Federal Union of Arcadia
Federal Union of Arcadia | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
| Motto: He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat | |
| Anthem: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory! official | |
| Capital | Providence |
| Largest city | Salem |
| Official languages | Arcadian Estarian |
| Recognised national languages | Mahican, Kanienʼkéha, Siouan, Niimi'ipuutímt, Numic |
| Ethnic groups (2020) | White(67.4%) Native Arcadians(22.6%) Other(10%) |
| Religion | Beaconerism |
| Demonym(s) | official Arcadian |
| Government | Federal presidential constitutional republic |
| President Mitchell J. Cole | |
| Vice President Tony W. Red Horse | |
| Legislature | Senate |
| Establishment | |
• Arcadian Colonies | 1603 |
• Arcadian Free States | 1795 |
• Confederacy of Arcadia | 1799 |
• Federal Union of Arcadia | 1809 |
• Water (%) | 2% |
| Population | |
• 2020 census | 305,150,700 |
| GDP (PPP) | 2023 estimate |
• Total | $19,963,569,095,400 |
• Per capita | $65,422 |
| GDP (nominal) | 2023 estimate |
• Total | $19,963,569,095,400 |
• Per capita | $65,422 |
| Gini (2021) | 34.5 medium |
| HDI (2021) | 0.932 very high |
| Currency | Federal Dollar (FUD) |
| Date format | mm/dd/yyyy (AD) |
| Driving side | right |
| Calling code | +777 |
| ISO 3166 code | FUA |
| Internet TLD | .arc |
The Federal Union of Arcadia (FUA, F.U.A.) commonly known as Arcadia, the Union, or the Federal Union is a country located in !North America. It consists of 11 Commonwealths, 2 Semi-Autonomous Republics, and numerous Federal Territories. The Union spreads across TBD square kilometers and comprises 305 million citizens, making it one of the largest in the world by size and population. While its largest city is Salem, the capital of the Union is Providence.
Evidence of Native Arcadian settlement within the FUA dates back to almost 18,000 years ago, while colonization began in the 15th and 16th centuries. The current Federal Union originated as the colonies of Estaria in the New World before they fought a short independence war in the early 1790s. By 1795 the Arcadian Free States had formed a loose alliance that rapidly broke down. In 1799 the Confederacy of Arcadia was formed by the Free State of Alexandria, the Republic of Western Freemen, and the Mahican Tribe. Two years later in 1801, the White Crow Mahican Band and Free State of New Jordan joined the Confederacy. 1807 saw the Federal War erupt between the Confederacy and the remaining three Free States (Salem, Rochester, and New Estaria) followed by their annexation.
In 1809, the first Confederate Congress met and agreed upon the Federal Constitution, thereby establishing the Federal Union of Arcadia and its first two subjects, the Free State Commonwealth and the New Estarian Commonwealth. Throughout the early and mid 19th century, the Union expanded across the continent through land purchases, diplomatic maneuvering, and rare military actions with failing colonial powers and Native Arcadian tribes and nations. The most recently admitted territory was the Siouan Republic in 1866, joining shortly after the Numic Republic.
Starting in the late 19th century, Arcadia was no longer seen as a backwater but as a modern economic powerhouse; fueled by mass immigration and plentiful natural resources, Arcadia had surpassed most Old World economies by 1900. With a surplus of economic power and diplomatic weight, the Union established its place at the international table and built a sphere of influence in its continental neighborhood. While neutral, the horrors of the !Great War convinced a generation of Arcadians that a neutral isolation in their hemisphere would be preferable to violent engagement with the Old World. Armed neutrality became the state policy for decades afterwards.
It wasn't until the end of the !Second Great War that public opinion began to shift. The declining power of Beaconerism over the electorate shifted pacifism and neutrality farther and farther out of the spotlight. In the 1950s the policy of Pax Arcadia became the driving foreign policy strategy of the nation- an attempt to build an international order centered on free trade, human rights, liberal democracy, and the containment of communism and fascism.
The Federal Union is a representative democracy and federal republic and the headquarters of numerous international organizations, most founded in and by the Union. Arcadia ranks very highly in development, economic freedom, human rights, education, healthcare, and social equality but has stagnated in economic equality.
