Ninva

State of the Ninva ⴰⴷⴷⴰⵓⵍⴰⵜ ⵏ ⵏⵉⵏⵠⴰ Addawlat n Ninva (Tamashek)
Flag
Capital and largest city	Agnannet
Official languages	Tamashek
Recognised national languages	Randeshret Zarma Tedaga
Recognised regional languages	Tamahaq Tawellemmet Dazaga Darja Tichkalloɣat
Ethnic groups (2020)	40.2% Tenerians 19.4% Tebu 17.4% Zarma 15.3% Deshrians 4.1% Gharibs 2.4% Tichkans 1.2% Other
Demonym(s)	Ninvite
Government	Unitary dominant party constitutional monarchy
• Tamenokalt	Amina Harakkat ult Tanermat N'Okha
• Premier	Marus Ibiza ag Haqar
Legislature	Agraw Imgharan
Foundations
• Charnean Empire	17 March, 1360
• Awakari Empire	4 September, 1607
• State of the Ninva	13 August, 1853
Population
• 2022 estimate	50,023,983
• 2020 census	48,995,572
GDP (PPP)	estimate
• Total	$1,109.5 billion
• Per capita	$22,179.45
Gini	29.4 low
HDI	0.801 very high
Currency	Ninvite Azref (₳)
Date format	mm.dd.yyyy
Driving side	right

The State of the Ninva (Tamashek: ⴰⴷⴷⴰⵓⵍⴰⵜ ⵏ ⵏⵉⵏⵠⴰ, Addawlat n Ninva) is a landlocked country in central Scipia bordered by Aɣmatia to the northwest, Tyreseia to the north, Alanahr, Vardana and Fahran to the northeast, Kembesa and M'biruna to the east, and Itayana to the south. Geographically, country consists of the arid expanse of the eponymous Ninva Desert, the Agala highlands in the far south of the country, and a transitional semi-arid sahel belt stretching between the two. The Ninva extends halfway across the continent of Scipia from east to west, commanding many of the overland routes of travel between the densely populated southern Scipia and the wealthy Periclean states to the north. Ninvite government is a coalition of the region's four major ethnic groups, the Tenerians, the Tebu, the Zarma and the Deshrians, joined into a unitary state under the conditional rule of the Okha Clan, one of many dynasties that has governed the State of the Ninva and its numerous successor states. The Agraw Imgharan, the Ninvite legislature, allows political participation under a dominant party system by a variety of political parties representing various majority and minority ethnic and religious groups in the country. However, the Assembly of Progress and Development (Tamashek: ⴰⵍⵥⴰⵎⴰⵖⴰⵜ ⴼⴰⵍ ⴽⴰⵔⵔⴰⵙ ⵏ ⴻⴼⴻⵙ, Alzamaɣat fal Karras n Efes or AKE) has dominated the national elections and the Agraw Imgharan since 1982, limiting the role of the multi-party system in the de facto governance of the country.

The Ninvite economic model is best defined as developmental state capitalism, with strong and frequent intervention by the government in the economy both in a regulatory capacity and as a directive force. Ninva possesses a diversified middle income economy based on resource extraction, refining, manufacturing and a developing service sector. The nation experienced a period of rapid economic growth coinciding with a demographic explosion in the mid to late 20th century known as the 2nd Stride, but growth rates declined thereafter due to economic and political factors and the Ninva has since stabilized with only a low-moderate rate of population growth and cooling economy. The Okha government, installed in 2013, has perused a policy of renewed investment in the economy and has been seeking to develop the service sector of the Ninvite economy to limited success as part of the so-called 3rd Stride. Because the country is landlocked, the Ninvite economy relies instead on internal and external land routes developed with an extensive rail network traversing most of eastern and central Scipia across many national borders. The Ninva relies on these rail links to access shipping lanes via ports in neighboring countries in order to interact with the broader global economy in any significant way.

