Suderavia

Suderavian Woqalate Suderaviax Vuokalağuv
Flag
Suderavia in dark green, other Kiravian territories in medium green, disputed Kiravian territories in lime.
Country	Kiravian Federacy
Theme	Overseas Regions
Capital	Xromîda
Largest City	Keremonta
Population	2,284,000
Chief Executive	Karolyn Istraxan (UP)
Prime Secretary	S.V. Erid (SPP)
Legislature	Gnarls Barliament
Stanora seats	3
Official languages	Suderavian Coscivian
Recognised languages	Gaelic Kiravic Coscivian Skithanawite Covine
Postal Abbreviation	SUD
Time Zone	West Levantine Time

Suderavia, officially the Suderavian Woqalate (Suderaviax Vuokalağuv) is an overseas state of the Kiravian Federacy occupying a peninsula in northwestern Levantia.

Georgraphy

Geographically, Suderavia is very mountainous and has a vast system of rivers, valleys, lakes, and mountains that span the region. Though the region is now ideal for many interested in winter sports, buying a cottage/vacation home, the mining business, and ecotourism, it was historically viewed as largely inhospitable land that limited colonial expansion.

— Diamavius Cronscovinus, Suderavia: Lore Once Forgotten

History

From prehistory up to the present day, Suderavia has been a nexus of the "Kilikas World" (Kilikafarax ékuviúl), a web of persistent and resilient networks of travel, transmission, and exchange linking the coasts of Faneria, Covina, Koskenkorva, Éorsa (Ilánova), and northeastern Great Kirav. A remote and marginal appendage of the Levantian continent though it is, Suderavia's role in this corner of the world has been nothing short of central.

Prehistory

Recently unearthed evidence demonstrates that the wanderings of the archæic homonin species Homo darudensis passed through modern Suderavia at one point, though the duration of its presence is still quite uncertain. The earliest anatomically and behaviourally modern human culture to leave a significant archæological mark on Suderavia was an outlying branch of the Packer Culture, known among scholars as the 'Green Bay Packers' as the densest concentration of Packer artifacts in Suderavia is found around the Keremonta (Ænglish: "Green Bay"). Flint and bone tools fashioned in the Demomappic style recovered from the surrounding seabed attest to the first ventures of the direct ancestors of Kiravians into the vicinity, beginning what would prove to be a long history of this.

Around 6750 BC, during the Neolithic, maritime technology introduced to littoral Kiravia by the Ʒ-Q Culture facilitated a series of multidirectional, outbound seaborne migrations by the sophisticated megalith-building culture of Éorsa. Two westward waves or floes of migration carried the Austro-Kiravian and Trans-Kiravian languages to the Kiravian mainland. Migration by easterly routes during the same period appears to have carried a separate branch of the Trans-Kiravian languages back to the northwestern Levantian lands from whence their Ice Age ancestors had come thousands of years earlier, including Suderavia. In addition to their languages, these voyageurs brought with them a knack and propensity for megalithic ritual architecture, and other characteristic cultural adaptations - the rudiments of the proto-ethnic Coscivian identity. Thus begins the history of the Mainland Coscivians.

The narrow isthmus and the peninsula's inaccessible terrain likely provided a natural refugium from the sweep of Japhetic peoples across the Levantine continent, allowing the Ur-Coscivian society there to survive intact, escaping the fate that presumably befell most Palæo-Levantine peoples now lost to history. The sea routes connecting Suderavia with Éorsa and Penthebhra would allow for knowledge of important agricultural breakthroughs such as and buckwheat cultivation and advanced apicultural techniques to reach Suderavia, spurring population growth.

The first Japhetic peoples to come into contact with Suderavia were presumably the Celtic Impaxi, possibly progenitors of modern Culriochans - or not? The nature of their interactions with the Proto-Coscivians and any long-term impact on Suderavia are not known at this time.

With the arrival of another Celtic people, the technologically sophisticated Fenni, rond' 6000-5000 BC, patterns of regular trade was/were established among Suderavia, Penthebhra, Culriocha, Covina, Kirav, et al., and would later accelerate as the Fenni became better-established in the region and as the Age of Blood wound down in Great Kirav.

