Saukania

Tokaura Kathunan Saukanian Alliance
Flag Seal
Capitals	Dautan (religious) Khodan (summer capital) Kula (winter capital)
Type	Confederation of Tokaura states
Members	Acha Dathan Erya Ghulashan Khodan Kula Muridan Rhegan Sardash Sashan Tushan
Establishment	1847
Area
•	1,116,863 km2 (431,223 sq mi)
Population
• 2024 estimate	47,413,000
• Density	42.45/km2 (109.9/sq mi)

The Saukanian Alliance (Tokaura Kathunan), informally known by its toponym Saukania, or more rarely Tokaurasartha, is a confederation located in the Ghuran-Argan region of northwest Thrismari. The Alliance is comprised of eleven self-governing city-states.

Saukania has a total land area of 1,116,863 square kilometres (431,223 square miles) and a population of 47.4 million people. The climate of Saukania is continental arid and semi-arid, with limited annual precipitation. The majority of the population is concentrated in oases and along river valleys which are the primary source of irrigation and human habitation. The Alliance is landlocked, though it is bounded on its south-southeastern side by the inland Argan Sea. Saukania is bordered by Niater to its northeast, Sarocca to its northwest, Shirua to its south, and Talgiristan to its east-southeast.

The geography of Saukania includes large stretches of shrub-sandy and gravel desert in the centre and north of the territory, with grassy and shrub-steppe further south and along the foothills of the Ghuran Mountains, as well as around the Kulean Highlands. Saukania's rivers are its most vital landforms, and the country's Latin-Common name derives from its most significant river, the Sauka. Limited precipitation has forced dependence upon both Saukania's natural perennial rivers and irrigation canals sourced from their water.

Saukania has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic. Numerous ancient civilisations have arisen in the country, such as the Sauka Valley Civilisation. The Saukanian-speaking peoples have given rise to many dynasties, hegemonies, and regional empires. The Augasian Empire, the oldest attested, is regarded as a pinnacle of ancient Saukanian culture, and has served as a benchmark for many successive states. The most recent influential polity prior to the foundation of the Alliance was the Third Empire of Vapna.

The Alliance was founded in 1847 by the eleven "high" city-states at Dautan, an important Saukanian religious site. The Dautan Oath became the basis of an alliance with a clear Saukanian character. Its formation has been attributed to the rise of powerful 19th century states and their activities within Thrismari. The Dautan Oath preserves the sovereign and independent character of its constituent states in domestic affairs, while pledging to act as a unified body on the international theatre and in matters such as trade, defence, and diplomacy. The Saukanian Alliance is a hybrid of confederal and federal systems, with each member-state sending representatives to a council, which must act unanimously in the collective interest. With an assembly of citizens, there is a democratic tradition to the Alliance's government and operation. However a traditional landed aristocracy remains socially and politically dominant over the respective states.

Modern Saukania possesses a still agriculture-heavy economy. A little over half of the country is urban, and this number is steadily increasing. Saukanian exports include food, alcohol, and finished goods such as textiles. Saukanian carpets are a prominent cultural export. Tourism to Saukania forms a sizeable aspect of its economy, its largest cities possessing a staggering wealth of hospitality and service-oriented businesses. Archaeological sites are a major draw of tourism, as are natural geography sites including the Ghuran Mountains.

Saukanians form the majority of the population, sharing an ethnocultural and ethnoreligious identity, though with strong regional and local identities centred on the city-state or the tribe. Tradition is valued in Saukanian culture, and is the basis of a code of conduct and ethnic self-expression known as Tokauratarya. Core concepts of Tokauratarya include hospitality for guests, retaliation against injury, sirauna (a masculine ideal analogous to the Latin virtus), and safeguarding the honour (kasauwe) of women.

Name

Main article: Names of Saukania

The Common-language toponym "Saukania" is derived from the Sauka river, whose valley is of disproportionate importance in the country's history, culture, and identity. The demonym "Saukanian" is subsequently derived from this Common-language name.

In older parlance, it is only the plain of the Sauka river valley that is known as Saukania. In modern times, this area is sometimes called "Saukania Proper" or more frequently the alternative toponym Saukiana. The application of the toponym to neighbouring regions in modern Saukania owes itself to the cultural influence of Saukiana as the homeland of the Saukanian people.

