Caluchia

Caluchian Republic Republika Kaluchiana (Bahiano Creole)
Flag
Motto: "Giù con i schiavisti, su con la stella" "Down with the slavers, up with the star"
States of Caluchia
Capital and largest city	San Matteo
Official languages	Vespasian, Bahiano Creole, Itaheuchan
Ethnic groups	Bahiano, Meticcio, Ucliano, Itaheuche, Gowsa, Macotana
Government
• President	Claudio Montanari
• First Senator	Edoardo Pastore
Legislature	Senate
Establishment
• The Poveglian colony of Francescia is officially established	1556
• Francescia conquers the coastal plain and most of the Altipiano	1559-1563
• The first slave ship arrives in San Matteo, beginning the period of Bahian slavery in Caluchia	1581
• The First Caluchian Republic is proclaimed following a widespread and successful slave revolt	1799
• The Second Caluchian Republic is established after the victory of the Grand Alliance in the Great War and the end of Satucinais occupation	1935
• Generalissimo Berto Fierro overthrows the government and establishes the Most Holy State of Caluchia, a semi-theocratic military dictatorship	1963
• The Third Caluchian Republic is established after the September Rising	1981
Population
• 2018 census	27,951,018
GDP (PPP)	2018 estimate
• Total	$509.938 billion
• Per capita	$18,244
GDP (nominal)	2018 estimate
• Total	$418.259 billion
• Per capita	$14,964
Date format	dd-mm-yy
Driving side	right

Caluchia (Vespasian: Calucia, Bahiano Creole: Kaluchia, Itaheuchan: Caleuche Mapu), officially the Caluchian Republic, is a sovereign nation in northeastern Asteria Inferior. The country is composed of four main geographic regions Northern Caluchia is composed of a flat and fertile subtropical coastal plain. Further inland, elevation increases steadily and then plateaus, forming a region of high plains, or the Altipiano in Vespasian. Southwest of the Altipiano lies the Colline Rossa, a swathe of rugged hills mostly populated by indigenous Itaheuche. Beyond the Colline Rossa in the southwest, and directly south of the Altipiano in the southeast, the Sierra Bianca mountain range divides northern Caluchia from the southern grasslands of the Grande Pianura. Most passes through the mountains are narrow and not suitable for car or train travel, but roads and railways through the Passa Vittoria have allowed cheap and efficient transit through the mountains since the mid 19th century CE.

History

Colonial Era

Before the arrival of Eucleans in the Asterias, modern day Caluchia was inhabited by two major indigenous cultures: The (notMapuche), north of the Sierra Bianca mountains, in the hill country and the fertile coastal plain, and the Macotana nomads, savanna dwellers south of the mountains. Within (notMapuche) culture, the Picunche people of the coastal plain were sedentary, and relied mainly on agriculture and fishing, cultivating maize, cassava, legumes, and other foodstuffs. The hill-dwelling Itaheuche were relied mainly on a mix of agriculture, llama husbandry, hunting and gathering, and were semi-nomadic. The Macotana hunted and gathered on the savannas beyond the mountains, and had no fixed settlements. Both the Picunche and the Itaheuche produced silverwork, and elaborate textiles, and both were known to build earthworks and defensive fortifications to defend against rival communities. Poveglian explorers first arrived in Caluchia in 1552. Initially trading with Caluchia’s indigenous population, Vespasian settlement led to the spread the horse, the cow, the sheep, and metal tools throughout Picunche and Itaheuche populations, beginning a slow shift in the interior from hunting and gathering to herding. In 1556, Poveglian settlers established the colony of Francescia on the Caluchian coast, establishing trade relations with the Picunche and founding the port city of San Matteo. The arrival of Eucleans began the slow diffusion of horses, sheep, and cattle into the Caluchian interior, which would eventually lead to the widespread integration of horsemanship into Itaheuche culture. The arrival of the Poveglians also introduced smallpox and other Euclean diseases, resulting in what the Itaheuche call The Great Dying. Both inland and coastal settlements were quickly depopulated, weakening indigenous society and leaving them vulnerable to what would happen next.

