and callousness of the political elites. The Whig-Federalist coalition government's response was to reverse many longstanding GUP policies, especially in the realm of foreign relations. Seythennia ceased antagonizing the United States and loosened its grip on California and Texas, transforming their relationship into a mutual trade bloc, which preserved the longstanding Seythennian trade networks running through the countries while also affording Californian and Texan businesses new opportunities for growth in Seythennia. A policy of neutrality was enacted while further diplomatic overtures with its South American neighbors were undertaken, while Seythennian-American relations were warmed by the government's footing the bill for many Reconstruction projects after the defeat of the Confederacy as an apology.


MP Artur Severiu proposing
the National Rejuvenation Act

Nationalist Party coup

Due to rising nationalism advocating for regional domination rather than traditional self-improvement, the Nationalist Party enjoyed a sharp increase in popularity. However, despite the extreme popularity of the Nationalist Party, their presidential ticket was narrowly beaten, and though they had a plurality of seats in the National Parliament the Common Conservative Coalition (a coalition between the Alternative, Marigedese Heritage, and Whig parties) government remained in power. On August 18, 2016, the democratically-elected government of Carol Silva was overthrown by Nationalist Party chairman and National Parliament member Artur Severiu with the aid of military and paramilitary Nationalist Front (NF) forces. Nationalist troops stormed both houses of the National Parliament while it was in session, allowed Severiu to propose the National Rejuvenation Act - a law which would grant him dictatorial powers as President and allow him to suspend the constitution - and arrested any members of Parliament who resisted. Voting was done by roll call under the condition that silence or abstention would be deemed as a "yes" vote; the National Rejuvenation Act passed in the Common House by a vote of 453 to 34 and unanimously in the Upper House. The Act also required a nationwide referendum on its enactment; all Seythennians were required to vote and were required to appear before an election bureau and verbally state whether they approved the Act. Like in the National Parliament, silence or abstention were deemed as a "yes" vote. The results of the referendum were counted on September 1: an implausible 99.53 percent of voters approved the Act, and Severiu was sworn in as President the next day.

Since then, civil and political freedoms started a drastic decline, reminiscent of the establishment of the Kingdom of Sothan. On September 16, the Communist Party of Seythennia and all other communist parties were banned, membership or association made equivalent to high treason, and their members were arrested. On Christmas Eve, the government seized the assets of the Social Democrats, and they were banned on February 1, 2017. On February 2, the Whig Party had its assets seized as well, and it disbanded a week later. The last remaining major opposition party, the Alternative Party, merged itself into the Nationalist Party on March 3. Fourteen days later, Seythennia became a one-party state as the Nationalist Party was made the sole legal party in the country, the founding of new parties was made illegal, and all remaining political parties were banned.

Nationalist government

Under the power vested in him by the National Rejuvenation Act, Severiu's government consolidated power and the country moved from a federal republic to an increasingly authoritarian unitary state. The central government was given complete control over local and state governments, officials, and judges. The National Parliament was changed from a bicameral legislature to a unicameral one with the abolishment of the Upper House, and state parliaments were abolished. Soon after, elections in Seythennia would cease to be held. Universal conscription was enacted and the capabilities of the military were greatly expanded, and police forces were militarized and brought under government control. Jails and prisons were abolished, but as a result many crimes which would previously have resulted in jail time instead were punished with death or exile. Media was brought under state control and non-state-approved media was banned.

The Nationalist government began to emphasize traditionalist thought and culture, transforming Seythennia's patriotic reverence for Nikolaus Sey into a personality cult. Sey was referred to in propaganda as both the "savior" and "creator" of Seythennian culture. The ancient Sothani claim to being the successor of the Marigedese Empire once again became used but was now official doctrine. The Nationalist Party was portrayed as the key towards Seythennian reclamation of Marigedese strength, and Marigedese nationalism rose in the former New Marigeda. The government adopted the position of "strength through unity" and set out to accomplish this by uniting Seythennians of all origins and walks of life. Officially, racial, religious, sexual, and other types of discrimination were all made illegal with penalties of heavy fines and/or suspension of wages. However, World Census results show a massively sharp decline of inclusiveness in Seythennia since the Nationalist seizure of power.

