Charnea
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Republic of Charnea ⴰⵊⴰⵎⵀⵓⵔⵢⴰ ⵏ ⵞⴰⵔⵏⴻⴰ Ajamhurya n Charnea | |
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 Flag
 Seal
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| Capital and largest city | Agnannet |
| Official languages | None |
| Recognised national languages | Tamashek (de facto) |
| Recognised regional languages | Randeshret Tamahaq Tawellemmet Darja |
| Ethnic groups (2024) | |
| Demonym(s) | Charnean |
| Government | Unitary stratocratic republic |
• Amizar | Khyar Aziouel |
| Legislature | Agraw Itkar |
| Area | |
• Total Area | 2,130,656 km2 (822,651 sq mi) |
• Water (%) | 0.084% |
| Population | |
• 2022 estimate | 27,023,983 |
• 2020 census | 26,995,572 |
• Density | 12.68/km2 (32.8/sq mi) |
| GDP (PPP) | estimate |
• Total | $599 billion |
• Per capita | $22,179.45 |
| Gini | 44.4 medium |
| HDI | 0.801 very high |
| Currency | Azref Aga |
| Date format | mm.dd.yyyy |
| Driving side | right |
Charnea, officially the Republic of Charnea (Tamashek: ⴰⵊⴰⵎⵀⵓⵔⵢⴰ ⵏ ⵞⴰⵔⵏⴻⴰ, Ajamhurya n Charnea), is a landlocked country in central Scipia. The territory of Charnea spans the majority of the Ninva desert, bounded by the Arwa range in the west and the Kija river in the east. Charnea is bordered to the north by Talahara, Tyreseia, Khemetu and Alanahr, to the east by Happara, Fahran and Kembesa, and along the mountainous southern boundary by M'biruna and the Amayana Makgato and Solar Temple states of the Karana basin. Agnannet is the capital and primate city of Charnea, located in the urbanized Achra triangle.
The Republic is a military democracy established by elements of the Charnean Army following the political disintegration of the Charnean Empire in the mid-2010s. The Ihemodian Revival, a Ninvite pan-nationalist movement invoking the historical legacy of the 14th century conqueror Ihemod Imekkusa, is the dominant political current in the Republic. While the Revivalists generally seek to integrate Charnea's large historically marginalized minorities such as the Deshrians and Darja speaking Hatherians into the new Republican society, the legislature, national bureaucracy and Army remain in the hands of the Tenerian majority, particularly Ajamites of rural nomadic extraction in the latter case.
Charnea undertook a program of intensive industrialization beginning in the early 20th century, transforming the country through a state capitalist model of centralized economic planning. Although lucrative resource beds would later be discovered, much of Charnea's formative economic development driven by an apparent dearth of natural resources in the Charnean Ninva would focus on establishing a carefully planned manufacturing sector supplied with imported raw materials by the Trans-Ninvite Railway. The scarcity of water in particular established a pattern of development which favored economic and demographic consolidation into highly concentrated urban zones emerging where local water resources could sustain them, connected to resource beds, international commerce and to each other by the rail network. Despite the harmful effects of recent political instability and long-term social inequality, the Charnean economy has transformed the inhospitable Ninva into a modern and developed country.
Etymology
The exact origins and meaning of the name of Charnea is heavily in dispute. The prevailing theory is that the modern Charna as it is rendered in Tamashek is a corruption of the Deshrian word Shasramt meaning "traveling people" referring to the ancestors of the Tenerians who reverted to a nomadic pastoral lifestyle following the collapse of the urbanized Tamazghan Confederation in the 3rd century. Shasramt was likely adopted as a term for the lands and peoples of the central Ninva desert some time after the rise of the Ihemodian Empire. The Tenerian endonym for the land is simply Tenere meaning "desert", referring to the arid landscape of the Ninva. However, this term is generally applied only to the historically Tenerian region of the western Ninva. The Ninva east of the Adjer mountains instead bears the Hatherian name of Zahra which has the same meaning as Tenere.