As Etrurian settlement on the coasts expanded, relations between the Picunche and the settlers grew increasingly tense. Vespasian soldiers of fortune discovered and coveted Picunche silverwork, and Vespasian settlers desired native-occupied farmland. Vespasian settlers, finding some Picunche farming towns depopulated by the Great Dying, settled in the abandoned houses and robbed Picunche graves for supplies, outraging the living Picunche. Finally, Poveglia's small population left the settlers shorthanded, and Vespasian planters saw the native population as a potential captive labor force. This rise in tensions culminated in 1559 in what the Vespasians call the First Francesciani War, and the Itaheuche call the Butcher’s War, a protracted conflict between the settlers, and the Picunche coalition as well as some allied Itaheuche forces. Between Vespasian attempts to capture and enslave Picunche added injury to the insult already done to the Picunche by Vespasiani graverobbing, and led directly to open war between settlers and natives. After three years of brutal, grinding warfare between the settlers, in which many Vespasian colonists and even more Picunche were slain, the colonists’ steel weapons and cavalry began to tell against a Picunche populace severely weakened by the Great Dying. Some Picunche were taken as slaves and concubines, but most refused to submit to the Euclean conquerers even in defeat, and thus were either massacred by Vespasian troops, or forced into the interior. Those who escaped inland were absorbed into the Itaheuche population. Poveglian attempts to conquer the le Colline Rossa, the vast and rugged hill country of the Caluchian interior, were largely unsuccessful. The unfamiliar and harsh terrain, the semi-nomadic nature of the inland Itaheuche, and the spread of horses and Euclean weaponry to the native population gave the Itaheuche a significant advantage in their wars with the Vespasiani. Meanwhile, the colony’s reliance on slave labor kept the white Francesciani population low, preventing them from massing a force large enough to successfully storm le Colline Rossa. These circumstances allowed Itaheuche troops to fight Francesciani forces to a draw in both the Second and Third Francesciani Wars, in 1574 and 1576, respectively. This resulted in a fragile détente, in which Vespasian homesteaders traded with some inland Itaheuche tribes and fought others, often trading with and fighting the same tribe in different years. On Euclean maps, the inland hills and plains were part of the colony and under Poveglian dominion, but the reality on the ground was much less cut and dry.

After the First Francesciani War, the Poveglians found themselves in possession of a vast swathe of highly fertile but uninhabited farmland. Initially, the settlers focused on homesteading and food crops, but this failed to generate enough revenue to satisfy the colony’s merchant investors back in Poveglia. The introduction of lucrative cash crops like tobacco, sugar, and coffee, and cotton, all of which thrived in Caluchia, gave the colonists a way out of their financial dilemma. Sugar in particular was very profitable, and would go on to be the main engine of the colonial economy. This generated an insatiable thirst for labor in the colony, exacerbated by the mother country's relatively small population base. Having driven out the Itaheuche, the Vespasian colonists first turned to indentured servitude, but when the first enslaved Bahians arrived in San Matteo in 1581, there was no turning back. Poveglian merchants and colonial planters grew rich off of the Francesciani plantations, and chattel slavery in what Caluchia along with their bank accounts. By 1630, the Francescia colony was thoroughly established as an export-oriented slave society. The plantation economy would persist, digesting one generation of brutalized and overworked slaves and chewing up the next, for another century and a half. Events back in Etruria shifted the ownership of the colony between different Vespasian states over the decades, but particularly after the loss of Marirana, maintaining the Francesciani cash cow was always among the first priorities of any Etrurian state that came to hold Poveglia and its merchants. Over time, the Francesciani authorities allowed some freedmen and meticcio to move into the le Colline Rossa (Estmerish: the Red Hills, the Vespasian name for Caluchia’s rugged interior), hoping that they would erode Itaheuche power, and if all else failed, the Itahueche warriors would be killing Bahians rather than Vespasians. However, these new cavalcanti, the mixed race and Bahio-Asterian horsemen of le Colline Rossa, developed a cordial trading relationship with the Itahueche villages instead. This further marked the hill country as beyond the control of the San Matteo government. However, the steady stream of mutton, wool, hides, and other goods that the cavalcanti brought down from le Colline Rossa meant that the colonial elite in essence benefited economically from the cavalcante economy, and colonial authorities largely turned a blind eye to their activities. Similarly, planters and their merchant backers had by then realized that le Colline Rossa were unsuitable for plantation agriculture, and thus not worth the time and effort to subjugate. For the duration of the colonial period, Francesciani knowledge of Caluchia did not extend beyond the mountains. Authorities in San Matteo would not discover the safe route through the Sierra Biancas at la Passa Vittoria until twelve years after the Revolution.

