Andune

Andunic Consortium        Andune
Flag
Capital	Pelargir
Government
• President	Julius Penhaligon
• Prime Minister	Julié Sarres

Andune, officially known as the Andunic Consortium, is a sovereign state on Eurth.

Geography

Andune can be considered as a city-state, as the Megalopolis of Greater Gondolin stretches out 200 kilometres along the coastline of the Peninsula of Belfalas. The inner lands of Andune are sparely settled, mostly giving room for the vast plains and forests, which are a reason for Andune being an attractive tourist destination and a place for great biodiversity. East of Andunic mainland lies the Isle of Balar and to the north lies Himling. The climate in the Andunic Consortium is rather cold and humid, with an average temperature of 8 °C and a yearly downfall of about 750 mm per square meter.

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  A stereotypical landscape.

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  A wild landscape.

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  Close-up of a plant.

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  A herbivorous animal.

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  A carnivorous animal.

History

The history of the Andunic Consortium does not date very far back. It is actually a conglomerate of three Republics that were united under one flag about three-quarter of a century ago by of the city-state of Gondolin - a coastal city, whose history dates back to Bronze-Age times, when it started out as a trading-hub of a people called Andunics - a name in an ancient, regional tongue, spoken in those days – along the coastline of Belfalas. Historians estimate the rise of the town of Gondolin to about 2700 BCE when it was founded near the coast of the Belfalas Sea. It steadily grew, due to the invention of ships and iron-crafting – surpassing neighbouring regions. Hence, the city of Gondolin had always been immensely wealthy and a centre of culture and science. As a consequence, the two neighbouring states of Mithrim and Dimbar were always dependent to a level, that they were no more than puppet states.

This changed, when the principle of democracy was introduced in the 8th century by Dimbarian philosophers, as the three kingdoms got more and more aggressive towards each other, due to Gondolin's dominant role and all three nations assembled to form a joint “union” – called Andune - in the sense, that a Union Assembly decided on matters concerning the entire peninsula, which made the two less influential states more independent.

This led to a peaceful arrangement, through which the entire region prospered over the next 1300 years. By that time, ideological differences on most continents had grown so large, that a war broke out, consuming the world in terror. Nearly every country - Gondolin and its two allied states included – were dragged into it, and the city of Gondolin was laid to ashes. After it ended and in order to prevent further violence amongst the nations, the World-Assembly was founded in order to secure worldwide peace. Gondolin and the surrounding regions were able to recover for the next 50 years, during which the city of Gondolin was completely rebuilt and ended out to be even larger than before.

In the year 1977, an economic crisis unsettled the world community and dragged many countries into poverty, which finally led to Gondolin uniting all three Republics to a United Republic on the 27th of June 1977 in order to combine their economical powers and escape obliteration. As by then, the other two regions had built quite solid industries on their border to Gondolin, so they united all of these to form the Megalopolis of Greater Gondolin, consuming nearly 50% of the regional landmasses and containing about 80% of the Andunic population as well as contributing 88% of the Andunic GDP, mostly via IT-technology, GG's large banking sector and international trade due to GG's amount of trading ports.

On April 18th 2013, the Isle of Balar - which was unpopulated and unclaimed – was officially added to the Republic. It now serves as a new industrial area, mainly in order to outsource the largest ports off of the mainland in order to make room for new residential areas.

Politics

Head of State.

Head of Government.

Andune is a Republic with a federal system, even though the only resorts Mithrim and Dimbar hold are the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Tourism and Culture due to the fact, that these are the only real concerns in the two regions. Almost all the politics happen in Greater Gondolin P.D. (Political District), where the Federal Council and National Parliament are located, as well as all other diplomatic institutions.

Both Federal Council and Parliament are elected for a five-year term and the governmental duties are taken over by one of the candidates for the post of Prime Minister – who gets voted by the people via direct vote.

All members of the Council and Parliament are all independent, as Andunic does not know any real parties, only political discourse and loosely bound alliances amongst the candidates, who put themselves up for vote directly in their respective district.

The – for a five-year term – elected Prime Minister is Head of State and may choose a Cabinet of specialists (referred to as Ministers) for the resorts: Economy, State-Finances, Defence, Environmental Protection, Social-Affairs, Foreign-Affairs, Inner-Affairs, Education/Culture and Justice. All of these Ministries have a permanent stock of experts working extra-governmentally, meaning that they are not bound to the election and can thus aid each government professionally and without party-influence.