Sitting at the geographic confluence of northern, eastern and southern Scipia, the Ninva has always been a crossroads for trade and a hinterland region at the edge of many empires throughout history. Many of the important regional cities within the Ninva such as Agnannet, Azut, and Hamath, are all ancient urban centers that prospered as hubs for merchant caravans and trading posts frequented by the indigenous nomadic peoples of the desert, the ancestors of today's Tenerians and Tebus. Long overlooked by the Latin Empire and later the Almurid Caliphate, in the 14th century the Ninva desert became the seat of one of the greatest empires in Scipian history, the Charnean Empire. Under Ihemod the Inheritor and his heirs, the Tenerian Charneans ruled over roughly half of the Scipian continent for over a century from their capital at Agnannet. Although this zenith of Ninvite power on the world stage was relatively short lived compared to its predecessors, it revolutionized the backwater region of the continent. The Charnean rump state, the Awakari Empire, continued to rule the arid center of the continent for centuries after its predecessor's fall and eventually transitioned into the early State of the Ninva, sometimes called the Third Tenerian State, in the mid 19th century amid a wave of modernization and reform, the 1st Stride. In many ways, the Ninva has remained the outer frontier of the many polities surrounding it, while in others the modern state has rivaled its Ihemodian antecedents in its local prominence on the Scipian continent.

Etymology

The State of the Ninva takes its name from the Ninva Desert, itself a name of unknown origin. The name first appears in Deshrian inscriptions, describing the barren region to the west as Nishwa. It was adopted as the name for the new nation during the modernization and reform process of the old Akawari Empire, itself a rump state of medieval Charnea. Awakar is the name of a sandy region of the Tenere known as the Erg Awakar, itself a sub-region of the Ninva desert. The name Charnea has equally uncertain origins. The prevailing theory posits the name comes from Kel Kaharna, the united Tenerian tribal confederation that formed the Charnean Empire from its conquests beyond the Ninva.

Government

The basis of the State of the Ninva is the collaboration and power sharing agreement laid out between its four major ethnic groups, the Deshrians, Tenerians, Tebus and Zarma, written into in the Ekkozedes treaty, also called the Quadripartite treaty. The Ekkozedes was the first foundational document of the new state as the power of the old Tenerian absolute monarchy, the Awakari Empire, began to collapse in the mid 19th century. The new government system maintained those aspects of the Imperial system that were thought to provide political stability, while expanding multi-ethnic participation and majority rule, reinforced by the establishment of a limited democracy within the formerly autocratic country. The founding spirit of this agreement, the commitment to peaceful coexistence and collaboration predicated on common prosperity and mutual beneficence, remains the cornerstone of the modern Ninvite State. The notoriously pragmatic desert culture of the Ninva's native people has created a pervasive governing philosophy prioritizing economic expansion and stability, as well as the guaranteed provision of basic material needs to its citizens, above religious, cultural, ethnic and ideological considerations. This so called Radd-xaddam philosophy is clearly visible in the highly interventionist, state capitalist economic model that manifests tight regulation of the economy and widespread, long term industrial planning by the central authorities. This system is facilitated by some of the un-democratic features of the State of the Ninva, such as its executive monarch and well entrenched dominant party system that allow for some high officials to effectively operate outside the confining forces of electoral concerns and popularity, allowing them to create long term plans far exceeding the term length of any one publicly elected office. This demi-authoritarian, developmental capitalist model built to maximize revenue and growth was brought into existence by the pressures experienced by the early Ninva, which was surrounded on all sides by more populous, more powerful neighbors and itself lacked many sources of easy income with only meager oil and mineral deposits many of which were difficult to access or largely unexplored in the vastness of the landscape. Today, the success of Ninvite development has created a whole new set of pressures, such as the acute water shortage and other infrastructural problems created by the nation's meteoric population expansion as well as geopolitical vulnerability brought on by the nation's dependence on foreign imports to meet its needs, including food. The constant political and social vulnerability of the Ninvite state has kept its government system relatively authoritarian in its internal politics through the decades.

Diarchy

Executive power at the national level is divided through a system of corule that vests authority equally between the monarchic Tamenokalt and the democratically elected Premier. The system of "two-headedness" was conceived to prevent decapitation of the executive branch through political crisis, failure of leadership, the effects or corruption assassination and unforeseen death. Redundancy at the highest level of the national leadership was also intended to foster competition between the Imperial and democratic aspects of the Ninvite government model in the hopes that this would help mitigate the vulnerabilities of both, the nepotism and lack of accountability of the monarchy, and the corruptibility of democracy. The corule system also serves as a symbol, representing the marriage of the Imperial past and the modernist future that defines the Ninvite state and socioeconomic dynamics. However, the system also presents the possibility of "two-mindedness", the possible deadlocked opposition of the two heads of the government and their respective institutions. To prevent the possibility of institutional clashes within the government, both heads lead the same cabinet whose members must be approved by both leaders and may be recalled by only one, a measure intended to prevent factional division within the executive branch. This in turn raises the possibility of an executive system paralyzed by gridlock when its two heads are in conflict, a state of affairs that has struck the State of the Ninva on several occasions through its history. In the event this executive paralysis becomes to severe, the legislative assemblies of the Agraw Imgharan are vested with the power to intervene as the source of legitimacy to both rulers and more importantly, the organ vested with the power to appoint or recall both leaders by vote of the assembly.