In colonial Francescia, the Vespasian ruling class cemented a racial hierarchy. Etruriani, or white Vespasians born in Etruria, formed the top echelon of colonial society. Below them, the creolo, or white Vespasians born in the colonies, formed a less powerful but still wealthy and privileged class. Below the creolo were the meticcio, encompassing Bahio-Eucleans and Picuncho-Eucleans, many of whom were freeborn landowners, but who were forever relegated to a lower social standing than the white population. At the bottom rung of the social order were the nero, or enslaved Bahians, who formed the vast majority of the colonial population, and whose backbreaking and deadly work on the plantations made the colony profitable for the etruriani and creolo merchants and planters. Given the awful conditions on the plantations, escape attempts were common, and escaped slaves or chilombiano congregated in chilombi, fortified settlements in le Colline Rossa beyond the reach of the colonial authority.

Caluchian Revolution

In 1790, revolution rocked Etruria. Seeing Marirana’s prosperity and power since independence, and resentful of the continued domination of the tiny etruriani minority, a creolo population inspired by the winds of change blowing from Euclea began to agitate for independence. This irked the free meticci population, who were very clearly left out of the creolo’s dreams of statehood, leading to street clashes between creolo and meticcio agitators. In 1791, the slaves revolted in several western plantations, but the revolt was brutally suppressed, and the rebellious slaves were tortured to death. However, as events spiraled out of control in San Matteo, and a creolo provisional government declared an independent Republic of Francescia, stirrings began out in the provinces. On midnight of August 3rd, 1792, the famous Terzo di Agosto, the great Caluchian slave revolt began. Padre Celestino, a syncretic Sotirian priest and a chilombiano spiritual leader, organized a coordinated uprising on the eastern plantations. By noon, thousands of armed slaves were mobilized and on the march, killing plantation owners and overseers, freeing fellow slaves, and seizing food stores as well as weapons and ammunition. Celestino’s revolt raged on until September, when a detachment of 3,000 Francesciani troops arrived from the capital to put down the rebellion. The slave army broke and fled under sustained volley fire from the regulars, and Padre Celestino and seven hundred escaped slaves were captured, while the rest of the army melted away into the night. Colonel Benito Abate, the commanding officer, had orders from the provisional government in San Matteo to give no quarter to the captured enemy, and use maximum force to suppress the rebellion. Thus, Abate rounded up all of the prisoners except Padre Celestino and ten of his officers, and had them executed by firing squad and their bodies hung from nearby trees as a grisly example to the enslaved population. Padre Celestino himself was beaten and tortured by Abate’s men over the course of the next several hours, both as example to other slaves, and an unsuccessful attempt to force him to reveal the names of co-conspirators and the specific locations of his chilombo and other major chilombi. In, the morning, the Coronel ordered that the hands, feet, nose, and genitals of the ten officers be cut off, and that they be allowed to bleed to death. Abate forced Padre Celestino to watch his men die, and had him burned alive, before sending detachments of regulars out to track down the escaped slaves who had fled from the battle the previous night. It seemed like the eastern revolt, like the western one, had been brutally but successfully suppressed. Throughout September 1792, the Francesciani were forced to put down repeated uprisings and mass escapes all across plantation country, killing or recapturing thousands of escaping slaves but never quite stabilizing the country. Francesciani regulars were unable to recapture large portion of the escapees, who seemed to have simply disappeared. The answer to the conundrum, of course, is the chilombo, or more properly the chilombos. In the hill country beyond the fertile coastline, among the Itahueche villages and the cavalcanti, the San Matteo government knew that landscape had for centuries hidden thousands of escaped slaves. Neither the cavalcanti, who were loyal to nobody but their wallets, nor the Itahueche, who still actively fought Francesciani forces that ventured into their lands, lifted a finger to turn them in. The final attempt to snuff out the chilombos was in 1744, when a force of a thousand Francesciani mercenaries marched into le Colline Rossa and never returned. Itaheuche oral histories suggest that these expeditionary forces were routinely wiped out by combined forces of Itaheuche cavalry and Chilombi soldiers, and none were left alive to bring word back to San Matteo. Among the chilombos, the first seeds of the Bahiano identity, now that of the majority of Caluchians, began to take shape. Alessandro Buonarroti, or Il Volpone, was a