Sunderance

Like most overseas provinces, Suderavia would remain loyal to the Federalist government during the Kiravian Civil War. Peasant life on the peninsula was harsh, to be sure, but feudalism had never truly taken root in the agriculturally marginal province. The hardy Suderavian husbandmen were attune to the cruelty and caprice of Nature and did not think themselves victims of injustice resoluble by political action. Suderavia did have a proletariat employed in the mining camps, port towns, and coaling stations, and there was indeed an active trade union movement, but historians believe that the unions in Suderavia had actually been generally successful in addressing workers' concerns to their satisfaction and without violent confrontation. To the Constituent Assembly of 1934, Suderavia was alotted two seats, and returned one deputy off the Agrarian list and one off the Whiggamore list.

Suderavia's involvement with the Civil War was minimal until its closing stages as the major eastern ports fell one by one to the Red Army. Initially few (but some) refugees fleeing the mainland arrived on Keremonta's wharves, with most seeking haven on Ilánova or Koskenkorva instead. However, when these islands came under threat from the Socialist forces, Suderavia found itself taking in more and more refugees and playing host to considerable quantities of evacuated Federalist troops, ships, and matériel. With the eventual loss of Koskenkorva, Suderavia was left in an unenviable position: Far from the nearest Federalist stronghold (Eusa) across dangerous waters, far removed from the main body of Federalist forces who were then fighting on Great Kirav's west coast, and much farther still from the Federalist government-in-exile in Sirana. Thanks to the Wrecking of the Fleet by retreating Federalists, the Red Navy could not threaten Suderavia for the time being. However, Suderavia had been incontrovertibly left to fend for itself - and for nearby defenceless Scapa.

TO BE CONITUED

On September 9, 1936, Commodore Palteran Leonoix, Prime Commissioner ("Commish") Kil Kamban of Suderavia, Chief Torcuil McRaven of Scapa, and Kormákur Bonîver - the town drunk of Karharrak and a fourth-generation descendant of Wintergen expellees chosen^{[by whom?]} to represent Wintergen - signed the Karharrak Compact, which established the South Kilikas Federacy as a wartime provisional government to undertake and direct all activities necessary for defence of the three provinces from external aggression in the absence of effective federal authority. The Compact was then ritually presented to a megalithic Emperor statue half-buried in the woods outside of town for approval.

In 1941, the Kiravian Remnant concluded an agreement with the Ardmori Republic to lease the land on two of the latter's islands for use as military airfields in order to help maintain flights to Suderavia and Scapa, reëstablishing a reliable logistical line between the South Kilikas Federacy and the Remnant.

[Suderavian Missile Crisis]

Once the Remnant acquired long-range/intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, it set some of those bad boys up on Suderavia and aimed them right at Kartika. The Kiravian Union was, in the words of People's Rocket Force Captain Karl Levi Åbvius, "not amused". This precipitated a deeply unsatisfying international passive-aggressive bitchfest in which no one got nuked in the end.

Politics & Government

Cabinet Secretariat, Xromîda

Suderavia is a semi-presidential republic. Executive power is exercised by the Governance Commission (Āritakirstuv), or “Cabinet”. Members of the Governance Commission are appointed by the Chief Executive, except for the Prime Commissioner ("the Commish"), who is elected by the Gnarls Barliament. The Gnarls Barliament may dismiss the Commission or any of its individual members by a vote of no confidence.

The Chief Executive is elected every five years by instant-runoff vote. The Chief Executive presides over meetings of the Governance Commission and signs its decrees and orders into effect. Independently of the Commission, the Chief Executive is the supreme commander of the Suderavian Defence Force and Suderavian People’s Police, and holds a number of other prerogative powers, such as to make judicial appointments and issue pardons.

Gnarls Barliament, Xromîda

The legislative organ is the Gnarls Barliament, which is elected every two years. Suderavia’s countyships and independent city (Keremonta) serve as its electoral constituencies, and seats are allocated among them with reference to population. Elections to the Gnarls Barliament are by instant-runoff vote in single-member constituencies and by single transferable vote in multiple-member constituencies.

Society & Culture

The culture of Suderavia is shaped by its ancient Coscivian heritage and Fhainn contributions, its geographic and environmental conditions, and foreign influences absorbed from neighbouring countries or received from further abroad through the Kilikas Sea trade.

Ethnicity

Celtic Peoples

The Gaelic population of Suderavia are mainly of Fanerian background, with a minority being Kiravian Gaels or Fiannrian Gaels. Suderavia hosts many Gaelic migrant workers from Scapa, a nearby Kiravian protectorate. [Fhainn subgroups]

[Culriochans]

There is reason to believe that the ethnic Covine population of Suderavia is deliberately undercounted by the authorities and could number as high as one fifth of the total population. The General Council of Covine-Kiravians is the leading interlocutor on behalf of this minority group's interests.