From its founding, Arcadia has had a significant Beaconer religious majority, especially the Grand Lodge of the Brotherly Beaconers. This led to a rather uniform and conservative religious-political establishment for 150 years before the decline in Beaconer religiosity and influx of non-Beaconer immigrants, especially Tiberians, resulted in the modern political landscape.
Etymology
History
Pre-colonization era
Colonization by Erisians
Early growth and independence movements
The Arcadian Revolution
The Continental Dash
Cattle Wars and Gunfighters
By nature of the rapid advance of Arcadian settlers across the West, the Federal government had a very difficult time keeping the peace and enforcing law and order in the highly decentralized Territories. Being subject to Federal and Territorial law meant very little to the wealthy landowners and cattle barons that had managed to acquire enough power and wealth, and corruption was rampant. Small town governments and local law enforcement officers were almost invariably in the pocket of their local cattle magnate, and this led to frequent clashes between popular interests and those of the powerful.
Equally as common as the clashes between poorer citizens and barons were the clashes between barons themselves. Cattle Wars broke out frequently, resulting in everything from hostile takeovers to massacres. Conflicts like the 1867 Morganstown Massacre led to the decades-long merge of the cowboy and gunfighter professions as barons made great efforts to hire cowboys that could not only effectively manage cattle, but also shoot with the best of them. Famous gunslingers produced by the era include William "Willy Wild" Jacobs, Creedence "John" Van Cleef, Felicity Strange, and Ezra Adlai "Easy Elt" Eltringham, all of whom died in gunfights.
It wasn't until the 1880s that the Union was able to muster the political power necessary to send Federal troops west to pacify the region through a campaign of land repossession, mass arrests of barons, and violent confrontation with the unorganized baron militias. A great deal of assistance was rendered by the Army Native Auxiliaries who provided scouting services and "extrajudicial" assistance to local unit commanders who faced greater scrutiny over the legality of their actions.
The Beckoning
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In the aftermath of the Cattle Wars and Pacification of the West, waves of Tiberian immigrants from Erisia seeking to settle the now peaceful lands in Cascadia, Caldwell, and the Palm Desert began to arrive in Arcadia. Between 1880 and 1900, the population of Tiberians in Arcadia quadrupled from 3 million to over 12 million. For the first time in Arcadian history, a religious movement other than Beaconerism was the fastest growing in the country. In many conservative Beaconer circles, the influx of Tiberians was worrying for political, social, and religious reasons- many Beaconers still viewed Tiberians as lapsed Sophisians and saw them as a threat. Tiberian dominance in Erisia had originally been the driving force in mass Beaconer immigration to the New World, along with other non-Tiberian sects of Sophisians.
Beginning in the late 1880s, nativist Beaconer groups in the Free State Commonwealth began to oppose further immigration, forming "All-Arcadian Free Sophisian Societies." The Societies in theory were meeting places for Sophisian men of a patriotic nature to gather and discuss the issues of the day, though in practice they were mostly dominated by conservative nationlists and Beaconers. Within the Societies, some more grassroot level preachers began to call for a religious revival to counter the Tiberian "corruption of good society." Good Brother John, a devout Beaconer from Lowell, Wabash Commonwealth, began a tour of these All-Arcadian Free Sophisian Societies in 1891, preaching a need for a renewal of basic Beaconer principals like pacifism, plain clothing, humble life, abstinence from alcohol, and commitment to the attainment of perfection. While the Societies began to fall out of favor in the Free States by 1893, they spread like wildfire across the rest of the nation and Good Brother John performed national tours to as many as he could reach. In 1895 he coined the term "The Beckoning" to refer to what he believed to be a necessary realignment of Arcadian spiritual values that was occurring. New Beaconerism's early roots begin in these years, as Arcadian nationalism and nativist anti-immigration policies began to supersede traditional values of tolerance. Following the Good Brother, dozens more preachers began nationwide proselytizing including Booker Leroy, Leonard Giraud, Samuel Belter, and Ezekiel Cornwallis.