chilombiano who had from the sugar plantations near San Matteo seven years earlier. After Padre Celestino and his 700 were killed by the Francesciani, Buonarroti led a force of armed chilombiani down from the hill country to come to the aid of the rebellious slaves, and personally founded the renowned Army of the Freedmen, or Armata di Liberti. Genereal Buonarroti himself would be nicknamed “Il Volpone” by the planters, intended as a mark of dishonor due to his use of ambushes and asymmetric warfare, but claimed as a badge of honor by Bahio-Caluchians ever since. It was Buonarroti who first formed the longstanding alliance between the Bahiano population and the Itahueche, as well as the free meticcio and bahiani cavalcanti of le Colline Rossa. These alliances led directly to the formation of what the Francesciani dubbed Il Legione di Infierno: a mixed force of Itahuechen cavalry and bahiani and meticcio cavalcanti who struck terror into the hearts of colonial troops. Buonarroti died on March 1st, 1796 the Battle of San Matteo, felled by a Francesciani cannonball. His death left a power vacuum in the Armata di Liberti, a power vacuum that would tear the country apart for the next several years. When San Matteo finally fell, and the looting had died down, the surviving revolutionary generals formed a provisional government headquartered in the Palazzo Centrale, where they debated the future of the country. Three factions emerged from this Conference of San Matteo, which would divide the nation into warring camps. The first faction was Nationalist camp, led by General Carlo Fabbro, which argued that the country should be a unitary nationalist state, purged of other racial elements and following the one true Sotirian Catholic faith. The second faction was the Reformist camp, led by General Bruno Grimaldi, a protégé of General Buonarroti. This faction argued that the first priority should be to redistribute lands equitably among the freedmen. Finally, the third faction was the Liberal camp, led by General Antonio Amadeo Barbuto, who believed that the main priority was to stabilize the country, restore order, and protect private property. During the sack of San Matteo, Barbuto’s troops fired on freedmen who were looting the great houses of the Vespasiani and the meticcio, endearing him to the meticcio elite. The three leading generals struggled to find accord, and the conference became increasingly heated until talks broke down three days later. Within a week, General Grimaldi was dead under suspicious circumstances, and Generals Fabbro and Barbuto were openly at war with each other. In the ensuing three years of civil war, Barbuto slowly but surely gained the upper hand. Barbuto utilized the wealth and political clout of his meticcio and creolo backers to secure superior supplies, and co-opted both the Reformist and Itaheuche officer corps, both of which feared Fabbro’s Nationalism more than Barbuto’s Conservatism. After the last of the Fabbro loyalists were defeated on the battlefield and Barbuto’s hired assassins successfully murdered Fabbro himself, the stage was set for the birth of the First Caluchian Republic. The name Caluchia itself originated in the Itahueche word “Caleuche,” meaning “the transformed people,” which the framers of the constitution saw as an auspicious name for the new country. On paper, the 1799 constitution guaranteed rights and freedoms for all, and established a federal presidential system with a unicameral legislature. However, with Barbuto’s Liberals ascendant, few attempts were made to distribute political and economic power equitably, and suffrage was restricted to property-holding men. In essence, only the meticcio and those lucky government allies who received former etruriani and creolo lands were given the vote in the early days of the republic. On the other hand, the Itaheuche were offered significant autonomy and self-government under the federal system, one of the first arrangements of its kind in Asteria Inferior.

Independent Caluchia

First Republic

Under the new order, the plantation system in Caluchia was largely kept intact. The new government’s attachment to the upper classes left few economic opportunities for most Bahiano freedmen besides working as hired farmhands on meticcio-owned plantations. What redistribution occurred mainly benefited Barbuto loyalists within the military. This essentially resulted in a semi-feudal system in which wealthy landowners demanded that Bahiano tenants produce a certain proportion of coffee, cotton, or sugarcane in return for the right to farm their own subsistence plots. Thus, post-revolutionary Caluchia managed to maintained a lucrative cash crop sector without slavery, but simultaneously did not allow most Caluchians much opportunity for advancement, and stunted long-term economic growth. The country significantly diversified its cash crop production towards coffee, indigo, cotton, and rice, and placed steadily less emphasis on sugar, as Caluchia found itself less able to compete with foreign producers on the sugar than it was before the revolution