The older of the two posts is the Tamenokalt, (Male: Amenokal), the Queen of the Ninva, an office that is the direct continuation of the line Awakari Empresses and the Charnean Empresses and Emperors. The title was effectively created by the great conqueror Ihemod the Inheritor in 1360 when he created the Charnean Empire from the Kel Kaharna tribal confederation that preceded it, however tradition laid down by Ihemod himself names Queen Kaharna of Tamazgha who reigned in the 5th century BCE as the founder of the title and of the empire, due to her deified role in Tenerian folk religion as the matron of all Amazigh peoples, Tenerians included. For this reason, all monarchs of the Ninva are styled "Heir of Ihemod, Child of Kaharna". The Ninvite monarchy, like those before it, operates under an elective system controlled by the Inushamen, the upper house of the modern Agraw Imgharan made up of Anushams, symbolic Clan Elders representing sub-groups of each of the four big ethnic groups and, as of 1985, each of the recognized minority groups in the country. These offices usually weild little power over a sitting Tamenokalt, as they generally only convene to elect a new Tamenokalt from the candidates that present themselves upon the death of the current monarch. However, they also have the power to hold a no confidence vote to force the current monarchs' abdication and hold a new election. Once elected, a Tamenokalt serves for life and holds equal executive powers to the Premier. Because of this, the Tamenokalt often influences more of the long term business of the executive branch as they can always wait out an unfavorable Premier.

The Ninvite Premier, equivalent to a prime minister, is elected by the lower house of the Agraw Imgharan, the Imaslan. Deputies of the Imaslan are representatives democratically elected in national elections, and must always be affiliated with a political party. While the deputies may vote for any candidate they choose, sometimes swayed by their constituents wishes, deputies in practice almost always vote in line with the party and for the party leader or the party's proffered candidate otherwise. The mandate of any Premier is to represent the will of their political party and more broadly the political institutions of the Ninva as a counterweight to the power of the Tamenokalt. Although their term in power is limited, there are no term limits for the office of Premier and so the party that elects them too office may continuously re-elect their chosen candidates to present a continuously challenge to monarchic power in the executive branch, at least so long as they can retain the electoral will within the Agraw. Vested with equal power to the Heir of Ihemod, the Premier is vested with the highest level of authority possible in the state of the Ninva and jointly oversees the Ninvite cabinet and the operations of the executive branch. Their executive power also generally makes the sitting Premier the party leader and head of the Agraw by default.

Agraw Imgharan

The Agraw Imgharan (Tamashek: ⴰⴳⵔⴰⵓ ⵉⵎⵖⴰⵔⴰl, "Council of Elders") of the Ninva is the legislative and deliberative body of the national government, and is vested with wide reaching powers over law and government policy in the country. It is a parliamentary body with two chambers and functions as the source of political legitimacy for the Premier. It also serves as a consultative assembly to the sitting Tamenokalt and the source of legal authority under the civil law system used by the Ninvite judiciary and legal system. While it does not directly administer any primary function of the state, the Agraw Imgharan can be considered the controlling entity of every component of the national government, exerting control over both heads of the executive branch and influencing the judicial system through the passage of laws that can shape and redefine functions of the legal system. The Agraw is also the main democratic institution in the State of the Ninva, and the vehicle through which democratic will and the popular mandate to rule is generated for the executive branch of the government. In the medieval Imperial system, the Agraw Imgharan was an assembly of powerful tribes and supporters of the Tamenokalt, and would convene to assist the monarch in administration and preside over matters of succesion and dynastic problems that may arise. This role is now taken up by the upper house of the Agraw, the Inushamen, while the newfound democratic powers of the assembly and the many elected deputies voted to fill its ranks sit in the new lower house, the large and influential Imaslan.

The Inushamen of the Agraw Imgharan are voted into office by a relatively limited electorate, and a small number are appointed. They are often informally reffered to as the "Internal Council", as the only voters permitted to vote in their elections are members of the civil service and the military, and membership in these organs of the government is prerequisite to stand for candidacy. Therefore, the Inushamen effectively represent specific groups of government workers and entire departments and agencies of the state, as well as formally representing military institutions within the legislature. Additionally, the sitting Tamenokalt has the authority to appoint certain members of the Internal Council, bolstering their influence in the Agraw. The Internal Council doesn't have the power to block or veto bills passing through the legislative process in the lower house, nor does the lower house need the approval of the Internal Council to pass these bills into laws. However, the Internal Council may propose legislation to the lower house, and plays a role in appointing some of the judges in the national judiciary, overall excercising greater authority over the juducial branch than the Imaslan.