While the New Beaconers' sermons were received well by poor and rich Beaconers alike, the more moderate and middle class groups weren't swayed to the same degree. Most Beaconers, even those involved in the more theological aspects of The Beckoning didn't align with the nativist ideals preached by Good Brother John or his contemporaries. Splits began to form that eventually led to the 1909 Breaking of Fraternity between the Carsonville Meeting House of the Grand Lodge of the Brotherly Beaconers and the national headquarters in Salem. Endorsing the split, many New Beaconers abandoned the Grand Lodge for a variety of more local groups or the newly formed rival Lodge, the Fraternal Arcadian Beaconer Church.
Politically, this era and its fallout had long-lasting consequences for the Union. Beset by pacifism from the lower and upper classes, the Arcadian government didn't involve itself in any offensive military actions for decades. The S.A. Bulloch administration brokered the Army-Navy Compromise of 1910 between pacifist Liberal and Progressive Senators which effectively gutted the Arcadian Army to secure much greater funding for the Navy. The same administration would manage to secure continued lax immigration laws only because of the popularity of Progressive labor reforms with the working poor and the defection of several New Beaconer Liberals to pass the Foreigner Compromise of 1919 which imposed extremely large tariffs on foreign goods.
The 1928 election saw the business interests of the industrialists secure the nomination of their anti-tariff, pro-immigration candidate, Herman Rice, to the Liberal Party's presidential ticket. While a New Beaconer himself, his public comments in favor of reconciliation between the Grand Lodge and Fraternals sunk his support with hardliners, and his weak personality failed to attract any degree of attention. The New Union Party would go on to sweep the election in the wake of Castor "The Blackhorse" Clark's death and subsequent chaos in the Progressive Party.
Arcadian Adventurism
Mass immigration and industrialization
Prosperous isolation
The Great Wars and Blood Shock
"Pax Arcadia" and Cold War
Millennium Crash to today
Government and Politics
Government
The Federal Union of Arcadia is a representative democracy comprising 11 Commonwealths, 2 Semi-Autonomous Republics, as well as a number of Federal Territories. As a federal presidential constitutional republic, Arcadia maintains a democratically-elected executive and legislative branch, as well as a judicial branch serving by a mix of local election and temporary appointment in Federal courts. The system of government used by Arcadia was designed in part by the victors of the Arcadian Revolution as a means of uniting the various colonial states and tribal bands, firstly into the Confederacy, and finally into the Federal Union. While the current Federal Constitution was originally written in 1808 and 1809, 33 revisions have been made since, each voted upon by the Senate and approved by the President and Supreme Court.
The Legislative Branch of the Federal Government is comprised of the 480-member Federal Senate, the unicameral legislature of the Union. As the legislature, the Senate has the ability to write legislation, approve Presidential requests to declare war (as well as to declare war itself), impeach any federal office, and budget the government's funds. There are 480 sitting Senators, each representing a Senatorial District and serving 3 year terms with a 4-term limit.
The Executive Branch is lead by the President, who is the Arcadian Head of State and Head of Government. The Presidents democratically elected every 4 years and may serve up to 3 terms in peacetime, or 4 in wartime. Powers of the President include the power of the veto, the role of the Commander-in-Chief of the Arcadian Federal Armed Forces, the selection of his cabinet, and the appointment of judges.
The Judicial Branch includes all Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court. Federal judges are appointed by the President and approved by the Senate and typically serve 10 year terms, though these can be and frequently are extended indefinitely.
At the moment, the Union can best be described as a three-party system, though a handful of smaller parties occasionally win minor representation in the Senate. Of the three major parties, the Liberal Party is typically described as center to center-right. The Progressive Party is a center-left party, sitting opposite the New Union Party, a generally right or center-right populist party. Of the represented parties in the Senate, the only others are the Socialist Party (left), Libertarian Party (right/far-right), and Green Party (left). Staggered elections ensure that there is an election every year in Arcadia, with three years of Senate elections, followed by a Presidential election; Presidential and Senate elections never overlap.
Elections, since 1950, have run on a ranked-choice, direct vote system. This includes both the Federal, Commonwealth/Republic, Territory, and Local government levels.
Political Divisions
As a federation, Arcadia sub-divides into 11 Commonwealths, 2 Semi-Autonomous Republics, and Federal Territories.