History
Government
The Republic of Charnea is a democratic stratocracy in which political rights are contingent on voluntary national service in the Charnean Army or a military sanction. Like the Charnean Empire that preceded it, the Republic does not have a formal constitution. The mechanisms of the Republic's government and democratic system are instead outlined in the 2018 Edicts of Agnannet which established a parliamentary system of government in which the right to vote and hold office would be granted to anyone who completes a 2-year period of military service, while the 2022 Declaration of Principles would later allow for meritorious non-military forms of service to be rewarded with an official sanction granting the same rights. The closest analogue to the unorthodox Charnean system is the federal military regime in neighboring East Itayana.
The Agraw Itkar is the supreme legislative assembly of the Republic, comprised of deputies representing the eligible electorate both within and without the active military. Voting districts of the Agraw, where are known as Corps, are not geographically demarcated and are instead defined by the formation in which a voter preformed their service. Corps which are deemed to be too large to adequately represent its members are split into smaller bodies by the national Elections Council, itself a subdivision of the Agraw which also oversees the dispensation of military sanctions to civilians. All national elections are carried out using a block approval methodology. In addition to legislation, the Agraw also serves as the supreme judicial organ of the Republic overseeing all civilian and military courts in Charnea.
The Amizar is the elective, removable office that acts as chief of the Charnean Army and State. As the military commander in chief, the Amizar exercises total authority over the operations of the Army as well as the state administration. The legitimacy of an Amizar's administration and leadership of the military is legally supported by the Agraw Iktar, which holds the power to instate and recall an Amizar to and from office as the formal representative body of the military. The office has no established term limits, vesting in the Agraw the total authority to dictate how long a specific Amizar may hold the office. The only rule restricting the Agraw's ability to recall an Amizar from office is that a supermajority of 80% of the assembly is required to remove the Amizar if Charnea finds herself in a declared inter-state war, in contrast to the simple majority required in all other circumstances.
Military
The Charnean Army, commonly referred to as the ICA for its Tamashek initials (Iɤrudan Charnan Ajhanan, meaning "Combined Charnean Army") is the professional military force of the Republic. It is an all-volunteer organization in which career-long service is common. The ICA practices a mobile art of war largely inherited from the nomadic military traditions of the Charnean Tenerians who have made up the vast majority of the ICA's manpower for all of its modern history. The combat elements of the ICA are organized into generally autonomous operational groups known as Igadeganen which include aviation, intelligence and logistics components in addition to the infantry, armor and artillery units typical of a conventional combined-arms force. Because of this all-inclusive organizational method, the Charnean military lacks any independent service branches such as an autonomous air force. Although it retains the capacity for conventional warfare as a deterrent against foreign aggression, the Charnean Army is primarily equipped and trained for counterinsurgency and sustained low-intensity conflicts which have been the historical norm across central and eastern Scipia in general and Charnea in particular. Charnea's hybrid defense doctrine establishes the theoretical basis that inter-state warfare and counterinsurgency are neither distinct nor mutually exclusive, and promotes a material and operational approach capable of effectively engaging state and non-state opponents alike.
Since the foundation of the Republic, the Charnean military has gained near-total political primacy through the establishment of stratocratic government. The Charnean Army has thus far rejected Talaharan-style military democracy out of concern that it would negatively effect cohesion and discipline within the ICA, instead establishing the Agraw Itkar as an organ external to military hierarchy to serve as the medium of expression for the Army's political will. As part of its assumption of political control over the country, the ICA has enforced its legal monopoly over force through the disarmament of paramilitary organizations and non-military security forces including municipal police, banning any non-military agent of the state from bearing arms in an official capacity. This action has effectively disbanded many policing organizations across the country, prompting the Army to assume an expanded role in Charnean internal security and law enforcement.
