Lucrecia

Most Serene and Federative Republic of Lucrecia Serenísima e República Federativa de Lucrecia (Isurian) Serenísima y República Federativa de Lucrecia (Pelaxian)
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: Libertas ("Liberty")
Anthem: O República Afortunada "O Fortunate Republic"
Capital and largest city	Mérida del Mar
Administrative center	Toledo dos Prados
Official languages	Isurian Pelaxian
Ethnic groups	72.5% Lucrecian 39.8% Isurian 32.7% Emeritan 9.1% Pelaxian 8.3% Delepasian 6.7% Latinic 3.4% Other
Religion	79.4% Christianity 78.5% Catholicism 0.9% Other Christians 11.9% Irreligious 8.7% Other
Demonym(s)	Lucrecian (Noun) Lucrecian (Adjective) Lucrecians (Plural)
Government	Federal semi-presidential diarchic semi-aristocratic directorial republic
• Grand Duke	Amadeo II
• Consuls	Maria Lopes Alejandro Morales
• Edile	Eduardo de San Francisco
• Censor	Fernando Jimenez
• Chief Pretor	Xulia Valladares
Legislature	General Assemblies
• Upper house	Senatorial House
• Lower house	Centuriate Assembly Popular Assembly
Establishment
• Founding of Emerita Maris	750 BC
• Independence declared	570 BC
• Emeritan Republic established	178 BC
• Caphiric suzerainty established	731 AD
• Independence reaffirmed	1172
• Founding of Toledo dos Prados	11 June 1343
• Isurian Generality established	15 June 1343
• Nobles' Treaty	28 February 1561
• Constitution	14 July 1582 (statutes) 8 August 1970 (Popular Amendments)
Area
• Total	181,998.46 km2 (70,270.00 sq mi)
Population
• Estimate	15,108,800
• Census	15,103,636
• Density	82.99/km2 (214.9/sq mi)
GDP (nominal)	estimate
• Total	$984.75 billion
• Per capita	$65,177
Currency	Denario (LUD)
Driving side	right
Calling code	+378
Internet TLD	.lu

Lucrecia, officially the Most Serene and Federative Republic of Lucrecia (Isurian: Serenísima e República Federativa de Lucrecia; Pelaxian: Serenísima y República Federativa de Lucrecia), is an archipelago country in the Kindreds Sea's Catenias, consisting of three major islands. It is characterized by its bilingual, bicultural nature, consisting of both Isurian-, and Pelaxian-influenced cultures.

Lucrecia is a sovereign federal diarchic directorial republic under a semi-presidential system. Although the highest rank in the country is that of the grand duke, it should be noted that the title is purely ceremonial and cultural; it carries no authority nor designation as the head of state (hence why the title uses "in" instead of "of"). Its federal structure is highly complex, consisting of both highly autonomous cantons, of which there are four (the Emeritan Republic, the Isurian Generality, the Merida-Presidential Canton, and the Toledo-Administrative Canton), and linguistic communities, of which there are two (the Pelaxian Community, and the Isurian Community). The Presidential and Administrative cantons are officially bilingual in Pelaxian and Isurian. This complex form of government, formed from linguistic diversity and sociopolitical conflicts, is reflected in the fact that there exists no less than seven different governments within Lucrecia.

The country derives its name from the Pelaxian translation of the name "Lucretia", itself in reference to Lucretia, a Caphiric noblewoman whose brutal murder at the hands of a son of King Admoneptis inspired an aristocratic revolt that overthrew the Caphiric monarchy in favour of the Caphiric Republic, of which Lucrecia derives its form of government from and retained in an unchanged form from the establishment of the Emeritan Republic in 178 BC until the 1970s when a series of reforms dubbed the "Popular Amendments" federalised the nation as well as rationalising and democratising the legislature. With the traditional foundation date being 178 BC, Lucrecia lays claim to being one of the oldest extant sovereign states, as well as the oldest constitutional republic.

The federal government is unique in that it consists of a diarchic head of state, those being the Consuls, as well as a tricameral legislature, itself consisting of the Senatorial House, representing the aristocracy, the Centuriate Assembly, representing the cantons and communities, and the Popular Assembly, itself consisting of the Tributary Assembly, representing the provinces, and the Common Assembly, representing the people. According to the constitution, the Consuls are elected for a two-year term by the Centuriate Assembly; the Consuls serve concurrently and share equal powers.