Over the course of the 19th century, Reformists did manage to partially expand the suffrage, lowering property requirements slightly, but any direct attempts to overturn the neo-feudal status quo were frustrated by the meticcio-military alliance. Le Colline Rossa remained largely outside of government control until the 1840s, when railway construction brought the region more cohesively into the Caluchian state. However, the Itahueche farmers and herders were relatively well respected and well treated, given their constitutionally guaranteed autonomy and their military aid to first Buonarrati and then Barbuto. Longstanding relations between the cavalcanti and the Itaheuche allowed the two groups to coexist peacefully in le Colline Rossa. Some Itahueche converted to Sotirianity, but many maintained their native religion. The Itahueche developed their own alphabet in the 1820s, allowing for more accurate written adaptations of the Itahuechan oral tradition.

Expansion into the Grande Pianura

In 1811, Leopoldo Di Mercurio, a meticcio explorer, set out on an expedition to explore the Sierra Bianca range. With the help of Itaheuche and cavalcanti guides, Di Mercurio and his men went on to chart the first viable route through the mountains to the Grande Pianura of the interior in Summer of 1812. Di Mercurio named the route la Passa Vittoria after his wife back in San Matteo. Thus began the Golden Age of the Cavalcanti, and the cattle boom in Caluchia. The cavalcanti adventurers and their cattle herds quickly came into conflict with the Macotan people. The introduction of the horse to the Grande Pianura had destabilized Macotani society, and the roving bands of Macotani riders on the savannas were hostile the Caluchian interlopers. This clash resulted in the Pianura Wars, a series of skirmishes between encroaching calvacanti cattlemen and the Macotani tribes, which would continue until the San Matteo government took full control of the Grande Pianura in the 1850s.

Between 1853 and 1855, Caluchian businessmen and Euclean investors financed the construction of a railway through la Passa Vittoria, resulting in a huge influx of Bahiani peasant homesteaders into the Grande Pianura, undermining the feudal cash crop economy. As the cost of repelling Matocani raids mounted, and expeditionary forces from the capital failed to defeat the nomads in open conflict, President Modesto Silvestri decided to treat with the tribes. Itaheucho-Caluchiani envoys, chosen due to historical trading relationships between the Matocani and the Itaheuche, made peaceful contact with a large Matocani band on the banks of the Fiume Torbido. By the 1860s, Caluchian troops and diplomats and their new Matocani allies had brought the rest of the tribal leaders into the fold, and defeated those that refused to negotiate. In 1869, the Treaty of Fonte Fresca officially integrated the remaining Matocani into the Republic as citizens, and protected their hunting and grazing rights in return for Matocani acceptance of San Matteo’s authority. By 1871, Caluchia existed within its modern-day borders. The discovery and colonization of the Grande Pianura finally reinvigorated Euclean immigration to Caluchia, which had fallen to near zero after the revolution, and the cavalcanti soon found themselves working alongside a new influx of white immigrants. While welcomed with open arms by the government, who were desparate to kickstart economic growth in Caluchia, the new immigrants were viewed with deep suspicion by the Bahiani for the first several decades. However, as memories of slavery faded, and many of the poorer white immigrants or Ucliani began to integrate culturally into Caluchia and found themselves largely living and working alongside Bahiani, intermarriage rates between Bahiano and Ucliano populations increased dramatically. Thus, the population of Nuovo Meticcio, or new mixed race Caluchians, began to vastly outnumber the wealthier Old Meticcio, complicating the previous color hierarchy and further eroding neo-feudalism in Caluchia.

Satucinais Occupation

The Satucinais Occupation, 1931-1935

Caluchia sided with the Grand Alliance, and was invaded and occupied by Satucin during the Great War, but a prolonged Caluchian resistance movement ultimately triumphed as Satucin itself became increasingly unstable and the Grand Alliance steadily pushed the Entente out of the Asterias.

