Holy Marsh
The Grand Theocratic Empire of the Holy Marsh | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
| Anthem: The Word | |
| Capital | Holy Marsh City |
| Official languages | English |
| Ethnic groups (2019) | Humans 72% Equestrian 6% Non-Human 22% |
| Religion | Marshism |
| Demonym(s) | Marshite |
| Government | Theocracy |
| Lainika | |
| Formation | |
• First Scripture of the Church | 3109 BCE |
| Area | |
• Total | 7,729,165 km2 (2,984,247 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• Estimate | 21,083,900,869 |
| Currency | Marshian |
| Date format | dd.mm.yyyy |
| Calling code | +1019 |
| Internet TLD | .hm |
The Grand Theocratic Empire of the Holy Marsh, known simply as the Holy Marsh, is a massive theocratic-militaristic empire located in the the region of Greater Dienstad. Bordering the Greater German Empire, Esalonia, and Union-mate Romandeos with total area of 15,829,065 square kilometers, it is also one of the most populous theocracies with a population of 20,109,083,017 as of 2015. It is a theocratic empire ruled by an Arch-Bishop of the Marshite Church for however long he may live, who is elected by a Cardinal Council with no national political freedoms granted or used. Its capital and largest city is Holy Marsh city, which is home to 150,524,386 beings.
The Grand Theocratic Empire is an ancient one, the Church claiming continual rule over the nation since its inception around the year 3109 BCE. While it has at time had different forms of government, including a monarchy (2300 BCE-1000BCE) and a Republic (750BCE-100 BCE), it has almost always been a Theocracy. Unchallenged at home by revolt or schism, the Empire has nonetheless faced considerable challenges globally and for a significant portion of its history been involved in a terrible war with an opposing faith, now known to history as the Cult of the Vile Lard. This war, known as the Long War (100 BCE-2005 CE), has had a significant impact on the culture and government style of the Empire which was reinforced by the victory of the Hardliners in the Marshite Civil War. The resulting society is a nation that is always prepped or prepping for large-scale warfare, blunting the possible impact of its substantially liberal religion and ideology, Marshism.
Today, the Marshite State is in the process of rebuilding after the Long War and Civil War, and are currently targeting enemies abroad with Crusades and a few allies with Honor Wars. It is also seeking to make itself more involved in the world in terms of politics and international relations after generations of general isolation.
Geography
The landmass that makes up the Theocracy can be split into four sections. Pushania, eastern Holy Marsh and the homeland of the Marshite faith, is a dense jungle. It makes up around twenty percent of the landmass and is notable for its wide variety of intelligent predators, many of which have been tamed and trained by the Marshites.
Separating Pushania from the western and northern parts of the land are the Hitlion mountain range. This large mountain range features several peaks of more than twenty thousand feet or more as well as a dozen smaller peaks of ten thousand feet or more. In between are many smaller peaks as well as a highly industrialized culture, and the range is home to the capital of Holy Marsh. This range, as well as the similar Saikar Range that stretches from east to west and separates the rest of the nation from the north, take up twenty percent of the nation. Mushania is western Holy Marsh and the original homeland of the Cult. As a result, this is more than a badlands in name. It is pockmarked with innumerable signs of total war lasting centuries as well as zones of chemical, biological, or nuclear contamination that are far too dangerous to inhabit. Less than half of Mushania is livable, and Mushania makes up thirty percent of the nation. Northern Holy Marsh was also a major battleground between the two nations, but it is still a very fertile landmass. Woodlands and rolling green hills stretch out the spaces between large, open territory fit for farming and ends on majestic coastlines. This too makes up thirty percent of the nation.
Government
The Marshite Government is a theocracy, with the Church running all functions of government. Nothing exists separate from it. The leader of the Church and Government is the Arch-Bishop. The Arch-Bishop is selected from a selection of Cardinals known as the Cardinal Council, who convene upon the passing of an Arch-Bishop and select someone to replace the fallen leader. Candidates can be any religious leader, Priest or above, and are drawn from a pool of those who have received the most positive grading. In this manner the new Arch-Bishop has been a young girl just years out of Seminary but considered truly blessed as well as an old Cardinal-General years before he passes of old age. The Cardinals must all eventually agree on a leader regardless of how long the debate lasts. In the interim, the Functionaries of the Church are capable of running the nation based on the basic Marshite edicts, with a limited assembly of Bishops called on to vote on certain matters of national importance.
Economy
The Marshite economy is powerful but very strange. Internally, the Church takes care of every need that the people have. Food, power, electricity, clothing, housing, healthcare, education, and even jobs. All of the needs of the people are met, and there are often decent choices to be had- clothing, for example, can be traded back in to the local Church for any cause and as long as it is still clean and wearable will be able to be used by others, meaning that one ca find whatever one wants in terms of clothing. However, having all of their needs met means that very few Marshites make any real money. Most workers tend to receive a small stipend that is enough for perhaps a dinner out and that is that. The Church benefits tremendously from this setup, turning the nation into untold billions of workers who do the job cheap, effectively, and for long hours with almost zero complaint. This workforce and economic system coupled with the Church's ability to get whatever resource it needs without paying costs to third parties means that the Marshite economy has a high floor and ceiling.