Seythennia adopted the gold standard with the replacement of the Seythennian dollar with the seysmark gilden, and began to pursue autarky, or economic self-sufficiency. Average income as well as income equality saw marked rises nationwide. Government spending was increased across the board, with focus on welfare, healthcare, education, and the environment; all Seythennians were guaranteed healthcare, and the nation moved towards nuclear energy as an alternative to coal and fossil fuel energy. Concurrently, tax rates increased in order to fund these new expenditures.

Seythennian Reformation


Grand King Castor I signing the
royal constitution into law

On March 7, 2019, Severiu began to drastically restructure the nation in a process dubbed the "Seythennian Reformation". The legislature was even further limited and made almost purely ceremonial and powerless. He instated an absolute monarchy, turned Seythennia into a "Grand Kingdom", with himself as Grand King (a title equivalent to "king of kings" or emperor), and assumed the regnal name Castor I. Due to his wife, Queen Alexandra, being a member of the House of Ormund, they and their issue form the cadet House of Castor-Ormund. His nearly two-year-long reign is now referred to as the Castorian or Castorist era.

The administrative divisions of the country were overhauled; the formerly completely unitary state was divided into three constituent countries: the Archduchy of Seythennia, the Principality of Marcolen, and the Kingdom of New Marigeda, each with the pre-1828 borders of their predecessors. The 10 existing states were remade as viceroyalties, and the viceroyalties of the constituent countries were given designations equivalent to their traditional precursors: voivodeships in Seythennia, commissariats in Marcolen, and marches in New Marigeda. Members of the House of Ormund and its cadet branches were given nobility; the then-current head of the House of Ormund was crowned Prince Johann IX of Marcolen, and the head of the House of Marigeda-Ormund was crowned King Thomas II of New Marigeda. Grand King Castor I crowned his son Archduke Phillip I of Seythennia.

To mark this upheaval, the flag of Seythennia was changed for the first time in its history, causing large amounts of backlash, and the capital was moved to St. Vincent from Seythennia City. Seythennia began enacting colonialist policies, and established the colonies of Kingsland, Karinasburg, and New Vincent. Interventionist policies were enacted as well, and the Castorist government began reacting to even minor transgressions with war and takeover; puppet regimes were established in neighboring countries.

The Grand King reorganized the Nationalist Party into National Salvation, which operated as a non-party, in order to govern Seythennia as a non-party state. The government's propaganda machine moved towards a revisionist view of the Duchy and Kingdom of Sothan, while hypocritically continuing to revere Nikolaus Sey, and began to create a personality cult around the new Grand King. Government-controlled religious figures began to paint him as the reincarnation of Sey as well as many of the famous and infamous monarchs of Sothan. With authoritarianism rising even further, Seythennia left the World Assembly on April 19, 2019; the country would re-join the WA the next year. By the end of April, the Seythennian Reformation was declared finished.

"The Festivus Coup"

At midnight on December 23, 2020, a contingent of Royal Army soldiers led by Archduke Philip I stormed the royal palace and fought their way to the Grand King's chambers, where he was forced to abdicate his throne. The Archduke, taking the regnal name Joseph, took control of the country and has begun to centralize and "normalize" the country; his first acts were to change the national flag to one similar to that of the Federal Republic, dissolve the constituent countries, and change the royal titles to the more conventional King, Queen, Prince, Princess, etc. used around the world; the country was accordingly renamed the Kingdom of Seythennia. The coup had been extensively planned - the leading co-conspirators created a far-reaching web of contacts and inside sources in critical positions necessary to consolidate control and prevent Castorist loyalists from posing a threat. The political ideology of dynamism (from Greek dynamis, the "will to fight") was created in order to provide a cohesive set of guiding principles for the state to abide by under King Joseph. Dynamism calls for unity through equality and Seythennian nationalism, channeled through traditional self-improvement of the nation as was common in the Federal Republic. In terms of foreign policy, it advocates for non-interventionism and normalization of relations with other nations.

