Albrennia

Commonwealth of Albrennia
Flag Seal of the Commonwealth
Motto: "Hope"
Anthem: I Vow To Thee, My Country
Location of Albrennia
Capital	Providence
Largest city	Wellfleet
Official languages	Rythenean
Ethnic groups	By ethnicity: 52.8% Mixed Auressian 14.8% Rythenean 9.6% Rocian/Aiyacan 7.2% Amand 5.4% Tyrnican 3.8% Songhan 3.3% Hwahan 3.1 % other
Demonym(s)	Albrennian
Government	Unitary Presidential Matthean Republic.
• Chancellor	Thomas Goodwin (R)
• Vice Chancellor	William Ames (R)
• Majority Leader	Nicholas Byfield (C)
• Chief Justice	Catherine Noyes
Legislature	Parliament of the Commonwealth
Stages of Independence from Rythene
• Instrument of Governance	15 May 1539
• Congress of Wedayen	7 October 1816
• 12th Amendment to Instrument of Governance	10 February 1817
• Treaty of Delhaven	21 July 1825
Area
• Total	2,019,286 km2 (779,651 sq mi) (5th)
Population
• 2020 estimate	80,631,224 (4th)
• 2015 census	79,130,514
• Density	39.9/km2 (103.3/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	2020 estimate
• Total	$5.159 trillion (1st)
• Per capita	$63,985
GDP (nominal)	2020 estimate
• Total	$5.275 trillion (1st)
• Per capita	$65,426
Gini (2020)	48.8 high
HDI (2020)	0.925 very high
Currency	Albrennian Guilder (ALG)

Albrennia, officially the Commonwealth of Albrennia, colloquially often simply the Commonwealth, is a sovereign state and presidential republic in Northeast Marceaunia Major. Situated on the Albren Peninsula, of which it is geographically coterminous, Albrennia is bordered by the Hesperian Ocean to the east, north, and south; by the Gulf of Colrain to the southwest; by Rowlands Bay to the northwest; and by the Lamont Range and [???] to the west. The Commonwealth is a unitary state consisting of of nine major metropolitan administrations and 4,352 rural townships, which together cover an area of 2,019,286 square kilometers (779,650 sq mi) and encompass an estimated population of 80,631,224. It is the fourth-largest nation in Levilion by population, and the fifth-largest by area.

The Albren Peninsula was inhabited by North Marceaunian indigenous peoples from at least 3000 BCE. In 1460, the Rythenean explorer Rufus Albren discovered the peninsula, and all of Marceaunia along with it. From 1504, Rotiferist colonists from Rythene, committed to a heterodox and predestinarian strain of Perendism, settled the Albren Peninsula and established the oldest Auressian society in the New World - driving the indigenous population west of the Isthmus of Lamont in the process. Albrennia remained a Rythean colony for more than three centuries, but its republican government enjoyed substantial autonomy, and it became a center of global trade with a renowned merchant culture. It supported the Rythenean Revolution, contributed directly to the Rythenean war effort, and was granted independence in 1816 at the Congress of Vedayen in order to weaken Rythene's colonial empire.

In the nineteenth century, Albrennia rapidly industrialized and became a major hub for immigration from Auressia and Marceaunia Minor. It intervened repeatedly in Marceaunia Minor: pioneering a new brand of economic imperialism based on private companies' control of natural resources, and developing one of the world's most powerful navies - known simply as the Fleet - to defend its far-flung holdings. In the Panic of 1876, Albrennia suffered a devastating economic collapse, in the wake of which its economy became dominated by a small number of enormous, vertically integrated corporate conglomerates: the Pillars. The dominance of the Pillars generated a wave of labor unrest, finally resolved by the development of the economic and political structure known as the Matthean System. Albrennia was a member of the Coalition in the Great War and of the Allies in the Second Great War, and its naval power made an important contribution to victory in both conflicts. By the end of the twentieth century, Albrennia was a global center of finance and manufacturing, a naval power with reach across Levilion, and a key player in the global economy with interests and investments on every continent.

Albrennia is a unitary presidential constitutional republic, but international observers note its lack of political transparency and accountability, and Albrennian politics tend to be dominated by the Pillars, organized labor, and the permanent civil servants known as the Establishment. Albrennia is a founding member of the Assembly of Marceaunian States (AMS) and has economic, diplomatic, and military agreements with foreign governments around the world; it is especially active in resource-rich smaller nations. It is a confirmed nuclear weapons state and a naval power with few equals and no superiors; the Fleet receives more than 50% of government spending in an average year. It is officially recognized as a great power.

Albrennia is a developed country with Levilion's largest single economy both by nominal GDP ($5.275 trillion) and by purchasing power ($5.159 trillion) - though the overall economy of the Commonwealth of Northern Auressia is much larger than Albrennia's. The Albrennian economy is dominated by manufacturing (especially arms manufacturing and shipbuilding), the electronics and informatics industry, finance and insurance, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and science and technology. Albrennia has few natural resources and is the largest importer in Levilion; it also has the highest rate of investment in foreign nations as a percentage of GDP. It is noted for the Matthean System, in which each sector of the economy is dominated by a single corporate "Pillar" and a single compulsory labor union, and government-mediated corporatist negotiations between the Pillars and organized labor set wage floors, healthcare benefits, and other welfare programs that are publicly funded in many other countries. The system has provided Albrennian workers with a high standard of living, reflected in the nation's very high Human Development Index. But income inequality between the middle and upper classes remains high (Albrennia has more than 500 billionaires), and the Matthean System means that long-term household-wide unemployment can result in extreme poverty. Albrennia is regarded as an educational leader, with two of the ten highest-ranked universities in Levilion, and it has made major cultural contributions in the fields of music, film, and academic scholarship.