The nation is full of natural resources, from the oil fields that mark the landscape in every region and in the seas around to the abundant rare earth metals and natural gas, to the massive timber industry and coal, from diamond mines, gold, silver, copper, uranium, iron ore and phosphate, the nation has deep reserves of natural resources that it exploits for purely economic and military means. It has a beneficial trading relationship with the world, and the Marshite Dollar is very strong as a result.
Demographics
The Marshite state has 20,109,083,017 citizens, with a high percentage of them either being urbanized or on Church Sanctioned Heavy Farming Zones. Marshites are prolific and consider reproduction an important Marshite trait, a birth rate of 20 per 1,000 meaning Marshite population growth continues to blossom. Humans comprise 75% of the nation, with equines making up 5% and various non-humans making up another 19%. The remainder are misc.
The national language is English, with Pushanian being a common secondary. There are multiple versions of Pushanian, with the most common being Pushanian-Hitlion, the official religious language of the nation. Pushanian Proper is a dead language, though efforts are ongoing in an effort to recover it. The national Religion is Marshism which is the religion of 97% of the population. Those that are not Marshite followers tend to be Catholic or Atheist, though any modern, non-Cultist religion is allowed. Marshism itself is divided into 46 different Shrines, which makes the exact religious break-up of the nation is difficult.
Sexually, 27% of Marshites consider themselves straight, 65% consider themselves bisexual, and 8% consider themselves homosexual. These numbers are very fluid, especially after the events of The Shift. Most Marshites do not often consider gender an important consideration and thus the difference between male and female are minor.
Military
The Marshite Military is an extremely powerful force, one of the deadliest and most effective military forces on the planet. It has an extremely high quality of training, equipment, experience, and expectation, and features an absurd amount of the budget. $257 trillion annually goes to the military and the Militia. A lot of the excess funds find their way into the cash reserves of the Church, who is prepared to engage in a century or more of warfare without needing to devote anything from an annual budget if needed. This means that it often spends far above the limit of the annual budget should the need arise.
Main Article: Marshite Army
The Army is the land-based branch of the Marshite Armed Forces. It is the most well-funded and the largest by manpower active branch, with 500,000,000 beings enlisted. The Army operates a wide range of equipment such as armored fighting vehicles, artillery and missile systems to carry out their task of fighting on land, securing occupied territories, and the defeat of enemy troops. The Army almost always operates in conjunction with the Navy and Air Force to conduct amphibious landings and combined arms attacks with naval and air support.
The Marshite Army is extremely well trained. All Marshites are raised in preparation of war, with schooling having weapons and tactics related classes starting at the age of ten. Schooling is six days a week every week of the year for twelve hours, with an emphasis on physical and mental perfection. This Tier System is between 1-5, with those at the highest levels of dual development getting officers to join Officer's School. Regardless, Marshites enter their required conscription term of two years incredibly fit, knowledgeable in tactics and warfare, and experienced with the weapons of war. The two-year conscription is intense. A shortened boot camp of two months is followed by a year of specialized training as well as classroom instruction. The last ten months are field exercises and live-fire mock battles. Marshite conscripts end their conscription term as equal to any of the regular forces on the planet.
The majority of conscripts attempt to join the standing army afterwards, but the Marshite military keeps a lid on the size of the standing military and only the very cream of the crop are selected. These men and women go on to a possibility of a lifetime of service- every year they are individually evaluated, with the incoming Militia class replacing the lowest scoring among the Marshite regulars. Training continues at a high level with training at the various roles in a platoon, advanced classroom instruction, live-fire and mock engagements, and physical training ongoing at all times. The elite formation of the Army are known as the Rangers. The Rangers field all manner of forces, and are considered the crack forces of the Army. Another elite force are the Airborne- all twenty divisions are capable of heliborne or paradrop assaults and are considered the greates light infantry the Marshites can field.
Marshite Army forces are always well equipped, fielding the newest enhancements from Lyran Arms Covenant Arms, and Allied storefronts. Being a member of Lyran Arms, it produces much of that equipment and is therefore self-sufficient without need of military imports. Their focus on high-speed, high impact warfare is reflected in their doctrine which emphasizes a thousand cuts before the beheading and disembowelment. Marshite forces operate a series of drones for information, which works into the advanced Battle Net system that shares information across the whole battlefield swiftly and in depth and effectiveness.
Main Article: Marshite Navy
The Navy is the weakest of the three branches, as two thousand years of war on the ground left it a branch at times unneeded. However, recent years have seen the size of the Navy grow by leaps and bounds. It is organized into twenty-five fleets and dozens of carrier battle groups, some of which are themselves organized into task forces. The Marshite Navy fields more than 18,000 vessels, including 150 Supercarriers and 350 escort carriers and 14,500 Amphibious Assault Craft. This includes the three million Marshite Marines, who are superb infantry capable of supporting themselves in an invasion. The Marshite Navy is mostly fixated on supporting an amphibious invasion, but it has significant power in blue water engagements and the powerful Longswords and James Lawrence carriers can obliterate opposing vessels with ease. It has more than sixteen thousand aircraft and has two hundred million total personnel.