[Will be fleshed out later when we update the region-wide history of the Great War]

Second Republic

The Great War upended Caluchian society. The resistance movement was heavily reliant on the Bahiani peasantry, Ucliani immigrants, and the Nuovo Meticcio, all of whom grew increasingly frustrated with their marginalization by the Old Meticcio plantation class. Similarly, the First Republic’s failure to defend the country and the destabilization inherent in years of occupation further undermined the old regime’s authority. Thus, the Second Caluchian Republic was characterized by the increasing influence of social liberal, socialist, and councilist movements, as well as the return of a Fabbroist Nationalist faction on the right, now dubbed the National Party. Ultimately, many free market liberals and social conservatives became increasingly fearful of wholesale land and wealth redistribution, and the establishment of a councilist state in Caluchia. While it lasted, however, the Second Republic was a time of culture renaissance and new intellectual freedom, especially for urban and educated Caluchians. San Matteo and other large cities saw the rapid proliferation of bars, nightclubs, music halls, and other popular entertainment venues. Meanwhile, a postwar manufacturing boom and the economic opportunities it generated drew the rural poor in from the countryside, contributing to the growth of San Matteo's Quarto Grigio. While poorly maintained by the city and rife with poverty and crime, the Quarto Grigio of the Second Republican period also fostered an upwelling of working class Bahiano culture, with a vigor mirroring the nightlife of urban Caluchia's wealthier neighborhoods. At the same time, life in the slums of the Quarto Grigio fostered further intermingling and cultural exchange between Bahiano, Nuovo Meticcio, and poorer Ucliano immigrants, further undermining the hegemony of the Old Meticcio elite. While most in the Quarto Grigio remained in Caluchia's working class or poor underclass, many of the best actors and musicians in the clubs downtown began as working class Bahiano migrants or Ucliano immigrants in the city's poorer district.

Fierro Regime

In 1954, Caluchians, frustrated with the lack of economic and social progress and persistently high levels of economic inequality, elected a coalition of socialist and councilist parties in a close election -Religious conservatives and free market liberals viewed the results of this election as illegitimate, as did Caluchia’s pre-war trading partners and the international business community as a whole. The Old Meticcio planters and the new rich of the Grande Pianura both feared the loss of their political and economic influence, and became increasingly reactionary. In 1955, the military and National Party militias, led by General Berto Fierro, stormed the Palazzo Centrale and overthrew the elected government. Post-coup, Fierro established the Sotirian State of Caluchia, which he ruled as President for Life until 1975. -The Sotirian State established a program of Sotirianization, attempting to stamp out both socialism and religious syncretism, and attempting to Vespasianize the Itahueche by force, prohibiting the Itahueche language from being taught in schools and arresting Itahueche religious leaders. Socialists, social liberals, non-Sotirians, and LGBT+ Caluchians were “disappeared” en mass, their graves only discovered after the end of the dictatorship and the disestablishment of the secret police in 1981. Under the iron first of Fierro, Caluchia underwent a process of industrialization, constructing new factories, hydroelectric dams, roads, railroads, and other industrial projects. This helped the regime maintain power and gin up popular support, but as ever benefited the wealthy and powerful more than anyone else. -In 1975, Fierro’s son Carlo took power in accordance with his father’s wishes, with the backing of conservatives, the military, the church, the business community. Carlo Fierro, however, was not the man his father was, and ran the country into the ground. His extravagant lifestyle, licentiousness, and impiety lost him the support of the Sotirian church, leading Carlo Fierro to significantly expand his father’s social purges. The loss of official church backing for the regime dealt a significant blow to the ruling National Party’s popularity. In and beyond le Colline Rossa, the Itaheuche, finally pushed beyond their endurance, began a campaign of militant resistance that drew significant amounts of military resources away from the capital and the other coastal provinces. Democratic and socialist resistance groups began to infiltrate the lower ranks of the military, joining the army themselves and clandestinely recruiting disaffected soldiers and even officers to their cause.