Commonwealths are not sovereign entities and act more as administrative divisions than political ones, though there may be differences between them as far as minor local law and regulation goes. Commonwealth governments are structured similarly to the Federal government, with an Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branch, though the judiciary of the Commonwealths is purely for criminal and civil purposes. At the head of a Commonwealth Executive is the Governor, directly elected and typically serving 4-8 year terms depending on the Commonwealth. While the OFLE handles major violations of federal law, Commonwealths all operate their own law enforcement agencies.
The Semi-Autonomous Republics are semi-sovereign states and have a theoretically larger degree of latitude in making legislation and local law, as well as to raise non-Federal Gendarmes. While these states function very similarly to Commonwealths per federal law, a number of differences owing to the cultural traditions of the constituent tribes are apparent. In the case of the Siouan Republic, a Chief of the Republic is chosen by the Tribal Councils of the Siouan Tribal Confederation; the Chief of the Republic (and Republic itself) is fully subject to Arcadian federal law, but is given the respect and ceremony of a foreign leader when meeting with the President. In the Numic Republic, no central Chief is chosen, but a Council of Chiefs (usually 4) is elected by the Great Council to act as its Executive. Both Republics operate small gendarmes made up traditionally of tribal veterans of the Arcadian military, which all Republic citizens are legally allowed to enlist in. These gendarmes cannot be federalized, even during war, though the Republics can volunteer them to federal service.
Federal Territories are regions of Arcadia that are not administered by Commonwealths or the Republics. This includes military bases, federal parks, the city of Providence, and any overseas territory, including that occupied by the Federal Armed Forces. Maintenance of these territories is funded exclusively by the Federal Government, and law enforcement duties fall to the OFLE, Federal Armed Forces Military Police, or Federal Park Rangers. Commonwealth taxes cannot be levied against permanent residents of Federal Territories, but federal taxes are.
| Flag and name with federal abbreviation and status | Cities | Population | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capital | Largest | ||||
 Free State Commonwealth
|
FSC | Commonwealth | Innsmouth | Salem | tbd |
 Greater Tribal Commonwealth
|
GTR | Commonwealth | Kerhitekanónhsa | Kensington | tbd |
 New Estarian Commonwealth
|
NEC | Commonwealth | New Wickham | Spinnaker | tbd |
 Anadarko Commonwealth
|
ADC | Commonwealth | Mississinewa | tbd | |
 Midlands Commonwealth
|
GTR | Commonwealth | Fort Drake | tbd | |
 Palm Desert Commonwealth
|
PDC | Commonwealth | Homme | Solomon | tbd |
 Cascadian Commonwealth
|
CAC | Commonwealth | Cornell City | Arco | tbd |
 Clearwater Coast Commonwealth
|
CCC | Commonwealth | Clearwater | tbd | |
 Caldwell Commonwealth
|
CLD | Commonwealth | Meridian | tbd | |
 Winchester Commonwealth
|
WIN | Commonwealth | Lucky Peak | Carsonville | tbd |
 Wabash Commonwealth
|
WAB | Commonwealth | Kokomo | Manning | tbd |
 Siouan Republic
|
SIR | Semi-Autonomous Republic | Oglala | tbd | |
 Numic Republic
|
NUR | Semi-Autonomous Republic | Kotsoteka | Snake River City | tbd |
Foreign relations
Military
Law Enforcement
Intelligence Community
Geography
Location
Flora and fauna
Science
Science in Arcadia
Space Program
For decades, Arcadia has been a frontrunner in the global space race, achieving several of mankind's firsts, to include being the first nation to land humans on the Moon, the first to establish a permanent presence there, and the first to establish a permanent presence in near-Earth orbit.
Arcadian intentions in space began in the early 1940s with the Stark administration's "Arcadian Citadel" policy. A collection of scientists and engineers from the Gotham Engineering College wrote a letter to the President in 1941 proposing that the college's rocket and aerospace studies be funded with Federal money for the purpose of developing long range missile weapons. Consequently, a secret program within the newly founded Air Forces with the express purpose of developing advanced rocket technology. By 1945, prototypes were being launched at the Fort Lark Munitions Range in the northwestern region of the Midlands; in 1948, the first Arcadian offensive missiles entered service.