Foreign relations
Charnea maintains tentative diplomatic relations with the international community, suffering from a lack of legitimacy due to the recent establishment of the regime and Charnea's modern history of political upheaval. The Republic has frigid relations with most of its immediate neighbors on the Scipian continent due to historical grievances, ideological incompatibility, and the ramifications of Charnea's history of internal conflicts. Nevertheless, Charnea maintains friendly relations with the Amayana states in the form of military and economic cooperation, particularly in the case of the Amayana Makgato Federation. The Republic has also preserved the previous regime's well-established trading relationship with Tyreseia despite generally uneasy relations with the Rubric Coast Consortium to which Tyreseia is a party. On a global stage, Charnea maintains good relations with the Mutul on the basis of shared cultural history and the diplomatic legacy of Jasaw Chan K'awiil IV. The diplomatic split between Charnea and the Periclean world which began during the Ninvite War has persisted to the present day, staining Charnea's international perception and serving to generally impede good diplomatic relations with Belisarian and Periclean nations.
Geography
The territory of Charnea comprises 2,130,656 square kilometres (822,651 sq mi) of land, making it the largest country in Scipia by land area. Charnea is far larger in its longitudinal expanse than its dimensions in latitude, with its far western tip at the border with Talahara being 3,160 kilometers west of its furthest eastern border section abutting Happara. This entire territory is considered part of the Ninva, the continental desert spanning most of central Scipia of which Charnean territory makes up more than half of its total expanse. More than 90% of the country is classified as arid desert with small portions of the southwest periphery falling under a semi-desert climate classification. The vast majority of this desert expanse has no permanent surface water, with the totality of the surface water in Charnea amounting to 0.084% of the country's total surface area or roughly 179 square kilometers. The principal locations of surface water in Charnea are the inland delta of the Iza river in Achra, as well as the Great Oasis and Kija river in the far east.
Regions
Economy
The Charnean economy is founded on a strong secondary sector sustained by a large urban workforce and extensive infrastructure investments. The formative development of the country's economy in the early 20th century preceded the discovery of significant mineral deposits in the Ninva desert by many decades. Lacking the potential for a lucrative primary sector in the absence of agricultural potential or mineral wealth, Charnean industrial planning focused on establishing a manufacturing sector based on the raw materials that could be readily and cheaply imported from neighboring Scipian countries by rail. The center and west of the country specialized in textiles produced using cotton imported from Itayana, while the near and far east of the country established a copper-based metalworking economy importing raw materials from Fahran and Kembesa through Happaran-owned east Scipian railways. The discovery of buried petroleum reserves in the far east and far west in the 1960s opened the door for petrochemical production and the rise of the Charnean plastics industry, the third component of the "Charnean Trinity" along with textiles and metal products. Mineral extraction has emerged as an important component of the national economy since modern prospecting technologies helped discover previously unknown resource deposits in the Ninva desert, but is primarily oriented toward supporting domestic manufacturing rather than exporting raw materials directly. Agriculture is likewise oriented toward domestic demand as the high costs associated with Charnean agricultural production make exports generally unprofitable. As a result of these factors stemming from environmental conditions and its mode of industrialization, the Charnean economy has remained in a state of secondary sector primacy throughout its modern history.
Charnea is known for its centralized, often highly restrictive economic planning governed by regional governmental organizations such as the Achra TET that direct local development and establish regulation on the use of local resources. The dominant economic model in Charnea, especially in the country's industrialized urban zones, is a form of corporatist state capitalism in which the state is both directly involved (through state enterprise) and indirectly involved (through regional development organs) in economic activity. The Charnean system has greatly benefitted a small number of major industrial conglomerates, known as "Combines" (ⴻⵔⵜⴻⵢ, Ertey) in Charnean parlance, which have prospered from close cooperation and a reciprocal business relationship with the state. Private entities such as the Mamala Combine as well as state enterprises like COPEC individually account for significant portions of the national GDP, making Charnea one of the most consolidated economies in the world in terms of ownership and corporate structures.
