The Cape

Republic of the Cape Restarka do Kabo
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: Ó, Kabo verdadeiro, livre e poderoso! "O, true, free, and mighty Cape!"
Anthem: Levante a Standart "Raise the Banner"
Location of the Cape (dark green)
Capital and largest city	Cape Town
Official languages	Cape Coscivian
Recognised national languages	Kiravic Coscivian, Cartadanian, Cahokian
Government	Federal parliamentary constitutional republic
• President	Manley Mann AFC President Kifer Parmeli Jair Sutra Roberto Rosa
• Prime Executive	Kil Furey
• Marshal of the Stanera	Nancy Pellise
• Auditor-General	Mitch Whalen
Legislature	National Parliament
• Upper house	National Auditorium
• Lower house	National Stanera
Independence from Kiravia and Cartadania
• Declaration of the Republic	October 7, 1891
• Occupation of the Cape	May 12, 1938
• Republican restoration	October 7, 1951
Population
• Estimate	127,912,766
GDP (nominal)	estimate
• Total	$4.51 trillion
• Per capita	$35,544
HDI (2021)	0.921 very high
Currency	Cape Saer (₴)
Driving side	right

The Cape, officially the Republic of the Cape, is the easternmost country in Crona. It is bordered on the north, east, and south by the Odeneru and Cathay Oceans. It covers 2.3 million kms2 and has over 127 million people, largely concentrated in its namesake Cape Peninsula. The Cape is a multiethnic and multicultural society, with a majority of the population having mixed ancestry between the country's three primary ethnic groups, Kiravian, Cartadanian, and Cronan. The capital and largest city is Cape Town, which concurrently serves as one of seven provincial capitals.

For thousands of years, the Cape was home to various indigenous peoples. In the 1600s, however, Cartadanian and Kiravian explorers began to settle the country's eastern coast. Their colonies and dominions would expand throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Disputes over political representation and forced colonial assimilation would lead to the Capetian War of Independence in 1887, led by Melvyn Kalma and the nascent Republican Nationalist Party, which established independence in 1891. The tumultuous young republic, weakened by political violence and rampant power struggles following Kalma's death in 1922, was invaded and occupied by the Kingdom of Palastra during the Great War. A Reclamation war soon took place, re-establishing the republic in 1951. A slow series of reforms throughout the 1980s would transition the state from a one-party military dictatorship to a representative democracy - with the country entering into a rapid period of economic growth and industrialization that continued into the early 21st century.

The Cape today is a federal parliamentary constitutional republic, with a non-executive president serving as head of state and a Prime Executive serving as head of government. Although reforms have disestablished the one-party rule of the Republican Nationalist Party in favour of a nominally multi-party system, the RNP and its Restarkist ideology still dominate the political landscape. The country ranks as a semi-democracy in the Liberty Index and is categorized as an authoritarian democracy. The Cape is a key member of numerous international organizations such as the League of Nations.

The Cape is a regional power with a growing economy and a highly developed market. Traditionally fuelled by the state-led exploitation of natural resources, manufacturing, and international shipping, the economy has grown significantly in its service sector during the past three decades - with no small part due to foreign investment. Cape Town ranks as one of the most economically active and important urban areas in Crona, home to the continent's largest stock and commodity exchanges by market capitalization. The nation has high levels of economic freedom yet maintains numerous state-provided social services, ranking highly on continental indicators of education, health care, and human development.

Etymology

The Cape is named after the Cape Peninsula and its landmark Cape of the Segunda Cabeça. As a great cape, seen as the final waypoint between the Odeneru and the Cathay, sailors, and settlers began to refer to it as simply "the Cape.” The name stuck, and the Kiravian colony that would eventually exist took on the name Axerka Kesta (literally "cape colony"). The Cape is one of a handful of countries in which the definite article is used in its English-language name.

History

Indigenous peoples

A depiction of the city-state of Cahokia in ~1350.

It has been accepted that the first humans to settle the lands of the Cape arrived at least 12,000 years ago. Indigenous peoples in the Cape today can trace their ancestry to those groups, the two most significant being the Cahokian and Anahuak peoples.

Throughout history, those Indigenous societies became increasingly complex. By Occidental colonization, many cultures included permanent settlements, hierarchical states, and advanced agricultural techniques. Although it is difficult to estimate the Indigenous population of the Cape at the time of Occidental colonization, the generally accepted number is between 700,000 and 4 million; with the modern republic’s Executive of Culture recognizing a figure of 2.4 million.

Initial contact between Occidental settlers and the various Indigenous states and commonwealths was relatively peaceful, with those of Indigenous mixed descent playing a vital role in establishing Kiravian colonies and trade connections. Indigenous relations with Kiravian Capetians remained strong until independence. However, conflict quickly arose with the Cartadanian settlers, who, starting in the 18th century, began to conquer Indigenous states and attempted to assimilate them into their culture. Such actions reached a peak before the War of Independence, with forced integrations and deportations.