Though guided and unguided missiles and rockets were primary purview of the Air Force program, proposals were put forth by more ambitious staff members to attempt to place men or objects into space itself, for either scientific or military purposes. Studies on the subject continued until 1953, when the Fitzgerald administration ordered the Air Force to put a satellite in orbit by 1960. As the program developed, the Senate decided to split the peaceful and scientific intentions of the program from the military ones, founding National Institude of Space Exploration, or NISE, in 1955.
While the Air Force was in the process of abandoning their attempts at intercontinental ballistic missiles, the newly founded NISE found in these early designs a jumping-off point. Project Dynamic and its successor, Project Premier, formed the engineering basis for the first family of rockets that NISE would use for space launches, Lightning. After a pair of catastrophic launch failures, Lightning III launched and deposited an Arcadian satellite into orbit on December 19th, 1957; Lightning IV, Lightning V, and Lightning VI would all follow throughout 1958, as would 5 other failed launches.
Also beginning in 1958 was the Pathfinder Program, the still-running science and exploration program responsible for 129 launches between 1958 and 2023. Pathfinder missions have studied countless physical, geophysical, heliophysical, and astrophysical phenomenon and subjects ranging from the ionosphere to the cosmic microwave background. Pathfinder also acts as a management and co-development program for private sector and university/academic projects proposed to NISE.
In 1956, NISE began a series of individual programs that would eventually lead to the first Arcadian manned spaceflight. The programs would eventually be brought under one umbrella in 1959, the Explorer Program. Explorer launched its first manned mission, Explorer II, in 1960 and sent astronaut Colonel John Kirk on a suborbital mission lasting 16 minutes. After a series of seven successful following flights and one fatal crash, Explorer ended and its resources were rolled in to the Eagle program that would proceed to launch 11 more manned missions until 1968. Eagle and Explorer would prove essential to the further development of Arcadian manned spaceflight.
One of the goals of NISE beginning in 1959 was the study of the Moon. To this end, an unmanned series of orbiters and landers were sent beginning 1961 via the Frontier Program to test landing sites and equipment. At the same time the first Frontier missions were flying in 1961, the Kyrus Program (named after an ancient Argean astronomer-king who studied the Moon) was beginning to put together the necessary technology to land Arcadians on the Moon. Through a series of successful test flights between 1963 and 1968, Kyrus became the frontrunner for a human Moon program. In late 1968, Kyrus 14 was to launch, but exploded 23 seconds aftrer liftoff, killing its entire crew: Colonel Arnold O'Reilly, Lieutenant Colonel William "Billy" Seger, and Lieutenant Colonel Orville Ness. After a six month safety stand down, Kyrus 15 launched and successfully completed its mission, landing Colonel Lawrence Granger, Colonel Felix Hunt, and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Mazzini on the Moon with a lander on June 23rd, 1969.
Follow-up manned missions to the Moon would continue until 1977, with 15 total missions occuring, of which 14 succeeded (Kyrus 19 suffered a mechanical failure in lunar orbit and had to return). The last Kyrus mission, Kyrus 30, launched in October of 1977. Between 1977 and 2014, another 5 manned missions would be flown under the direction of the Lantern Program.
Continued aggressive space exploration by NISE would continue for decades and included missions to other stellar bodies and the establishment of a space station, Ness Station.
In 2004, renewed interest in the scientific value of the Moon prompted NISE to lobby the Senate to fund a permanent presence on the Moon. From 2004 to 2009, a protracted budget fight occurred though eventually resulted in the funding being allocated for a Moon base, birthing the Homestead Program. After preparatory missions launched between 2012 and 2014, Homestead 4 launched on August 6th, 2015 followed by Homstead 6 on September 7th and Homestead 7 on January 18th. By July 2016, the mission had succeeded in establishing a functioning long-term Moon base complete with a crew of 10. On October 11th 2016, the 10th anniversary of John Kirk's death, the base was officially named Kirk Station.
Economy
Energy
Major Corporations
Demographics
Ethnic groups
Religion
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Arcadia is a religiously diverse country, with the majority of the world's faiths represented in sizable numbers. While early Arcadian settlers were overwhelmingly persecuted Beaconer pilgrims from Erisia, the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Arcadian Constitution attracted millions of religiously diverse immigrants and refugees over the centuries. Beaconers still make up a majority of the nation's religious affiliation at roughly 33%, while unaffiliated/irreligious make up roughly 30%, Tiberians come in at 3rd with 24%, and Nahjiyyah at a distant 4th with 4% of Arcadians identifying as Talibani.