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Manufacturing
The secondary sector of the Charnean economy is highly consolidated, with more than three quarters of all economic activity within the manufacturing industries being consolidated within just three major conglomerates. These are Ishar, Plexico and Akundar, together known as the "big three". Plexico, an enormous plastics industry corporation, is by far the largest of the big three. It serves as one of the main suppliers of basic as well as complex plastic products on a global scale, accounting for the majority of Charnean exports of plastic products which in total account for some 17% of the national GDP. Plexico's plastic products range from highly complex and heavily engineered medical grade items to cheap mass produced industrial components such as plastic pipes. The company is also one of the largest contributors to the worldwide supply of the plastics industry's most basic material, the pre-production plastic pellets which serve as the main input of all plastic products. Of the big three, Plexico is the most politically connected with an especially close business relationship with COPEC as its main supplier of key petrochemicals for the production of plastic materials. Plexico wields outsized political influence thanks to its status as the largest company in Charnea by revenue and one of the country's largest employers. Plexico grew to this immense size through the constant financial support and legal acquiescence of the Charnean government which invested heavily in growing the domestic plastics industry in the 1960s and and 70s, capitalizing on the incredibly low cost of the petrochemicals in the domestic market needed as inputs for the industry as well as the effects of the demographic dividend which Charnea was experiencing in those decades. The main campuses of Plexico's plastics empire are Aghzu factory located in Agnannet, Aszar in Ekelhoc and the Thalsa facility in Tezzat, all of which are found in close proximity to COPEC refineries and chemical plants which supply these factories with their raw materials. Plexico's monopoly on the Charnean plastics industry stems from its access to the financial rescources of the Charnean state and its international backers, which have allowed it to dominate the market in which other firms struggle to surpass the high financial and technological barriers of entry.
Besides plastics manufacturing which is highly consolidated under Plexico, the Charnean manufacturing sector also includes the production of of vehicles and transportation-related goods, metal products such as copper wire, and other low-complexity consumer grade products which fall under the category of light industry. These sectors are largely consolidated into the Akundar-Ishar duopoly, with neither conglomerate holding or seeking an outright monopoly over any one sector while both entities are subject to economic interdependence as part of a wider industrial oligopoly. Akundar is the main producer of rolling stock through its Agnannet-based subsidiary Akundar Transportation, while Ishar holds a greater degree of market presence among rail operators, giving both companies a great deal of control over the all-important Charnean railway network and the industries which support its infrastructure. The Ahuriri Corporation represents an outside power in the transport-manufacturing industry in Charnea, as an Onekawan firm which has expanded operations of its aircraft manufacturing industry into Charnea in recent years. This move, as well as the investment in the vehicular manufacturing and industrial sectors in general, has been indirectly subsidized by the Charnean defense industry which itself is almost entirely propped up by lucrative contracts awarded by the Charnean Army. Domestic Charnean defense industry firms such as Eruere Enterprises and the Akayon Corporation benefit greatly from the supporting network of industry of the big three as well as the smaller firms.
Agriculture
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As a desert nation, Charnea faces significant challenges in the development of its agriculture and domestic food production. Charnea has extremely low overall rainfall, with most of the nation's water supply coming from groundwater aquifers which are tightly regulated by the Charnean government due to the political and strategic considerations surrounding the extremely sensitive, scarce and crucial resource. In addition, Charnean farmers battle the often terrible physical and chemical characteristics and low fertility of the desert soil. These factors act to hinder the process of cultivation and food production in the desert. Nevertheless, Charnean farmers have persisted despite the adversity and have perfected methods of agriculture specifically adapted to the arid conditions through the millennia of human habitation in the region. Domestic cereal production is centered around the cultivation of millet, barley and flax, especially the native cultivars of these crops which are uniquely hardy and drought resistant making them far better adapted to the conditions than foreign staples such as wheat and rice. Production of mesquite flour from the invasive and widespread honey mesquite tree is common in many parts of the Tenere region of the desert, where it was introduced by Mutulese traders centuries ago. Other arboreal cultivations include date palms for fruit production as well as mastic and gum acacia which produce aromatic resin in high demand both locally and internationally.