Skithanawites

Skithanawites settled in Suderavia in significant numbers during the [CENTURY]. After the Kiravian Civil War, they were joined by a much larger swell of Skithanawite refugees from the Kiravian Mainland, as Skithanawites experienced especially harsh oppression by the Kiravian Union. Skithanawites speak [something else] and have their own customary monarch, who resides in Suderavia during the warmer months and is actively involved in the island's affairs.

Levantine Peoples

Ethnocultural Breakdown of Suderavia

  Suderavian Liberals (38.4%)

  Other Liberals (16.0%)

  Liberals
(18.8%)

  National Liberals (7.1%)

  Liberals & Other Liberals (4.4%)

  Liberals (15.3%)

Language

The Suderavian Coscivian language belongs to the Northern family within the Transkiravian language stock. It is closely related to Kilikas-Valēkas Coscivian, and the two languages are mutually intelligible.

Celtic languages - Gaelic and Fhasen, Covine, and Culriochan - make up the second-largest language bloc.

Kiravic Coscivian is taught in secondary schools and spoken by many transplants from other Kiravian states, as well as in many business settings. It has official recognition from the state, and the state government will accept and process documents filed in Kiravic.

The Skithanaw language is spoken by the Skithanawite community.

The Wyunintran language of neighbouring Unintra is spoken by immigrants and expatriates of Unintran origin, and is widely understood in the isthmus towns. Wyunintran is the most commonly studied foreign language among Suderavian secondary school students (Fhasen is more commonly studied as a second language, but is not considered a foreign language).

Religion

Suderavians are predominantly Christian, though among the Coscivian population many maintain Læstorian, Rurican, and Sarostivist traditions as a “background religion” of sorts. Most Coscivian-Suderavians are either Catholics worshipping according to the Coscivian Rite or belong to the Insular Apostolic Church. The Coscivian Orthodox Church had a significant presence earlier in the peninsula’s history, but by the mid-19th century the last Coscivian Orthodox parishes had either entered communion with Urceopolis or disbanded. It would later be revived during the Sunderance by refugees from other Kiravian states.

The Skithanawites are conclavist Catholic sedevacantists with their own antipope. The Latin Rite Catholic population is made up mainly of Covines and other Levantine residents.

Small numbers of Lutherans, Mercantile Protestants, and Kiravian Sectarian denominations such as the Reformed Orthodox Church and Trinitarian Universalist Church are found in urban areas.

Suderavia is home to a considerable population of Abrigalasts, representing one of the largest and oldest Abrigalast communities in Ixnay. The Abrigalasts of Suderavia arrived fairly early in the history of their faith, having fled persecution in South Levantia and been welcomed by the Covine government of the time to cultivate its more marginal lands. Most Suderavian Abrigalasts do not respond to the Federal Census, but there are estimated to be about 5,000, with around 60% living in Abrigalast settlements, though figures for urban Abrigalasts are likely underreported. Although they are mainly of Levantine ancestry, Suderavian Abrigalasts have spoken Suderavian Coscivian as their native language for centuries.

There are two mosques in Suderavia, one Qustanti and one non-denominational but of Sunni provenance, both in Keremonta. The Bahá’í Local Spiritual Assembly is based in Xromîda and claims 500 adherents, 105 of which are active.

Architecture

Levantine influence on Suderavian architecture is strong and pervasive. Coscivian nationalists on the peninsula looked to Kilikas Brutalism for expression, and since liberation there has been a profusion of Kilikas Brutalist architecture all over the peninsula, especially for public buildings.

Economy

Ski slopes in the offseason

Mountain lodge

Suderavia's is an economy in transition. Extractive industries - mining, forestry, fisheries, and a small agricultural sector - have always been the mainstay of the Suderavian economy.

Tourism has been an important pillar of the Suderavian economy for quite some time. Since the 1990s, a burgeoning private tourist industry has emerged, catering to enjoyers of winter and outdoor recreation from Levantia and the Kiravian territories. An attendant real estate industry specialising in vacation properties, second homes, and service-oriented development has also taken root, and the accompanying boom in construction jobs has helped smooth over unemployment resulting from the restructuring of industrial and mineral enterprises.