The first waves of major non-Beaconer immigration came in the 1820s in the form of Tiberians, some fleeing wars in Erisia and others seeking economic opportunity in the fledgling Union. These Tiberian immigrants were the subject of a number of controversies and conspiracies in early Arcadian history, though these issues typically remained a feature of fringe segments of society. Indigenous Arcadian religions were a longtime feature of rural communities, though the success of missionaries in these communities resulted in most natives converting to Beaconerism or Tiberianism; the mid 19th century saw numerous syncretic sects appear in native communities.
Since the 1970s, religiosity has been on the decline in Arcadia, primarily among traditionally Beaconer religious communities, those with higher levels of education, and younger generations; this group includes atheists and agnostics.
Arcadia has also played host to a variety of new sects of various religions, including numerous offshoots of the Grand Lodge of the Brotherly Beaconers, Nahjiyyah, and Tiberianism.
Health
Major cities
Largest cities or towns in Federal Union of Arcadia
2020 census | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Commonwealth | Pop. | |||||||
 Salem  Manning |
1 | Salem | Free State Commonwealth | 21,046,385 |  Kokomo  Arco | ||||
| 2 | Manning | Wabash Commonwealth | 14,430,231 | ||||||
| 3 | Kokomo | Wabash Commonwealth | 10,983,132 | ||||||
| 4 | Arco | Cascadian Commonwealth | 7,124,095 | ||||||
| 5 | Cornell City | Cascadian Commonwealth | 7,023,764 | ||||||
| 6 | Providence (Arcadia) | Federal Territories | 6,760,486 | ||||||
| 7 | Spinnaker | New Estarian Commonwealth | 6,349,710 | ||||||
| 8 | Rochester | Free State Commonwealth | 6,216,580 | ||||||
| 9 | Clearwater | Clearwater Commonwealth | 6,110,009 | ||||||
| 10 | Solomon | Palm Desert Commonwealth | 5,967,019 | ||||||
Culture
Cuisine
Architecture
Cinema
Oakfield is a city in the Cascadian Commonwealth and an enclave of Arco, as well as the global leader in move production. Numerous major entertainment studios are headquartered in Oakfield, several being the largest business of their kind in the world, and the city is recognized across the world as the center of cinema. In many places, the word Oakfield is synonymous with filmmaking, glamorous actors' lifestyles, and mass media.
The film camera was invented in Arcadia by Elias J. Prendergast, whose studio in Salem produced the earliest examples of film in 1895. When Prendergast's studio burned down in 1898, his brother Cornelius Prendergast allowed the disenfranchised inventor to rent a warehouse in Oakfield cheaply. Numerous young artists seeking to use the early cameras of the Prendergast Company set up their own shops and studios around the town, eventually blossoming in to the national center for film studios. Oakfield's total dominance would become clear by the 1930s and the end of the silent movies, triggering the era that's now known as the Oakfield Triumph. During the era of the Triumph, filmmaking techniques were pioneered by a class of professional filmmakers and movie stars that remained household names in Arcadia for decades. The Triumph is typically regarded as beginning in the 1930s and ending in the 1970s when social liberalization saw a new class of young, sometimes foreign, filmmakers take the reigns of Oakfield's cinema. Today's Oakfield studios are multi-billion dollar juggernauts and produce some of the world's largest and most successful blockbusters.
The Triumphs, the world's most prestigious yearly film award show, has taken place in Oakfield since 1930 and is a city-wide event in which many of the world's most well-known actors and filmmakers receive awards from the Union of Film Academics and Critics; the award show has always been hosted in The Erisian, a prestigious theater built in 1922. The Film Actors Guild puts on an award show of its own every year, known as the Baldwin Awards.
Media
Literature
While early Arcadian literature cued mostly from its Erisian originators, the 19th century brought about a number of its own unique literary movements within the young and expanding nation. Beginning in the 1820s, Beaconer fiction as its come to be known began to take spread infectiously, containing themes of moralism, theology, and salvation. While early Beaconer fiction was highly conservative, younger writers in the tradition starting in the 1830s began to explore theological and moral questions in their novels, rather than stating "truths" as objective fact; the conservative establishment was appalled, but printing houses couldn't keep up with demand.