As a popular tourist spot, one of the largest sectors of the Lucrecian economy is in tourism, as well as services, and retail.

History

Antiquity and the first Emeritan state

It is generally accepted that Lucrecia was settled by the broader Glaistic civilization during the prehistoric period, but when they arrived and the extent of their settlement is the source of considerable debate. The only record of them comes from the first Adonerii settlers on the archipelago, who arrived in 750 BC. Until the 21st century, it was generally accepted that Lucrecia was the southernmost Adonerii settlement during the Latin Heroic Age, though some modern archaeology and scholarship has suggested Lucrecia served as a staging ground for further expeditions south into modern Chrobonsk. Whatever the case, the Latin city of Emerita Maris was established at their first arrival and became the predominant cultural and political force in the archipelago. Historians generally agree that Emerita Maris served as the primary southern outpost of the intricate Adonerii trade network, filtering exotic goods from South Sarpedon back to the other Adonerii cities in exchange for weapons, food, and other goods more common in Urlazio and beyond.

The remains of the original Emeritan senate, located near the modern capital of Mérida del Mar.

With the collapse of the Adonerii league, Emerita Maris became an independent power in the southern part of the Kindreds Sea. It began to establish its own colonies and trade network throughout eastern Vallos. It soon expanded to rule over other settlements on its home island, eventually culminating in the establishment of the Emeritan Republic in 178 BC, with a form of government that closely followed that of the Caphiric Republic, that being a diarchical consular republic. Its first consuls were Sextus Luria Rufus and Marcus Cornelius Scaevola, two prominent merchants who have greatly expanded the trading networks between the Emeritans and the other polities in Vallos.

Domination by the Imperium

The islands now comprising Lucrecia and particularly Emerita Maris gradually fell under the sway of the cultural changes occurring in the western portion of the Imperium, becoming recognizably part of what would become the Pelaxian culture in terms of language and traditions.

Isurian Generality

Isurians

Early 20th century

Staying neutral throughout the First Great War to focus on the development of its infrastructure and economy, Prime Minister Empastiro who was in office during the years leading up to the Second Great War and its initial years was interested in joining the war to curry favor with Caphiria. Described as a nationalist and an idealist, Empastiro had ignored how damaging the war would be to the nation economically and demographically, especially with its military equipment consisting mostly of outdated weapons from the First Great War. The military eventually found out about Empastiro's ambitions, and staged a coup to overthrow the Prince and Prime Minister. General Demethanos, already a popular figure with the people, assumed a leadership position in the nation, declaring that the military intends to only hold power for the duration of the Second Great War, holding free elections after the end of the conflict to ensure no foreign influence in the election.

Demethanos then passed in 1951, with his second in command, Myriolio assumed office, but after the end of the war, refused to give up power, claiming it to be in interest of the people due to foreign influence in the nation being widespread. While the reign of Demethanos is remembered rather fondly by the people, Myriolio never won the hearts of the people, despite his efforts of creating a cult of personality.

A statue of Demethanos erected in his hometown.

Popular Amendments of 1970

On June 8 1967, the Lucrecian Revolutionary Front seized power from the military junta which had lead the country since 1934. Following the coup, the name of the island country was changed to the People's Republic of Lucrecia, and began preparing the country for self-sufficiency. The leaders of the newly established People's Republic imprisoned and executed all leading figures of the former military junta, and eventually began to imprison and execute anyone with ties to the military junta.

Following the Lucrecian imprisonment and execution of COUNTRYn ambassador to Lucrecia Viceri Battanari, the COUNTRYLEADER declared the People's Republic a rogue state and dispatched two Imperial Guard battalions to spearhead the liberation of Lucrecia. The Imperial Guard battalions and the accompanying companies quickly seized the capital, but the Lucrecian resistance continued until 1969 when the last leading figures of the People's Republic were captured. Close friend of the COUNTRYLEADER, Spiraklis Anastrotsis was appointed as the Archon of the new Archontia of Lucrecia, and both their constitution and legislature was recreated, basing it on the COUNTRY constitution and legislature.

Geography

The country consists of three major islands and several dozen smaller islands and rocky promontories.