The Imaslan are far larger than the Inushamen and meet more regularly, being the main body to actually undertake legislaion in the State of the Ninva. Its members, called deputies, are elected by national elections held every five years. National elections in the Ninva are conducted through a choose-one method, althoiugh local level elections may use other voting systems such as the increasingly popular ranked choice method, which was proposed to replace the choose-one system in 2017 but was defeated in referendum. More referendums on the matter are expected, as the ranked choice system continues to gain popularity among the electorate. One of the most important features of the electoral system specifically connected to the Imaslan is the National Elections Commission, the organ that administers voting districts and is responsible for overseeing elections. Because of the way this office is controlled, any party that gains a non-coalitional majority is able to control and modify the voting districts and election policies legally and openly. The ramifications of this system has created a dominant party system in which it is unusually easy for the currently dominant party in the Imaslan chamber to retain their majority and thereby control all powers of the assembly without the input of the rest of the assembly and any of the other parties. The eception to this is the power to declare war, which would require a supermajority of deputies and the approval of the Inushamen.

Demographics

Historical population
Year	Pop.	±%
23	805,006	—
651	908,261	+12.8%
1009	920,675	+1.4%
1515	1,323,082	+43.7%
1603	1,736,529	+31.2%
1698	2,284,922	+31.6%
1750	2,714,374	+18.8%
1805	3,044,513	+12.2%
1820	3,034,818	−0.3%
1840	3,238,890	+6.7%
1860	3,676,020	+13.5%
1880	4,231,048	+15.1%
1900	4,727,781	+11.7%
1920	7,102,411	+50.2%
1940	10,696,378	+50.6%
1960	19,648,367	+83.7%
1980	24,004,635	+22.2%
2000	38,307,623	+59.6%
2020	48,995,572	+27.9%

The population of the Ninva Desert grew very slowly over the centuries if at all due to the wide dispersal of the largely nomadic population, impossibility of agriculture in most of the region and general hostility of the environment inhibiting growth of the human population in the desert. In the early 19th century, a population decline was recorded between censuses for the first and only time in the history of the region, and the total population increased by only one quarter by the end of the century. Two events in the late 19th century led to a gradual rise in the rate of population growth, these being the reformation of the Awakari Empire into the State of the Ninva in 1853 and the discovery of gold in the Agala highlands in 1867. Mining and later oil extraction fueled the economic growth and urbanization in the Ninva, producing numerous boomtowns around the mining sector deep in the desert, connected to the outside world by rail lines and in 1898, the Great Scipian Railway. It was the 20th century that saw a major explosion in the Ninvite population, this time preceded by the adoption of highly interventionist state capitalist development model by the Ninvite regime in the 1920s and the subsequent development of the manufacturing sector in the great cities of the desert. The latter half of the 20th century in particular saw meteoric population growth which the economy and the government struggled to control, resulting in crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s provoked in part by external factors such as the upheaval brought by the Ninvite War. Although the rate of population growth has cooled off significantly in recent decades, the Ninva nevertheless has grown by approximately 44 million people or an increase of over 1000% since 1900. This dramatic demographic explosion has all but revolutionized every aspect of life in the Ninva and permanently changed the character of the country.

The question of ethnicity in the Ninva can at times be complicated. As the crossroads of the Scipian continent, the region of the Ninva Desert is extremely diverse both religiously and culturally, remaining divided on ethnoreligious grounds into the modern day. Even whole ethnic groups such as the Tenerians are themselves amalgamations of many different sub-groups and peoples, united by historical circumstance and later a common language and cultural touchstones based on the realities of desert life. The Kel Tenere are the dominant ethnic group of the Ninva, making up 40% of the population at 20 million. The Tebu are the second largest group, with just under 10 million persons, and are a closely related desert dwelling pastoralist group with historical ties to the Tenerians and commonalities of culture yet distinct due to an unrelated language. Zarma inhabit the south of the country, having historically formed sedentary states in the Agala highlands and the sahel, along with the ancient Deshrians who inhabited the eastern Ninva and dispersed into the desert, persisting in oasis towns within the Ninva long after the fall of their bronze age civilization. These four ethnic groups, while less than half of the total number of ethnicities present in the Ninva, make up over 90% of the Ninvite population. Part of the reason for this is the two centuries old peace treaty known as the Ekkozedes between these four ethnicities and their many respective clans and tribes, which was reaffirmed upon the foundation of the State of the Ninva, the basis of which was cooperation between the elites of the big four ethnic groups within the state, previously dominated only by Tenerian clans. At the time, what are now the big four ethnicities made up less than 40% of the population of the whole region, but experienced demographic expansion and assimilated many outside groups as a result of these groups exaggerated political representation in the State of the Ninva as a result of the Ekkozedes. Only certain minority groups, specifically the Tichkans and the Gharibs of the Ninva, have remained in numbers exceeding 1 million persons, having partially benefitted from the population expansion to a lesser extent than the big four. Many other native groups, as well as immigrant groups, exist in the State of the Ninva numbering in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