• Prime Minister: Julié Sarres
• Ministry of Economy: Caroline Masters
• Ministry of State-Finances: Joseph Kors
• Ministry of Defence: Reynold Carpés
• Ministry of Environmental Protection: Afnan Sha'ri
• Ministry of Social-Affairs: Kaori Hirai
• Ministry of Foreign-Affairs: Julié Signot
• Ministry of Inner-Affairs: William Shaftner
• Ministry of Education and Culture: Yoshihiro Akame
• Ministry of Justice: Marcus Rough

Politicians of all 47 Greater Gondolinian districts, Mithrim and Dimbar are in both houses, one of each district in the Federal Council and two per district in the National Parliament. Thus, the Andunic government is rather small, consisting of only 231 members in both houses, plus the actual government including Ministries and specialists, thus making the Andunic politics remarkably efficient.

All are governed by a President who does not have any actual powers but simply keeps an eye on government business. He represents the Republic into the world and has the power to enact treaties and/or alliances with Parliament admission, thus acting alongside the Minister of Foreign-Affairs. His actual powers consist in his ability to be the one having to sign all bills before they pass into action, thus a right to veto any bills he finds to be unconstitutional or simply outrageously undemocratic. His veto can only be overturned by a three-quarter-majority of the Parliament. At the moment, presidential honours are held by Mr. Seymour Reaves.

Controlling the Legislative and Executive is the Judicial, which is divided into three official channels: a regional court, for small delicts, a State-Court and the Supreme Court. There are many regional courts, at least one per district, with judges appointed by the Ministry of Justice for an unspecified time-span. There is one State-Court per Region, so three in total. These judges are elected by the Ministry of Justice for lifetime or until they retire. The Supreme Court is located in Greater Gondolin P.D. and mainly examines bills upon their constitutionality. They are commissioned with the most delicate of charges, charges against the constitution or similar. Supreme Court judges are elected by the Ministry of Justice, in compliance with the Prime Minister and President, for lifetime service. There are always 11 Supreme Judges active at a time.

Military

The Andunic military consists of merely 110,000 active duty troops and no reserves. Thus, relying solely on its allies, the Andunic Consortium almost has no ground troops worth mentioning, when it comes to offensive operations – just enough to defend its capital in the case, that someone manages to surpass Andunes superior navy, which is considered to be the world's most advanced. In most operations, it relies on the cooperation with the Bacillian States.

The Andunic navy draws its entire navy from Halcyon Arms and has a equilibrium of ballistic/attack submarines, destroyers, frigates, cruisers, aircraft carriers and Speedboats, making the navy extremely versatile and lethal to anyone opposing it. It is divided into 15 fleets, each one led by 2 flagships of the Noble-Carrier-Class and divided into smaller subdivisions for small-scale operations. The Andunic fleet is both technologically and numerically superior.

The land forces merely consist of some 90000 soldiers, with only few vehicles for mainland defence and five highly trained SFUs, mainly for offshore operations. It relies on StS- and SAM-systems in case of an invasion – taken that any army passes through Andune's naval barrier.

Andune's air force is just large enough to man its vast number of carriers, even though only few aircraft are used. The air force relies on its use of drones, monitored either from the ships themselves or from Andunic mainland.

The two other military and national security branches, to which the other 70,000 employees are appointed, are the secret-service/cyberwar units – which are very effective and combine both inner-security and international operations. Andune also funds a National Space-Programme, stationing all kinds of orbital equipment, from communication and observation satellites to ASATs.

The budget of the Ministry of Defence is one of the smallest in the government, totalling 200 billion G$, most of which goes to improving the navy and R&D.

Economy

The Andunic economy is mainly focussed on the IT-industry and international trade. Due to its extraordinary infrastructure, a wide spectrum of companies and banks from all around the world settle in the Megalopolis and thus boost the economy. Subsidiaries are almost totally unheard of, apart from minor exceptions. Another major role in the Andunic economy is tourism, due to the fact that 50% of Andune is empty or barely-settled/resettled. Because of that, almost all the outer regions were converted to National Parks, apart from the few places, where you can find agricultural industry (Andune is almost self-sufficient concerning food supplies) and mining industries that have settled to mine for the land's vast deposits of rare-earths. Due to these economic benefits, the entire region is highly developed, with a barely existing unemployment-rate and a national GDP of almost 750trillion G$G.

Demographics

The Republic of Andune does not recognize any religions. People may believe freely in what they wish, but the vast majority of Andunics are atheist.