Demographics



Population

Seythennia's Ministry of Demographics estimates the population of Seythennia to be over 13.879 billion (13,879,000,000) as of April 23, 2023, placing it in the top 9% of nations worldwide. The government has attempted to keep the country's population in check through bans on both immigration and emigration; foreigners are not allowed to enter Seythennia (aside from tourists), but citizens are also not allowed to move to other countries.

Most Seythennians live in urban areas, including suburbs. Due to the country's large population, the biggest cities have become megalopolises, or mega-cities; the St. Vincent metropolitan area has an estimated over 1 billion inhabitants. A notable amount of Seythennians live in rural areas, contributing to Seythennia's thriving agriculture sector.

Language

English is the de facto national language and the most widely spoken; 73% of the population, or about 8.485 billion people speak English as a first language. The second most common language is Romanian, which is spoken by 13% of the population. The remaining population speaks either Portuguese (11%) or some other language. Romanian and Portuguese are the most widely taught second languages in Seythennia, and 42% of Seythennians claim to speak at least two languages (including English).

During his reign, Grand King Castor I considered creating a constructed Seythennian language, to be used by the whole nation. However, due to his forced abdication, this never came to fruition. Declassified documents revealed that this Seythennian language would have been an agglutinative language (where words are formed by combining root words with affixes) with subject-verb-object order. It would have made use of a modified Cyrillic script, with the addition of the Old-Middle English, Icelandic, and Faroese letter Đ (eth) to represent dental fricatives - the "th" in "Seythennia".

Family structure

As of 2020, 62% of Seythennians aged 18 or older are married, 20% have never been married, 15% are divorced, and 3% are widowed. Marriage is mostly unrestricted but seen as a very sacred bond; polygamy and same-sex marriage are fully legal, and from 1808 until the passage of the Cease Unacceptable Youth Marriages (CUNY) Act in 1979, teenagers aged at least 14 could marry with the consent of their father. All parents are guaranteed six months of paid maternity or paternity leave. Adoption is somewhat common and relatively easy from a legal point of view, being available to all adults aged 25 or older who can pass required mental, criminal, financial, and moral screening (though women aged 18-24 may still adopt if married to a male who is old enough). 7% of Seythennians are adopted, though this statistic includes the relocations of children whose parents had forcibly disappeared; other adoptions make up 1.8% of all Seythennians.

Health

Seythennia has a very high life expectancy and has a lower death rate than 99% of nations worldwide, and 99% of nations in the South Pacific, with a score of 17.86 on the Bus Surprisal Index as of April 2023. The average lifespan is 93.49 years. The highest cause of death in Seythennia is disappearance, which accounts for 67.8% of reported deaths. The next highest causes of death are old age with 26% of deaths, being lost in the wilderness with 5.2% of deaths, and war with 0.7% of deaths.

Government and politics



Seythennia is an absolute monarchy headed by a King or Queen. Before 2019, Seythennia was a federal republic with a representative democratic system of government. The establishment of a monarchy coincided with the ongoing democratic backsliding, loss of freedoms, and increasing corruption since the Nationalist coup; Seythennia is in the top 2% most corrupt nations worldwide, and in the bottom 7% in terms of political freedom, as of April 2023.

The central government is composed of two branches:

  • Legislative: The unicameral National Parliament only drafts laws and is subservient to the reigning monarch.

  • Executive: The King or Queen is commander-in-chief of the military, enacts or vetoes laws, appoints members of government, and has absolute power over the country.

The post-Reformation National Parliament has 225 voting members, 15 of each representing a district for life or until resignation or removal from office. During the Federal Republic, the bicameral National Parliament consisted of the Common House with 487 voting members, and the Upper House with 47 voting members.