In their own language, the Saukanians call their country Tokaurasartha, meaning "the Tokaura expanse/region/territory". Tokaura, or in Common-language, "Tokauran", is the native endonym of the Saukanian peoples, transcending the divisions of the ariyi. The country of Saukiana within Tokaurasartha is called Saukavya or Saukasartha.

Generally, Saukanians use their native endonym and toponym, though the Alliance accepts use of the Common-language signifiers of the land and people in international discourse, accepting "Saukania" and "Saukanian" as synonymous with "Tokaurasartha" and "Tokaura" respectively.

History

Main article: History of Saukania

Prehistory

Further information: Ancient history of Saukania and Archaeological sites in Saukania

Stone Age

The Kagana caves in southwestern Saukania contain the oldest known confirmed anatomically modern humans in Saukania, with the remains dating back to 61,000 years ago. Middle and Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers are known to have inhabited regions of Saukania more or less consistently, though evidence of continued subsistence is at times sparse. Mesolithic hunter-gatherer cultures have a much more visible presence in the archaeological record of Saukania, and continue their presence into the early Neolithic until replaced by the first local farming communities.

Sauka Valley Civilisation

Saukania and its adjacent regions witnessed the rise of some of the earliest sophisticated cultures and civilization in Thrismari, despite the environmental aridity, due to the fertility of the rivers that drained into the Argan Sea. By far the most significant of these in Saukanian history was the Sauka Valley Civilisation (SVC), also known as Attarasa. A complex and urbanized civilisation with street planning, religious art, and an undeciphered language, the Attarasans flourished between c. 2300 BC to c. 850 BC, reaching their apex in the mid-2nd millennium BC. Having originated in the Sauka valley, where most of their sites are clustered, they were also present in the Apria and Kria river valleys. The Attarasans also possessed small outposts on the southern side of the Ghuran mountains. In total some 800 sites have been identified with the Sauka Valley Civilisation, well-preserved owing to the dry conditions. The decline of the civilisation in the early 1st millennium BC has been attributed to a multitude of factors, including climate change, and the influx of migratory waves of Saukanian-speakers.

Saukanian migrations

The "pre-Proto-Saukanians" are thought to have migrated into Saukania between c. 1300-1100 BC, and have been associated with the Sagana culture, located in the upper Sauka valley. This culture is believed to be the Urheimat of the Proto-Saukanian language and the cradle of the Tokauran ethnocultural identity. Based on archaeological and genetic evidence, the Sagana culture has been connected with the Yagaura civilisation, another sophisticated urban complex situated on the southern side of the Ghurans, which declined between 1400 and 1200 BC.

From c. 950 BC, Sagana artefacts and archaeological offshoots begin diffusing throughout Saukania's river valleys, attesting to a migration of significant scale as the Proto-Saukanians overrun and absorb the declining Attarasans. For the subsequent four centuries, the Proto-Saukanians diverge and adopt differing dialects and unique cultural innovations, assimilating Attarasan artistic, religious, and political structures. Urban settlement, temporarily diminished, begins to resurge towards the end of this migratory period. The obscure period between c. 800 and c. 450 BC has been associated with the so-called Saukanian heroic age, a formative period for Saukanian mythology and folklore as narrated by some of the earliest surviving Saukanian epics.

Ancient Saukania

By the late 4th century BC, the Proto-Saukanians had diverged from one another, and given rise to several closely related yet ethnoculturally distinct civilisations. The greatest and best known of these are Apriana, Kriana, and Saukiana. From these early days, the political disunity that is characteristic of Saukanian history is immediately apparent, as all three regions were comprised of independent or autonomous city-states. These city-states were the early form of the ariyi. The first few centuries of this period are attested only retroactively by writers from the late 1st century BC onward, and blend back into the mythological heroic age. By the time of this growth in literary material, all three regions were well-established collective polities. Coherent cultural identities are attested within Apriana, Kriana, and Saukiana, even as they remained politically fragmented. At any given time however, one or two city-states within each civilisation tended to be militarily and economically dominant, sometimes directly absorbing smaller city-states into their state as autonomous subjects, while confederating more powerful yet still weaker rivals. Rivalries between these major or "high cities" were well-established decades before the first accounts of their conflicts, and the networks of allies and subjects commanded by cities like Augas, Khauaspa, Nisauma, and Vapna, were frequently drawn into their masters' wars.