Government and Politics

Main articles: Politics of Lucrecia and Lucrecian Curia

Lucrecia's government is organised under the framework of a semi-aristocratic diarchic directorial republic under a federal semi-presidential system. The consuls are the heads of state, with the edile serving as the head of government. The government of Lucrecia is based on that of the Caphiric Republic, albeit with some rationalisation, federalisation, and democratisation since the Popular Amendments of the 1970s.

Executive

The consuls are elected by the Centuriate Assembly and serve concurrently for a two-year term and share equal power with each other. In the name of political fairness and balance, as well as to prevent cases of cohabitation, the consuls are traditionally members of opposing parties meaning that there is almost always a left-wing consul and a right-wing consul serving together. Of the powers granted to the consuls, this includes the ability to appoint an edile if both are not satisfied with the Popular Assembly's choice of edile, the ability to appoint members of the curia, and the ability to issue dictars, meaning executive decrees, so long as the dictar is not in violation of the constitution or federal law.

The edile is elected by the Popular Assembly and serves for a three-year term. The election of an edile is held in the month of March, and in theory any Lucrecian citizen may run for edile, but in practice the edile is often selected from amongst the ranks of the governing parties. The winning candidate is then sent to the consuls who either approve of the candidate or reject them. In the event of a rejection, or if the Popular Assembly is unable to elect an edile, the consuls may either ask the Popular Assembly to run another election or appoint an edile; the latter case may not be rejected by the Popular Assembly.

The Curia is the main executive organ headed by the edile and chaired by the consuls. The Curia is dually accountable to both the consuls and the legislature, thus meaning that the Curia has to not only command the confidence of the legislature, but also the approval of the consuls. An edile, or even the entire Curia, may be dismissed by the consuls or be removed in a vote of no confidence by the legislature.

Legislature

The legislature of Lucrecia is the General Assemblies, a tricameral legislature that is composed of the Senatorial House, the Centuriate Assembly, and the Popular Assembly.

The Senatorial House is made up of 500 senators, members of the aristocracy appointed by the consuls; senators serve "for good conscience", meaning that a senator serves for life until they either retire, pass away, or are removed. The Senatorial House was historically the most powerful legislature in Lucrecia, but the reforms done since the 1970s have done away with much of its power, delegating much of said powers to the Centuriate and Popular Assemblies, but the Senatorial House does retain quite a few powers, such as the ability to petition the Supreme Court of Lucrecia to investigate either the consuls or the curia, the ability to prevent bills from passing into law, and being the sole legislative assembly to introduce bills.

The Centuriate Assembly is made up of 150 centurions who are appointed by the legislatures of the cantons and linguistic communities and serve for five years. The 150 centurions are allocated as follows: 32 are appointed by the legislature of the Isurian Community; 21 are appointed by the legislature of the Isurian Generality; 16 are appointed by the Isurian language group of the Toledo-Administrative Canton; 8 are appointed by the Isurian language group of the Merida-Presidential Canton; 29 are appointed by the Pelaxian Community; 20 are appointed by the Emeritan Republic; 16 are appointed by the Pelaxian language group of the Merida-Presidential Canton; 8 are appointed by the Pelaxian language group of the Toledo-Administrative Canton. It is the sole legislative assembly in charge of electing the consuls, the sole legislative assembly in charge of drawing up information reports, and it serves as the main platform for the discussion of matters pertaining to the cantons and linguistic communities (making it the mediation chamber in the event of federated legislative conflicts of interest).

The Popular Assembly is in fact two legislative houses that have been merged as one federated legislative house since the 1990s. The two segments of the Popular Assembly are the Tributary Assembly and the Common Assembly. The Tributary Assembly is made up of 200 tributaries who are directly elected under the system of first-past-the-post voting within eighteen constituencies, and serve for three years. 109 tributaries are from the Isurian language group, and 91 tributaries are part of the Pelaxian language group. The Common Assembly is made of 200 popular representatives who are directly elected under the system of open list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of 5%, and serve for three years as well. Unlike the Centuriate and Tributary Assemblies, the Common Assembly, being directly representative of the citizens, is the only part of the legislature, other than the Senatorial House, that does not make use of quotas to allocate seats amongst the two language groups.

Presently, the Popular Assembly holds the greatest amount of power and has the second-highest precedence in the General Assemblies when it comes to "ordinary legislation" (the Senatorial House retains the final say), including the ability to elect the edile, with the winner being subject to approval of the consuls, and, alongside the consuls, holds responsibility for the political control of the Curia.