Main Article: Marshite Air Force
The Air Force is an extremely powerful and well-equipped force that has proven itself internationally. The training and skill in the air have awed many leading militaries, leading the Marshite nickname of "The Wind that Kills". A large, well-funded, fanatically well-trained and experienced force, few forces in the world are capable of competing with the Marshite Air Force. Extremely well equipped, the Marshite Air Force has specialized in air support and dogfighting to such a degree that it has earned a reputation for devastating effectiveness. With more than 100,000 aircraft and a superb logistical chain, it is capable of both protecting the Theocracy and projecting abroad equally well. It has a further two hundred million personnel.
Main Aticle: Marshite Militia
The Marshite Militia are the largest military force in the nation, deploying more than 900 million men and women in arms. Unlike the others, the Marshite Militia are a fully defensive force that specializes in the defense of certain sections of local terrain. After the required conscription, 95% of conscripts who attempt to sign into the army are denied due to the large size of the military as is. Many of these conscripts then sign up to join the Militia, which does not have a payroll. Two weekends a month and two weeks during the year the Militia meets and trains to defend the local area. While they still have a lifetime of training to back them up, the Militia's ongoing training focuses on defending local areas. Over time, Militia forces become experts in every nook and cranny of their deployment zone.
They are armed well, though every tier- quality level- of Militia is armed differently. The First Tier are armed like the standard army and are the first to respond to an invasion. The Second and Third Tiers are armed differently, but are considered still extremely well armed. The Fourth and Five Tiers are still considered effective, but are less well-armed than the first three. In combat, the Militia is capable of a wide range of attacks and usually implements a variation of the Army's Thousand Daggers strategy, overwhelming the enemy with the amount of operations which mask the true intention, then following up by sustaining the successful assaults and branching off of that. While not to the quality of the Army's officer corp, Militia officers are highly effective on the defensive and the Militia as a whole is battle-hardened. They operate armor, air, riverine, and coast guard elements as well.
Main Article: Holy Warriors
The Marshite Holy Warriors are the elite forces of the Grand Theocracy, a warrior-society that operates independent of Church control. The smallest branch at 2,000,000, it is armed to the highest quality available to them. All Holy Warriors are born into the society, their own parents being Holy Warriors themselves. The Society keeps records in order to prevent in-breeding and has tapped medal-winning Marshite Army soldiers in case the gene pool. From birth, Holy Warriors are taught the art of war and a fanatical, even for Holy Marsh, religious devotion. They are separated into 'pods', usually 20-30 toddlers strong, and the pod grows up together. They train together, live together, go to mass together, go into combat together, mate with one another and die on the field with one another. This adds on to the fanatical religious fervor an equally fanatical devotion to those in their platoons.
Holy Warriors go from Initiates to Neophytes to full-blown Holy Warriors. The Holy Warriors do not stop training, praying, and fighting until they die or reach the age of fifty. In that time, they are used to undertake any score of missions- solo assassinations, special forces missions of all types, and any and all direct combat missions. They operate air and armor units, but no naval. They stay out of politics normally, but when the Arch-Bishop is failing and the future of the Faith is in question, they will do what is necessary. Arch-Bishop Saransata was assassinated during the Marshite Civil War and General-Saint Lainika took his position and ended the war, becoming the first Holy Warrior Arch-Bishop in eighteen hundred years.
Main Article: Shrine Guard"
The Shrine Guard make up the Active Protection Units of each individual Shrine. The Shrines take orphans and the unwanted without any penalty to the unworthy parents, fully willing to pay for the room and board of children. In return, these children are raised directly by the Shrine to serve the Shrine. Some become scholars, others attendants. Those with the Spark of the Voice become clergy and those with the best skills in the art of war become Shrine Guards. Shrine Guards are exclusively infantry and tend to play the part of bodyguards for clergy and religious structures. However, when a clergy member declares a Crusade, he or she may ask not only his own bodyguards and local Guard elements to aid him, but can call upon the Shrine Guard en masse. When deployed they tend to work in conjunction with the Militia to provide air, logistical, naval, and armor support. While they lack anything other than pure infantry skills, those very skills are extremely exceptional.
Culture
Marshite Culture and Marshite Religion is largely indistinguishable from one another. Regional variations are superseded by Shrine affiliation, with Marshite food, clothing, and minute traditions flavoring larger and more distinguished traditions of the Shrines. Since there are dozens of Shrines, this page will only go over a few of the larger Shrines.
Female Shrine Male Shrine Non-Human Shrine Ponyist Shrine Science Shrine Experience Shrine Primitive Shrine Warrior Shrine Engineering Shrine Monotheistic Shrine Polytheistic Shrine Avatar Shrine Excellence Shrine