As society liberalized, poetry and Gothic fiction took hold, producing some of the most prolific writers of the century like Dorian Langston, Emilia Everett, Ezra Sullivan, and legendary Gothic horror writer Percival Walcott. While this development was highly desirable to an increasingly secular northeastern upper class of intelligentsia and industrialists, the aristocratic Brotherly Beaconers establishment of the Free States never approved of the "immoral" nature of the writings, though most other Beaconer groups were much more split.
Following the Continental Dash and Cattle Wars, the swelling population of Arcadia attracted intellectuals, writers, journalists, humorists, and more from across the globe, outnumbering an increasingly irrelevant Beaconer aristocracy and creating demand for literature and entertainment never before seen in the nation; genres like the western, horror, and eventually even science fiction proliferated. The 1870s to 1890s produced legendary Arcadian writers like Ambrose Caldwell who authored dozens of novels and short stories over the course of his life including A Gunfighter's Requiem, one of the most adapted stories in Arcadian history. Cormac Pierce, Mary Jo McCullers, and Benjamin Priest all saw success in this period, while others like Franklin Harvey and Stanislaus Wolfe wouldn't see major success until after their deaths. August Drax's horror novels written between 1888 and 1904 would become foundational in both science fiction, horror, and the prolific writings of future President and writer, C. M. Crowley.
At the turn of the century, Arcadian literature was on a meteoric rise and becoming popular worldwide. Emblematic of that success was Gotham native Ernest Huntington, who was a writer, humorist, lecturer, professor of linguistics, journalist, and political writer. Huntington's success was nearly immediate- his wealthy family was able to cover the cost of publishing his works at first, though he quickly reached great success and no longer needed their assistance. Several of his fictional works such as She Wears the Sun, A Song for the Plains, and The Many Adventures of Sam Wise are considered contenders for the greatest Arcadian novel ever written, while his non-fiction works were greatly respected and widely read in his time and after. Huntington's immense fame during and after his life have since influenced the Arcadian perception of an author, and he is frequently cited as an inspiration.
Later writers such as C. M. Crowley, Orson Beck, Bill Steiner and Julianne Halverson would pioneer new genres, such as science fiction, which became wildly popular beginning in the 1930s. After his Presidency, Crowley took to seclusion and wrote voraciously, producing a string of famous cosmic horror pieces building on earlier works by Drax and others. Crowley's contribution to his genre would become so great that cosmic horror is frequently referred to as Crowleyan horror. Beck and Steiner would keep up a multi-decade literary contest between the two spawned by a grudge when both of the writers accused each other of plagiarism; this contest would result in some of the best known science fiction novels written by Arcadians. Julianne Halverson became a household name for her southern fiction stories depicting simple rural life on the Clearwater as well as the dramas of close-nit communities in those regions.
Sport
Sports in Arcadia make up some of the most popular pastimes; in particular Arcadian Football, Basketball, Baseball, and K-Mo Formula Racing attract the greatest amount of TV viewership and in-person attendance. Additionally, golf, hockey, soccer, and numerous other sports have sizable presences in the Union. Governing bodies include the PFA for football, NBO for basketball, ABL for baseball, and K-Mo Racing for K-Mo formula racing.
Major sporting events, such as the Arcadian Professional Football yearly championship known as the Union Bowl, as well as baseball's Grand Old Arcadian Baseball Series earn tens of millions of international viewers every year. While the Union Bowl is the most-watched Arcadian sporting event with domestic audiences, it's the K-Mo Classic 500 race held in the Kokomo SuperSpeedway in Kokomo, Wabash Commonwealth, that attracts the most total viewers via international broadcast. K-Mo racing attracts a great deal of foreign interest on account of a great degree of international participation, an example being the highly successful teams Forza Automotive and Delta-V Racing from Septi and Picisola.
Other popular events include the NBO's finals, known as the Continental Series, as well as the various college-level athletic events hosted throughout the year.
Overall, the sports industry and market in the Union is worth an estimated $61 billion yearly, the highest in the world.