Geography and climate

Main article: Geography of Saukania

Saukania is situated in northwestern Thrismari, and has a land area of 1,116,863 square kilometres (431,223 sq mi). The country is landlocked. Saukania lies between longitudes 43° and 59°W and latitudes 22° and 32°S.

Physical geography

Saukania's landscape is dominated by a vast area of desert land commonly called the Saukanian Plain. The deserts comprise fine-grained sedimentary rocks overlain by sand dunes and sand sheets. Vegetation is thinly distributed, consisting primarily of xerophytic scrubs and short grasses. These plants serve as pasture for desert-adapted sheep, camels, and horses. Most of the desert areas are unsuitable for agriculture except along the riparian zones and oases of the Apria, Kria, and Sauka river systems, which carve their way eastward and southward through the desert after rising from a network of connected valleys in the Ghuran mountain range to the southwest, and provide more ideal environments for human habitation and crop cultivation. These three major rivers drain into the Argan Sea and provide most of the country's water resources. The Ghuran Mountains form a crescent in Saukania's southwest, forming the core of a highlands region which decreases in elevation along the course of the major rivers and their tributaries into the fertile and densely populated valley foothills at their base. This southern region of Saukania is more steppe-like, with areas of wooded and forested vegetation. In the east are Kulean Highlands, the source of a number of minor rivers.

Virtually all of Saukania is located above sea level, at an average of 323 metres. The Saukanian Plain, while mostly flat, has lower depressions at the centre of small endorheic basins as well as small hills that vary the landscape's relief. The lowest average elevation occurs around the coast of the Argan Sea.

Climate

Saukania experiences very dry arid continental climactic conditions. Significant fluctuations in temperatures during the day and the year are observed as the norm. In general, Saukania has very cold winters and hot summers, typical of a semiarid steppe climate. The daytime summer temperature rarely falls below 30°C (86.2°F). Winter temperatures regularly drop below freezing, especially in the southwest of the country. Cloud coverage is minimal, and Saukania experiences an annual average of 321 days of sunshine. Precipitation occurs mainly in the spring and ranges from about 3 inches (80 millimetres) per year in the northern desert to as much as 17 inches in the mountains.

The scarcity of water results in a highly varied population distribution. Most people live along the fertile banks and delta regions of the rivers or in fertile mountain foothills in the southwest. Few people live in the vast arid expanses of central and northern Saukania.

Environmental issues

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Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Saukania

Saukania's population is estimated at 47.4 million as of 2024. The majority of this population is concentrated in the fertile foothills of the Ghuran mountains, the riparian oases along the lengths of the major river systems, or in the deltas of those systems. Most of Saukania's land area is either sparsely inhabited or completely uninhabited.

The urban-rural divide in Saukania is approximately half, with an estimated 52.3% of the population living in urban environments. As the Saukanian polities are organised as city-states, this includes those urban areas within a city-state's jurisdiction which do not have equal designation to the seat of political power. Despite a long history of such sociopolitical organisation, Saukania has traditionally only been relatively more urbanized than various surrounding peoples, owing to the dry conditions of the country. Industrialisation came relatively late, and alongside it, the pressures and incentives motivating significant large-scale immigration to the cities from the countryside. While cities had always been the centre of handicraft and metallurgical industrial activity, the majority of the population remained engaged in agricultural work in the many thousands of villages and smaller towns throughout the country.

Approximately 3.3% of the population of Saukania live nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyles. These are animal herders living around the fringes of the desert plains, grazing their herds on the hardy desert grasses and shrubs and steppe flora. Nomadic groups were once larger relative to the urban population, though the Saukanian population boom of the late 20th century radically increased the sedentary population's majority status. In addition, many nomads have settled down within the territory of the city-state they inhabit, in many cases completely assimilating or only partially retaining aspects of their nomadic culture. While nomadic interactions with sedentary rural populations in villages and towns are usually cordial, with exchange and sale of goods between communities, tensions and conflict are not unknown. Expansion of irrigation projects into traditional pasture lands in order to sustain the growing sedentary population threaten nomadic lifestyles. Rural populations are in turn often suspicious or mistrustful of Saukanian nomads. Incidents of bride abduction involving nomadic men and rural women and girls are rare, but when reported, often result in outrage as the victim community perceives itself dishonoured, and such incidents can lead to retaliations and violence.