The specificities of Charnean agriculture have a significant effect on the diet of the local people, distinguishing their cuisine from that of related Amaziɣ and comparable desert-dwelling peoples such as the Gharibs. For example, Talaharan couscous made from wheat semolina differs noticeably in flavor and consistency from its Charnean equivalent which is made from pearl millet. The Charnean diet and its associated food industries are also highly influenced by the Tenerian traditions of animal husbandry, particularly the herding of camels. This activity has been industrialized and intensified over the last century, although it retains at its core many of the practices of the nomadic ancestors of the modern Tenerians. Camels are widely raised by large family owned enterprises across Charnea for their meat, hide and especially their milk. Charnea is the largest producer of camel milk in the world, with a near totality of this industry's output aimed at the large domestic market for the milk itself as well as the yoghurt that can be made from it.
Charnea is a major importer of foodstuffs and agricultural products, and has been so consistently since the 1940s when urbanization and population growth propelled the demand for food beyond what the Charnean agricultural sector could supply. All Charnean production of foodstuffs through crop cultivation and animal husbandry today accounts for less than half of the total food supply in the country and less than 10% of all economic activity by value, with major imports of non-perishable canned goods, cereal grains, legumes and processed foods accounting for a large portion of the national food supply in Charnea. The cost to import these items by rail from neighboring nations contributes to the inflation of food prices in Charnea, an important political issue for the Charnean government and a source of public unrest in the country. The Charnean state has engaged in a policy of stockpiling reserves of non-perishable and shelf-stable food products in government run warehouses in order to mitigate the economic and political fallout of any serious trade disruption which could send food prices skyrocketing.
Tourism
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The development of the Charnean tertiary sectors has been based primarily on the tourism industry. From the lavish palaces of the Imperial era to the pre-Imperial ancient monuments of the Tenerian and Deshrian civilizations, Charnea has a great many historically significant and impressive sites which have been converted into tourist attractions, most often by the local communities which rely on the income collected from visitors to sustain themselves. Many enterprises have been established in the rural regions of the country to organize tours aimed at foreign visitors, with the natural beauty of the Charnean desert landscape as the main selling point. As with the historical attractions, these are mainly operated by local families to gain a higher level of income that would otherwise be possible in the native region. These sub-sectors of the tourism industry have been the hardest hit by the dips in tourist travel to Charnea that has come as a result of the country's recent political instability.
By contrast, major hospitality firms operating in the great cities have been only marginally affected thanks to their devoted clientele of foreign visitors. These establishments capitalize on Charnea's legal gambling and prostitution as well as its permissive drug laws to attract visitors, especially from more restrictive parts of the world, to patronize their large casino-resorts. The majority of these hospitality industry establishments can be found in Agnannet and Tanitnet in commercial districts which have a high density of businesses catering specifically to a clientele of foreign visitors. These districts, known in Charnea as Talyat districts, are well known for their safety with the local law enforcement and at times even the local branch of the Charnean Alxalat syndicate paying special attention to the safety of foreign visitors from all forms of crime and even petty harassment. Tourism is a relatively non-consolidated industry, making it somewhat unique in the landscape of the Charnean economy, with very few establishments being part of any sort of wider company or chain. The Ishar Consortium is the only major Charnean corporation to have entered into the tourism industry, operatingtwo casino-resorts in Tanitnet and one in Agnannet. For the most part, the tourism industry in Charnea is dominated by small-scale entrepreneurship driven by individual owner-operators or in some cases family-ownership.