Occidental colonization

The restored Marble Emperor statue in Cape Town.

The first documented arrival of Occidentals in the Cape was on Christmas of 1612, by Cartadanian conquistadors. In 1616, Kiravian explorers arrived, erecting a crude effigy of the Marble Emperor on the southern tip of the Cape Peninsula and declaring the establishment of Cape Town. Settlers to the “city” would only truly arrive a decade later. Cartadanian settlers established the permanent settlement of Sao Suro in 1621. These two cities would serve as the heart of the Cape’s fur and gold trades and soon became the respective capitals of Kiravia’s Cape Colony and Cartadania’s Natalia Colony. Skirmishes would break out between the two colonies in the 1670s, culminating in the Great Beaver War, fought over for the control of the fur trade and the Indigenous states surrounding the colonies.

The East Oriental, off the coast of Cape Town, 1771.

Fleeing turmoil in the nascent Cartadanian Republic, much of Cartadania’s wealthy left for Natalia. A coup, led by the newly-arrived upper class, took place in 1697 during the republic’s tumultuous Red Year. This coup deposed the former colonial administration for an oligarchic, corporate administration. The 17th century would see a de-facto independent Natalia annex the Indigenous statelets surrounding it in the Cahokian Wars; first subjugating, then assimilating the Indigenous people. Such acts came to the chagrin of the new Federative Republic of Cartadania, although any solid police action was found unfeasible by the new Cartadanian Congress.

New arrivals from Kiravia, largely lower-class, peasant farmers and middle-class merchants, settled Cape Colony starting in the 1700s. Throughout the 18th century, Cape Town became an important trading port for the Alshar spice trade, as well as the gateway to Crona's abundant gold, resource, and fur trade. Some of the earliest mixed-race communities developed during that time in Cape Town. Relations between Cape Colony and the surrounding Indigenous peoples were relatively cordial compared to their relations with the Natalia colony; although they were likewise annexed to halt the growing of the Natalian sphere of influence through the Treaties of 1792, which granted Kiravia control over their foreign policies.

Despite continuous immigration, by the 1870s, only a small minority of Cape Colony’s population had been born overseas. Such distance from Great Kirav allowed the development of a unique, Capetian culture, and measures of self-governance. At the same time, the situation in Natalia became untenable - by the 1880s, the colony’s working-class and Indigenous populations were soon on the brink of open revolution.

Independence and confederation

National Revolutionary Army fighters, 1887.

The Praça da Colônia massacre (1886) in Natalia, where thousands of Indigenous and working-class protestors were shot dead by government forces, prompted the establishment of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) - whose chapters quickly popped up across both colonies. Under Melvyn Kalma, a prominent advocate for independence and decorated former general in the Kiravian Foreign Legion, a War of Independence was waged starting March of 1887 to overthrow both colonial governments and to unite the peninsula under a new state.

By June of 1887, following major uprisings in Cape Town, Kiravia exited the Cape. The NRA’s provisional government was recognized provided the new state remained a Kiravian ally and allowed the continuation of Kiravian trade. The transition of statehood from Cape Colony to the Capetian Provisional Government was formalized on June 22, 1887. By 1888, Natalia’s Indigenous population was in open revolt, with a majority of local chiefs and leaders pledging fealty to the NRA. “Liberating the peoples of Natalia” became official policy at the first convocation of the National Parliament. The invasion of Natalia would conclude in February of 1891. On October 7, the newly formed Republic of the Cape was declared the successor state to both Cape Colony and Natalia, with Melvyn Kalma serving as the first Prime Executive.

Opening of the National Parliament, 1891.

Kalma subsequently introduced many reforms, such as secularizing the state, establishing a period of redress for the Indigenous peoples, and instituting economic reforms with the goal of transforming the Cape into a modern, Occidental nation state, governed as a constitutional republic with a secular constitution. To this end, the political activities of the NRA were separated into the civilian Republican Nationalist Party - which was to govern the country under a single-party period of tutelage until such reforms were complete. Following the establishment of the Republic, certain groups in the former Natalia, both upper and working-class, became discontent with Kalma's reforms. Anti-secularist and anti-tutelage/pro-democracy (the Kadets Rebellion) revolts broke out in 1897 and 1911, respectively, which were suppressed with military force.

Politics and government

The Republic of the Cape is organized as a federal parliamentary constitutional republic, comprised of seven provinces in a symmetric federation. It is a representative democracy with traditions of secularism, social justice, and egalitarianism.

Military

Nuclear weapons and the Cape Commission for the Preservation of the Republic