Population growth in Saukania is high, averaging 1.67% annually. Fertility is a major contributor to this growth. The total fertility rate for 1960 has been estimated at 7.6 children per woman, falling to 4.3 in 2010, and an estimated 3.7 as of 2020. This growth has diminished with the decline in maternal and infant mortality rates, while longer lifespans attributed to healthcare improvements are also a significant contributor to the higher population.

Women slightly outnumber men, at a male-female ratio of approximately 0.97. Women in general also have longer life expectancy.

Ethnicity

Main articles: Saukanians, Ethnicity in Saukania, and Nomadic peoples in Saukania

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Language

Main articles: Saukanian languages, Arshanian language, and Takhrian language

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Religion

Main article: Religion in Saukania

Major cities

Main article: List of major cities in Saukania

Government and politics

Main article: Government of Saukania

The Saukanian Alliance is a confederation of eleven political units classed as city-states. It is governed by a Supreme Council made up of the leaders of Acha, Dathan, Erya, Ghulashan, Khodan, Kula, Muridan, Rhegan, Sardash, Sashan, and Tushan. The central budget of the Alliance is drawn from a percentage of the revenues of its constituent states. The states of Khodan and Kula together contribute 45% of the total budget of the Alliance.

Khodan and Kula serve as joint-capitals of the Alliance, as a recognition of their peer prestige and influence. Khodan is the designated summer capital, and Kula the designated winter capital. In addition, the site of Dautan is the ceremonial capital of the Alliance. Considered a sacred sanctuary in Saukanian tradition, it was the site of the signing of the Pact of Dautan, the Alliance's founding document. In modern times the site has been expanded and made a centre of the Alliance's administration. The dominance of Khodan and Kula within the Alliance is semi-formalised. Per tradition, the presidency of the Supreme Council is rotated between their leaders every five years, the junior partner holding the positions of vice-president and prime minister. The state of Acha, third-most powerful in the Alliance, traditionally holds a permanent vice-presidency and deputy prime ministership. All member-states are represented equally within the Supreme Council. In practice however, many of the smaller states are economically dependent upon the contributions of Acha, Khodan, and Kula to the central budget, as well as having traditional patron-client obligations with one of these three states.

The Alliance Council is a proportional-representative advisory body to the Supreme Council. Each city-state sends representatives proportional to its population of able-bodied men, i.e., their military potential.

The Alliance itself is a highly decentralised body. The city-states greatly value their autonomy and self-governance in matters of internal affairs. Foreign affairs such as trade, diplomacy, and war are powers ceded to the Alliance as a collective body as outlined in the Pact of Dautan. There is however no Alliance legislature or judiciary, as the Alliance has no power to impose any kind of common law among the member-states. The Pact of Dautan does, however, provide for an extradition treaty between the constituent polities, obligating the arrest and return of criminal suspects who have crossed a border.

Military

Main article: The Saukanian Army

The Confederation maintains a single armed force, staffed and supplied from all eleven constituent city-states. This force is known in English as the Confederate Army or the Saukanian Army. The Confederate Army has two primary service branches: the Confederate Army Ground Force, and the Confederate Army Air Force. Control of Saukania's waterways and influence over the Argan Sea is maintained by the Confederate Army Ground Force - Marine Corps.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Saukania

Saukanians have both shared cultural features and those that vary between the regions of Saukania, each with distinctive cultures partly as a result of geographic obstacles that divide the country such as mountains and desert plains. The largest divisions exist between the three traditional civilisation-regions of Saukania; Apriana, Kriana, and Saukiana. Within these regions, each ariye asserts an independent ethnocultural identity with features that separate them from close neighbours. Saukanians claim cultural continuity with their ancient predecessors over two thousand years ago, asserting their indigeneity to the country.