September Rising

In 1980, massive protests and acts of civil disobedience began to crop up across Caluchia. The Mothers of the Disappeared, a movement against the Fierro regime’s social purges, flared up in the capital with the backing of the Sotirian church. -In August 1980, opposition leaders sounded out General Giuseppe Di Pasqua, commander of a large military garrison about 50 miles from San Matteo, who they believed to have democratic sympathies. -In September of 1981, the Itaheuche and their Bahiano allies in the le Colline Rossa staged an outright insurrection against the government, forcing the regime to send even more troops into the interior. Disloyal elements within the government arranged events so that many of the regiments left in the capital were those filled with and led by resistance infiltrators. -At 2 AM on September 15th, most of the Fonte Fresca garrison mutinied and rebel militias seized control of the largest city in the Grande Pianura region, defeating both a small force of loyal regulars and a larger force of National Party paramilitaries. By noon on the 16th, almost all of the Grande Pianura declared itself in open revolt against the San Matteo government. This forced Fierro to send even more loyal troops away from the capital, and stretched the regime’s resources dangerously thin. -On September 18th, the opposition staged peaceful protests throughout coastal Caluchia. Bahiani peasants and San Matteans alike marched on the Palazzo Centrale. A flailing Carlo Fierro tried to call in reinforcements from the provinces, but opposition agents had cut the phone lines in and out of the capital that morning with the collusion of subversive elements in the army -At 3:00 PM, Fierro ordered the San Matteo garrison to leave their barracks and forcibly disperse the protesters. About 2/3 of the garrison’s commanders did not respond to orders from the Palazzo Central. Troops opened fire on the protest march and the situation turned violent. Seven hundred protestors were killed, and a thousand were wounded. Rebels began barricading the Quarto Grigio, a dense warren of small streets and packed apartments home to the majority of San Matteo’s population. This forced troops loyal to the regime to call in artillery and air support, and lead to running street battles throughout the city. -At 3:30 PM, General Giuseppe Di Pasqua declared himself in revolt via a live radio broadcast, denouncing Fierro’s depravity and openly siding the rebels in San Matteo -At 3:45 PM, air force jets loyal to Di Pasqua engaged with pilots still loyal to the Sotirian State over San Matteo -At 3:55 PM the rest of the capital garrison finally left their barracks much to the delight of Carlo Fierro, but raised the Republican flag and opened fire on loyal troops assaulting the barricades in the Quarto Grigio. -At 5:30 PM, troops loyal to Di Pasqua besieged the Palazzo Central, entering the palace proper at 6:00 and fighting their way to Fierro’s rooms resisted by loyalist soldiers and the Guardia di Palazzo. Once all resistance was subdued, rebel soldiers loyal to Di Pasqua reached Fierro’s rooms, and finding the door locked, kicked down the door, only to find the young dictator himself cowering in a closet. At 6:45, Fierro was dragged to the palace court yard, where he was summarily executed by firing squad. Historians theorize that Di Pasqua had ordered the dictator’ execution to prevent his own crimes earlier in the regime from being exposed in what would be a blockbuster trial, but it is impossible to say for certain. Rebel forces broadcast the news publicly on all radio stations, and most of the remaining loyalist garrisons had either mutinied or been forced to surrender by the morning of the 19th.

After the fall of the dictatorship, Di Pasqua declared himself head of the transitional government. A delegation of Sotirian clergy and Commonwealth of Nations envoys arrived in Caluchia to speak to Di Pasqua and encourage him to manage a responsible democratic transition. Street protests across the country continued for the next month as Di Pasqua and the foreign delegation sat holed up in the Palazzo Central. A week after the fall of the dictatorship, Di Pasqua’s troops forcibly entered the headquarters of the Secret Police, forcibly disbanding it. Two days later, the leaders of the opposition showed themselves publicly, and joined Di Pasqua and the delegation in the Palazzo Central. Two months after the fall of the dictatorship, Di Pasqua voluntarily stepped down as head of the transitional government and was secretly pardoned for any crimes he may or may not have committed under the dictatorship, preferring to retire an internationally celebrated hero than rule as another Fierro and see Caluchia’s economy collapse under the weight of international sanctions. Under the protection of Republican troops and rebel militias, Caluchians nationwide elected delegates to a new constitutional convention. By the end of 1981 the Third Caluchian Republic had been established and a new constitution promulgated, expanding on the bill of rights from the First and Second Republics and wholly restructuring the military command structure to constrain its power. The 1981 Constitution also reduced the powers of the presidency and increased legislative authority to provide greater checks on executive power. Caluchia was reformed as a federal parliamentary democracy, and free elections were held on January 2nd, 1982, for the first time in XX years.