The country consists of 15 districts, 4 dependencies, and 3 colonies. During the Federal Republic, districts had varying levels of autonomy, but were always subservient to the federal government in any disputes. The ebb and flow of the relationship between districts and the central government correlated with the rule of different parties; parties such as the Social Democrats and the Federalist Party were generally pro-district autonomy while the Whig Party and Alternative Party, and the Nationalists, favored the central government. Just before the Nationalist Party coup d'état, districts had a high degree of autonomy as long as they didn't interfere with the central government's primacy, including the right to secession, albeit in a lengthy process involving multiple votes requiring supermajorities, including a district's population voting on whether to hold a vote on secession.

The King of Seythennia holds absolute power over the country, and usually appoints the high-level officials. The line of succession is hereditary, with male primogeniture. The heir apparent holds the title of Prince or Princess, and usually oversees the National Parliament and central ministries. The ministers of the central government are appointed by either the monarch or heir apparent and serve either for life or until resignation or removal from office.

As Seythennia has no court system, the judicial branch of the government is nonexistent, with power of law interpretation being vested in the executive branch. In Seythennia, law interpretation usually takes the form of enacting additional laws or addenda to laws which serve to interpret and define the extents of the laws to which they apply. Because of this, the full texts of laws tend to be extremely long-winded and extensive. Law enforcement is extremely effective in Seythennia, where crime is totally unknown due to large strides in public services and education, and jails and prisons are not used. In the rare event that a crime has been committed, the criminal is punished with fines, suspension of wages, forced labor, physical punishment, exile, or death, at the discretion of the Central State Police (CSP) officer that is present. Officers have little oversight in sentencing criminals, and many forced abductions and executions at the hands of the CSP occur as a result.

Monarchy

The current ruling monarch and head of state is King Joseph, who ascended to the throne after the forced abdication of his father, Grand King Castor I. His consort is Queen Karina.


Royal standard of the King of Seythennia
The full style and title of the present sovereign is "Joseph, of the House of Castor-Ormund, King of Seythennia". The monarch, royal consort, and heir apparent are referred to as "His/Her Majesty", and all other members of the royal family as "His/Her Royal Highness". Regnal numbers were traditionally (during both the Kingdom of Sothan and the Castorian era) applied even when there has only been one holder of a monarch's name, but King Joseph has broken that custom. The heir apparent and their consort hold the titles of Crown Prince/Princess of Seythennia; the current heir apparent is Crown Prince Adam. The monarch and their immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial, diplomatic and representational duties. As the monarchy is absolute, the monarch's power is unlimited and only bestowed upon individuals and institutions for convenience; the monarch has the ability to micromanage every aspect of Seythennia if they so choose.

Political divisions


Districts of Seythennia

Seythennia is divided into 15 districts. During the Castorian era, there were briefly ten divisions, collectively referred to as "viceroyalties" and given different names in each constituent country. However, with King Joseph's centralization of Seythennia, the viceroyalties were standardized, and borders were redrawn so that some were divided or, in the case of Wallenland, split between two neighboring districts. The capital city of St. Vincent was previously a federal district not a part of any viceroyalty, but as a part of King Joseph's reforms it was given its own district synonymous with the city itself for the sake of consistency. It is made up of a peninsula and two islands between the districts of Vincent and Seysmark, and is directly governed by the royal government.

Seythennian colonies are not counted among the districts, and do not have representation in the National Parliament, but citizenship is granted upon birth in all colonies. Seythennia also has one dependency, the Dependency of the Outlying Islands, which is made up of the Isles of Azor and Osphoru, and the Territory of Dukes. The Dependency of the Outlying Islands has existed since 1889, and similarly to a colony is neither counted among the districts nor given representation in Parliament, and citizenship is given upon birth as well.

Eastmark
Imperio
Marcolen
Marigeda
Nikolaus

Philippia
Rutland
Seysmark
Silver Coast
Sothan

St. Vincent
Vincent
West Point
Westmark
Willand

Kingsland

Karinasburg

New Vincent

Outlying Islands

Azor

Osphoru

Dukes

Parties and elections

Currently, Seythennia is officially a "non-party state" in which all political parties are banned. Formerly a one-party state under the Nationalist Party before the Seythennian Reformation, Grand King Castor I reorganized the Nationalist Party into the National Salvation organization, which functions more as a political wing of the government rather than holding power over it as it did before. The reigning King Joseph is currently reorganizing National Salvation to adhere to the ruling ideology of dynamism. Membership is neither compulsory nor required to hold authority in Seythennia. Under this system, elections are not held as public positions are appointed by the central government.