The Ninva was for most of its history an extremely undeveloped and low density region inhabited mainly by small tribes made up of a few family groups migrating across the desert from place to place, seldom staying in one place for longer than a few months. The demographic exposition of the so called Three Strides turned this dynamic on its head, leading to a sweeping urbanization of the Ninvite population into densely populated boomtowns in the late 19th and early 20th century, urban centers which were transformed into industrial centers of increasingly complex manufacturing as the 20th century went on. The process of urbanization was catalyzed by subsistence pastoralists of the desert generally living very hard lives and pursuing unlucrative careers migrating into the nascent urban centers lured by the promise of great wealth of the gold rush and other mining expansion, and later the promise of a better life and a steady factory job compared to the relative poverty and uncertainty of survival experienced by pre-modern desert pastoralists. The further these cities developed, the more the outlying tribes migrated into them, promoting their growth and demographic explosion further, until even groups beyond the Ninva were drawn to the promise of prosperity associated with the Ninvite cities. Today, the State of the Ninva has a population that is over 95% urban. Since the decline of mining towns and increasingly concentrated industrial centers, the population has likewise become increasingly consolidated in a small number of large cities, with the top ten cities accounting for roughly 80% of the entire country's population.

Religion

Religion in the Ninva
Religion			Percent
Tamddaism			71%
Neterism			8%
Amanist Judaism			2%
Timal Ibaran			12%
Other			2%

Sitting at the confluence of the Scipian interior, the Ninva is and has always been a religiously diverse place. The oldest faith of the Ninva is Neterism, the modern from of the ancient Deshrian pantheon. Temples of the Neterist religion are among the oldest surviving manmade structuctures in the Ninva, and indeed the entire world. The earliest recognizable form of this faith can be dated to aproximately 3,200 BCE, and has been observed continuously since that time in various forms and variations evolving through the centuries, featuring altered or expanded versions of the same original pantheon and sets of customs. An estimated 4 million Neterists continue to uphold this tradition, the overwhelming majority of these being ethnic Deshrians. Judaism first appeared in the lands of the Ninva some time during the reign of Queen Kaharna in the 5th century BCE, in the form of exiles fleeing the land today known as Yisrael. According to surviving jewish texts from this era, the exiles were welcomed by the Amazigh Queen and granted refuge in the desert cities of old Tamazgha. These Ninvite jews would, over the ensuing millenia, develop into the Amanist sect of Judaism which is today observed by over 1 million Ninvites, many of them ethnic Tichkans or Tenerians and many of them concentrated in the city of Tiernyah in eastern Ninva. A comparatively much more recent religious introduction but one no less relevant than its ancient counterparts was the first appearance of the White Path, a Mutulese religion propagated in the Ninva by a semi-mythical figure known as the Desert Oracle in the 17th century. The White Path, or Timal Ibaran as it is known in Tamashek, experienced a rapid increase in popularity, secretly encouraged by the rulers of the Awakari Empire and the shadowy Tenerian cult known as the 300 Arms, today becoming the second largest religion in the Ninva and fostering close cultural ties to otherwise distant Mutul. The final, largest and newest Ninvite religion is Tamddaism, the "Vulture Cult", seeing its origin in the early 18th century as a syncretic religious movement of White Pilgrim Tenerians. Tamddaism combines cosmological, philosophical and theological aspects primarily of the White path and Neterism, but also influences of Amanist Judaism and Azdarin and even ancient Tenerian folk religion. It grew extremely quickly amongst the Tenerian and later Tebu and Zarma populations in the Ninva, rapidly becoming the majority religion by the end of the 18th and begining of the 19th centuries and retaining this title to the present day, having even converted portions of the Tichkan and Deshrian populace from their traditional ethnic religions.