Social structure

Main article: Social structure and class in Saukania

Further information: Women in Saukania

Social class in Saukania is hierarchical, with multiple and overlapping social hierarchies. This hierarchical social complexity is a direct inheritance from Saukania's past, which has been traditionally dominated by a hereditary aristocratic elite which monopolised political office, religious authority, and wartime activity. There has been little shift from this state of affairs in the Saukanian city-states, and with the country continuing to possess a massive agricultural sector, land ownership remains a sizeable source of wealth for the Saukanian urban elites. This elite is supported a vertically and horizontally reciprocal network of patronage and clientship between the top and the middle. Politics remains dominated by these powerful aristocratic families, of which there are typically two dozen in any given city-state, though larger polities such as Khodan and Kula have as many as fifty major families. A larger number, though still socially a minority, comprise the client class. This class possesses wealth largely derivative from various commercial enterprises, rather than the traditionally legitimising land ownership. In some cases these families may even be wealthier than some of those at the top, but in practice are held to be vassals by the traditional hereditary elite. The patronage system is controversial outside of Saukania, and it has been accused of being a "scarcely veiled avenue of corruption". Nevertheless, Saukanian culture regards it as normative and expected that the elite should reward loyalty by those in the middle and bottom of society, distributing resources, favours, and boons in return for political support. The client class families themselves are frequently patrons to lower class families, and thus within each city-state, almost all of citizen society is tied in together as part of a complex reciprocal network.

The family itself is the core social unit of the ariye. In Saukanian culture, the state is conceived of as comprising families, rather than individuals. These families are traditionally patrilineal, patrilocal, and patriarchal. The extended family unit was once normal throughout the city-states, but increased urbanization trends have resulted in more nuclear-organised families. These retain close ties to one another even if physically separated, with a strong religious sense of filial piety towards unifying living figures in the wider family lineage, i.e, the eldest living male. In rural regions, the extended family tends to live closer together. Rural regions are considered more conservative, particularly with regards to women, who in extended familial households live in closer proximity to the highest patriarchal authority. While perceived levels of strictness in this authority may have diminished in the urban context, city-dwelling women remain legally and socially under the authority of their patriarch, delegated largely in practice to the nearest male authority; traditionally the husband or father. It is not uncommon for city women to work, though it remains a social ideal for women to be primarily engaged in activities within and around the home, while men represent the family's interest in the public sphere.

Honour

Honour is a core aspect of Saukanian society and identity. Honour belongs to the family, and has a symbiotic relationship with its members. That is to say, all members of a family benefit from the esteem in which their family is held, while the actions of any family member have the potential to benefit or harm this collective estimation. As an inevitable result of their greater social profile, overrepresented in the politics of their city-states, the aristocratic elite have the greatest concern for honour. Saukanian honour is in large part the quality of being left alone. In addition to estimation, it is also reputation in the sense of an individual's or family's willingness to defend what is theirs, and respond with the culturally-determined proportionate severity to intruders, interlopers, and attackers. This is strongly connected to the ideology of personal justice in Saukania, and the law of blood for blood retaliation as expressed in the traditional code of the Tokauratarya. A family that does not take appropriate compensation for the theft of property, the sexual assault or abduction of a woman, or a murder, collectively loses honour, since in their inaction they demonstrate an unwillingness or an inability to back up any previous reputation with action. These transgressive acts can result in blood feuds if the family of the perpetrator is uncooperative in finding a resolution, or if the victim's family is dissatisfied with any compensation proposal.

Honour in Saukania is essentially male, and part of the wider male code of conduct, or sirauna. Responsibility for protecting the honour of the family from outside threats and for avenging it against successful attacks falls to men. As women are a direct means through which family honour can be harmed, an ideology of female protection through control of their movement and behaviour is the uniform cultural standard.

Clothing

Main article: Clothing in Saukania

Architecture and art

Main articles: Architecture of Saukania and Art in Saukania

Music

Main article: Music of Saukania

Cuisine

Main article: Cuisine of Saukania

Saukania has been a wine-producing region for thousands of years. Many valleys in the Ghuran range cultivate grape production as their primary or supplemental crop. Saukanian wine is exported globally.

Sport

Main article: Sport in Saukania