Seythennia had operated under a multi-party system for most of its history. During the Federal Republic, the major parties in Seythennia were the progressive Social Democrats, the center-right Alternative Party, the Communist Party of Seythennia, and the centrist Whig Party. During the early-to-mid 2010s, the Nationalist Party rose from fringe obscurity to become the single party with the largest share of votes in the 2016 elections. A variety of smaller parties also existed in Seythennia, the most notable being the center-left Federalist Party, the environmentalist Greens, the Marigedese Heritage Party, the Libertarian Party, and the National Monarchist Alliance. Elections in Seythennia took place every leap year on February 29. Because of this, all elected offices had terms of four years, and those elected before the turns of most centuries had an added four years to their term. This had only happened once, in 1900. Seythennian politicians had no term limits, and on several occasions local or statewide politicians had been repeatedly reelected to serve their constituents for life.

Government finance

Taxation in Seythennia is levied by the central government and is largely based on income. The average income tax rate is 97.2%. Currently, government expenditure is ϻ1.171 quadrillion per year, or 44.4% of GDP. Major categories of spending include: education (17.3%), administration (11.9%), welfare (11.8%), healthcare (11.8%), and the environment (10.3%).

Military

The King is the supreme commander of the country's armed forces and appoints its leaders and the Minister of Defense. The Defense Ministry administers all branches of the armed forces, as well as the Seythennian space program. At least two years of military service are required for all citizens over the age of 18, and those who choose not to continue serving on active duty are placed in reserve. The Seythennian armed forces have gained increased funding since the end of the Federal Republic, and have recently undertaken greatly increased training exercises and war games in order to improve their effectiveness and ability for rapid deployment. The establishment of Seythennia's colonial empire has increased the number of military deployments abroad.

Seythennia's defense budget of ϻ104.219 trillion puts it at the top 5% of the world's military spenders, and the arms manufacturing sector is in the top 4% worldwide. The country also claims the right to develop, hold, and use weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

Law enforcement and crime

Law enforcement in Seythennia is completely under the control of the central government, and there are police stations in every city and township nationwide. Basic law enforcement is normally handled by the Central State Police (CSP) while agencies such as the Royal Security Agency (RSA) focus more on foreign threats against national security. The ruthlessly effective State Cohesion Agency (SCA), which upholds domestic security and surveillance, has been called a secret police agency because of its role in arresting political criminals.

Seythennia is in the top 4% of the world's nations in terms of law enforcement, with a score of 8,270.26 on the Orwell Orderliness Index. Concurrently, the country is also in the world's bottom 1% in terms of crime rate, with 1.52 crimes per hour across Seythennia. Citizens are very reluctant to break the law; with 117.03 law-abiding acts per hour, Seythennia is in the top 2% of the world's most compliant nations. However, Seythennia also ranks extremely highly in terms of youth rebelliousness (top 4%) and black market activity (top 4%), and low on safety (bottom 15%).

Corporal punishment and capital punishment are sanctioned in Seythennia for certain crimes. Law enforcement is extremely effective in Seythennia, where crime is totally unknown due to large strides in public services and education, and jails and prisons are not used. In the rare event that a crime has been committed, the criminal is punished with fines, suspension of wages, forced labor, physical punishment, exile, or death, at the discretion of the Central State Police (CSP) officer on scene. Officers have little oversight in sentencing criminals, and many forced abductions and executions at the hands of the CSP occur as a result. Those unlucky enough to be suspected of a crime in Seythennia are deemed guilty until proven innocent, which they must do (if lucky enough to be granted the opportunity) in a country where the truth is determined by the government.

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