Etymology

Albrennia is named for Rythenean explorer Rufus Albren (1418-1469), who in 1460 discovered Maurceania when he made landfall near modern Sherborn. His subsequent voyages charted the outline of the Gulf of Colrain and Rowland's Bay. By 1490, early maps show that the hammerhead-shaped peninsula of northeastern Marceaunia Major was known as Albren's Land (later the Albren Peninsula). This was Sabarinized in official documents to become Albrennia. While many of the initial Rotiferist settlers wanted their new land to be called Rotifia, and while that name remains in occasional use as a rhetorical reference to traditional Albrennian values, it never caught on widely. Instead, by the 1530s, Rytheneans were referring to the colony as Albrennia - and, notably, to its inhabitants as Albrennians rather than Rytheneans. As the colonists came to think of themselves as Albrennian, so inevitably they came to think of their land as Albrennia. The 1539 Instrument of Governance - the origin of the Albrennian polity - declared that the government of the colony was "His Majesteie's Most Loyal Albrenyan Republicke." Ever since, Albrennia has been the only name used for the nation.

Albrennia is a "Commonwealth" in the historical sense: it is a republic, and "commonwealth" is a literal translation of the Ancient Sabarine res publica, a "public thing" or "shared thing." It is meant to indicate that the government is the shared business of all the citizens, and this meaning has been preserved by democratic reformers and labor activists throughout Albrennian history. Today, many Albrennians refer to their country simply as the Commonwealth, and in Marceaunia this term by itself is generally understood to mean Albrennia, not the Commonwealth of Northern Auressia. More rarely, Albrennians may shorten their country's name to Albren: this is most common in official contexts, and is understood to suggest a certain poetic and nationalist flair. A citizen of Albrennia is an Albrennian, and that term is also correct as applied adjectivally: "Albrennian ships," for example.

History

Main article: History of Albrennia

Indigenous Peoples and Early Settlement

It has been generally accepted that the first inhabitants of Marceaunia Major migrated from Marceaunia Minor by way of the Adrienne Land Bridge at least 12,000 years ago. By 4,000 years ago, the Paleoaborigines were present in the Albren Peninsula. Archeologists initially believed that the Harpswell Culture represented continuous habitation of the population by the same peoples ever since; it is now thought to be likely that the Harpswell Culture reflects merely the last of multiple waves of migration into the peninsula.

A village of the Hathawekala Confederacy.

Over time, indigenous culture and political organization in the Albren Peninsula grew increasingly complex. Agriculture became the basis of life: villages composed of longhouses, each housing an extended family unit, were surrounded by fields of maize and beans. Some time between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries, a great prophet named Dekkenorhawi led a religious revival, put an end to the practice of ritual cannibalism and the internecine warfare associated with it, and bound the tribes of the peninsula together into the Hathawekala Confederacy.

In 1460, the Rythenean explorer Rufus Albren made landfall near modern Sherborn, and became the first Auressian to set eyes on Marceaunia. In three subsequent voyages, he would successfully map the Albren Peninsula. Over the next forty years, Rythenean traders came into regular contact with the Hathawekala Confederacy. They brought disease as well as cooking pots and axes, and epidemics of smallpox and measles ravaged the area, reducing the Hathawekala population by half by 1500.

Meanwhile, Rythene found itself in religious turmoil. Following a reformist preacher named Walter Hartcliffe, a new branch of Classical Perendism had emerged: the Rotiferists. Meaning literally "those who follow the direction of the wheel," this term referred to a predestinarian movement. Hartcliffe preached that everything that really matters about the Earth is inevitable and irresistible: the changing of the seasons, the movement of the stars, the tide, the cycle of life and death. Therefore, spiritual balance cannot actually be within the attainment of the individual. All that a man can do is submit himself to the world, to understand its processes and surrender to them. If God so wills it, he will achieve balance, just as the sun rises and the winter turns to spring. If God does not will it, then "not every tree survives the winter," in the old Rotiferist aphorism.

Rufus Albren's first map of the northern Albren Peninsula.

Rotiferism inspired certain distinctive values. Since Rotiferists were constantly and anxiously examining themselves for signs that they were indeed in balance with the world, the denomination acquired a reputation for self-discipline and extremely hard work - the supposed signs of a balanced soul. Since they claimed to derive their predestinarian beliefs by rational deduction from the natural world, they regarded education and literacy as a sacred duty. The movement was dominated by the educated merchant classes, who considered their prosperity a sign of God's balancing work within them. In Rythene, as this reformist proto-bourgeosie ran up repeatedly against the aristocratic elite's hold on politics and religion, it came to feel that the only way to build a truly godly and balanced society was to start over.

In March of 1504, the caravel Springsong sailed from Delhaven with some three hundred Rythenean Rotiferists aboard. They had a safe crossing, and established a settlement at Newhaven. The Hathawekala Confederacy had fallen into disarray under the pressure of epidemic disease, and the colonists were able to play different indigenous factions off against each other, offering the aid of soldiers armed with steel weapons and horses in exchange for food and knowledge of local conditions. By 1515, the colony was firmly established and had begun attracting thousands of immigrants from Rythene per year: this influx consisted mostly of Rotiferists, but it also included many Classical Perendist families who simply wanted free land. By 1530, the eight original cities of the Commonwealth had been founded along the rocky Hesperian seaboard: Newhaven, Tolland, Alford, Colrain, Wellfleet, Lanesborough, and Sherborn. Within a generation of its founding, Albrennia had become self-sufficient in food and raw materials from Rythene. It was a functioning society in its own right.