Professional Football Association
The Arcadian Professional Football Association is both Arcadia and the world's largest Arcadian Football league. The league plays in 18-week regular seasons, followed by single-elimination playoffs, and finally the league championship known as the Union Bowl. Although the league started in Arcadia, a number of nations have teams in the PFA and the league is always attempting to expand in to new states.
In the history of the PFA, the Kokomo Checkers have the most Union Bowl victories with 7, while the Arco Astros have the most winning seasons. The Warren Oilers and Baie Icemen are the only teams never to have won a Union Bowl, with the Icemen having never made it to a conference championship, and the Cornell City Supers have the most losing seasons.
Music
Some of the earliest music popular in Arcadia were church hymns brought over from Erisia by immigrants and colonists; many of these hymns would go on to form the basis of different kinds of folk music across Arcadia. After independence, several composers made names for themselves in Arcadia, such as Vincent Howerdell, Gregory Ryan Clinton, and Clayton Gaines. Salem and Providence would remain pillars of musical culture well in to the 20th century.
Salem saw a renaissance of musical plays and showtunes in the early 20th century, sometimes to the chagrin of the conservative Beaconer establishment that harbored distaste for perceived hedonism and anarchism espoused by these shows. Despite religious intolerance, Salem's famous College Street became a world-renowned center for plays and musicals.
From the 1930s onwards, jazz, swing, and big band music became pop staples for an eager Arcadian market. Arcadian artists like Donnie Solano, Ernie Davis Brown, Babe McCallister, Avaline Wynn, and Chuck De Niro became household names and went on to wildly successful musical careers all throughout the 40s, 50s, and 60s.
Starting in the 1950s, Libertine rock 'n roll musicians began to explode in popularity across both the Libertines and Arcadia. Richie Goode, a Libertine rock and roller, is seen by most as kicking off this revolution in music with his number one hit, Roll Over Hoevermann. Shortly afterwards, Arcadians began to take part, and soon enough the Arcadian rock genre had come to utterly dominate charts across the nation. Jesse Vernon was one of the first Arcadian artists to embrace the rock sound, charging up the charts with energetic performances and provocateur. Vernon eventually came to be known as the King of Rock and Roll.
Throughout the next two decades, rock and roll's various subgenres remained the most popular music across radio stations and charts alike, mostly led by Arcadian acts and bands like The Dailies, Billy van Dink, Bobby Hill, The Clearwater Preachers, and Funny Things. Libertine genres such as funk, R&B, and soul music also crossed over to Arcadian audiences, even influencing mainstream rock bands and creating subgenres like funk rock. In more conservative religious circles, Libertine and Arcadian gospel music remained in high demand.
Both metal and punk music entered the scene in the 1970s, but their heyday was the 1980s when many of the big rockers of the 60s and 70s began to drop off. Social liberalization and youth rebelliousness fed into the anti-establishment themes frequented by punk and metal, causing frequent culture clashes between the Beaconer establishment and younger generations. Metal acts like The Militia, Snakeshot, Shock and Awe, and the highly controversial Hellpriests sold millions of albums, while punk bands such as Fuck, Weaselmen, Dirt Poor, Kaiser Ford, and The Strike consistently moved nearly as many records as their metal challengers. This decade also saw a great deal of competition between metal and punk fans, sometimes degenerating into lawlessness and gang violence, which fed into Beaconer establishment narratives that music was feeding violence and social breakdown. Regardless, a number of attempts at censorship by right-wing NUP Senators were shot down between 1978 and 1991.
In the late 1980s and into the 90s, numerous shifts occurred in Arcadia music with the birth of grunge rock and the emergence of numerous metal subgenres, the mainstream appearance of rap and hip-hop from the Libertines, and the loosening of social taboos. An economic downturn in the early 1990s and increased openness and drug use in young adults and teenagers coincided with the meteoric rise of grunge artists like Spoonmen, Undertow, Black Days, The Opium Vanguard, and Window. Nearing the end of the 90s, several rock subgenres experienced greater success as grunge began to fade. Prog metal bands like Rosetta and Morpheus Haze headlined numerous cross-country festivals that attracted hundreds of thousands of attendees, while nu-metal rockers including Psych and Vitriol catered to an angsty youth bored of the grunge era.