Third Republic

Of late, Caluchia has entered another period of political instability. After the dictatorship, the country experienced a long period of economic growth and heightened immigration levels, particularly from Bahia and Coius. This drastically improved the lot of the common citizen and led to relatively widespread prosperity. Since 2010, however, Caluchia has experienced a moderate slowdown in overall growth and a more significant slowdown in wage growth. Poor and middle class Caluchians increasingly look askance at the upper classes, much like they did during the Second Republic, noting that the fortunes of the wealthiest Caluchians continue to grow ever larger even as the country as a whole struggles. Since the end of the dictatorship, Caluchia's constitution was restructured such that Caluchian elections are held based on Ranked Choice Voting, leading to a proliferation of smaller political parties that have tended to coalesce into two major coalitions. On the one hand, there is Il Coalizione Moderato, a center right coalition led by Il Partito Liberale, or the Liberal Party, which favors free trade and free market economics. The current Caluchian President is a member of Il Partito Liberale. On the other, there is Il Coalizione Popular on the center left, led by Il Partito Laburista, or the Labor Party, which is a center-left coalition of social democrats and social liberals. The current First Senator is a member of Il Partito Laburista, whose coalition currently controls the Senate. Caluchia has experienced a five year period of divided government: given the results of the last election, Caluchians seem dissatisfied with Liberale leadership, but so far the leadership of Il Partito Laburista has proved unable to capitalize on the failures of its old rival. Thus, the current political moment of gridlock and economic stagnation has seen the sudden rise of Il Partito Comunal, councilist movement, on the far left, as well as return of Il Partito Nazionale on the far right, thought to be effectively dead since the days of the dictatorship. Comunalista politicians argue that Councilism is the only way to achieve sustainable and equitable growth, while Nazionalista politicians openly pine for the early days of the Fierro dictatorship, and see the Sotirian State of Caluchia as a divine project unjustly cut short by the younger Fierro's madness and ineptitude. If only, they argue, we had another leader like the beloved Berto Fierro, a man of faith and uncompromising Sotirian morals who could put the nation on the right path and once again unite the country behind a common purpose. These arguments, while more popular than they once were, are still a fringe position on the right, but they have nevertheless destabilized the nation's politics and led some on the right flank of Il Partito Liberale to take more uncompromising right wing positions in an attempt to shore up their base. Meanwhile, Il Partito Laburista watches the growth of the Comunalista movement with increasing chagrine, as its leaders scramble to stem the leftist tide. Meanwhile, within the center-left coalition, Il Partito Ambientale, the Caluchian Green Party, has made significant gains amongst the growing middle class and nearly doubled its complement of Senators in the last election, along with their victory over the incumbent Laburista mayor of Fonte Fresca. Thus, the Ambientalista faction has grown significantly in influence within Il Coalizione Popular. With the Senate and the President unable to agree on a budget and the government continuing to be gridlocked, another election seems to be on the horizon, and only time will tell what the future has in store.

Politics

Caluchia is a federal semi-presidential republic, legally the Third Republic under the country's 1981 Constitution. The 1981 Constitution reestablished democracy in Caluchia after the September Rising, re-establishing the Second Republic's Senate and guaranteeing broader civil and political rights than either the First or Second Republic. However, critics argue that the 1981 Constitution has contributed to the intractable gridlock in recent Caluchian politics. With President Montanari and the center-right Coalizione Moderato increasingly unpopular, the center-left Coalizione Populare took control of the Caluchian Senate and the powerful office of First Senator. However, given disunity among the Caluchian opposition, and the failure of the ideologically divided Partito Laburista to pick a single presidential candidate, President Montanari was re-elected with 42% of the vote in the same election in which his Partito Liberale and its allies lost a governing majority in the Senate. Thus, Caluchia has seen four years of divided government, with an increasingly stagnant economy and rising unemployment, and calls for a Fourth Republic are growing increasingly strident.

The Main Coalitions: -Il Coalizione Moderato: --Il Partito Liberale: --Il Partito Sotiriano-Democratico:

-Il Coalizione Populare: --Il Partito Laburista: --Il Partito Ambientale: --Il Partito Agrario:

Extra-Coalitional Parties:

-Il Partito Nazionale:

-Il Partito Unità:

-Il Partito Comunale:

-Il Fronte Indigeno