Despite the Isurian language group holding a majority of the tributaries and centurions, the Lucrecian constitution mandates that both linguistic communities hold equal power in both the Centuriate and Tributary Assemblies. Indeed, bills may not necessarily require a majority in both language groups save for bills pertaining to the linguistic communities.

Political culture

Even before the Popular Amendments of the 1970s, Lucrecia's political institutions has been noted to be among the most complex in the world. With much of the power held by the Senatorial House being delegated to the Centuriate and Popular Assemblies since the 1970s, it has been the main cultural communities that have held much of the political power in Lucrecia. Indeed, this is even reflected in the composition of the nation's political parties, which have been split both ideologically and linguistically. As such, the four main groups in partisan politics are the Catholic conservatives, the liberals, the socialists, and the nationalists. Of these four groups, only the conservative, liberal, and socialist groups have in place a "federal pact" between their respective linguistically-aligned parties within each group; the nationalists are only united in their wish to openly support separatism. Of course, there does exist the occasional "unitarian" party which has not split between linguistic lines, often representing single-issue matters or wishes to reform and further modernise the current system.

Federated entities

Main article: Communities, cantons, and linguistic areas of Lucrecia

Historically, the upper classes of Lucrecia have spoken either the Emeritan vernacular of the Pelaxian language or Emeritan Latin while the Isurian language was deemed as being just a "less refined dialect" of Pelaxian, effectively preventing those who could only speak Isurian from reaching the governing classes without having to learn Pelaxian. This, on top of the dominance and power of the Senatorial House, had led to an alliance of both the Generality movement and reformists who sought to strip the Senatorial House of much of their powers and delegate them to the Centuriate and Popular Assemblies.

These demands were met starting in the 1970s with the introduction of the Popular Amendments, a series of constitutional amendments that not only decoupled much of the senatorial powers in favour of delegating them to the centurions and tributaries, it also reformed Lucrecia into a bilingual federation under a tri-level power structure. The three levels being the federal government, the linguistic communities, and the cantons. Although this should give the federalised Lucrecia five curias and legislatures, there exists the Presidential and Administrative Cantons, effectively two capital regions, which are both under the jurisdiction of both linguistic communities, and both with their own curia and legislature, boosting the amount of curias and legislatures up to seven; these two cantons respectively contain the cities of Mérida del Mar, and Toledo dos Prados, respectively designated as the presidential and administrative capitals of Lucrecias.

Demographics

Self-reported ethnicities in Lucrecia (2032)

  Lucrecio-Isurian (39.8%)

  Emeritans (32.7%)

  Pelaxians (9.1%)

  Delepasians (8.3%)

  Latins (6.7%)

  Other (3.4%)

The rising tourism industry has also brought many non-nationals into the country as permanent residents.

Ethnic groups

Main articles: Emeritans, Lucrecio-Isurians, and Latins in Lucrecia

Economy and Infrastructure

The Lucrecian economy is a capitalist, primarily service-based economy, based on extensive entrepôt trade, Lucrecia is an established global logistical and financial centre. It is known to be one of the world’s freest, easiest to do business in, most competitive and most innovative economy worldwide, characterized by low corporate taxation and minimal government intervention. Although it has consistently ranked high in economic freedoms, the nation also has a high level of income disparity.

From 1972 to 2005, the Lucrecia economy grew by an average of over 7% annually. Today, it is highly developed]. It attracts a large amount of foreign investment, as well as indirect influence, as a result of its location, economic freedoms, low taxation, and global trade connections. Lucrecia is party to a variety of free-trade agreements, and has one of the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves.

The tertiary sector comprises a major proportion of the nation’s economy, with banking, finance and shipping as its primary components. It is the 7th largest trading entity measured by imports and exports, trading an amount of goods worth more than its total GDP. The nation’s Admiralty Stock Exchange is among the largest in the world by market capitalization, at $5.9 trillion as of Q1 of 2037. Its major banks, Dominion Bank, Chartered Bank and Standard Bank, are among the largest in the world, and have been ranked as the 3rd, 4th, and 6th most stable and strongest banks respectively. Lucrecia also maintains a small secondary sector; focused on the manufacturing of electronics and the refining of oil.

The nation’s currency, the Lucrecia dollar, is pegged at a ratio of 5.1 to 1 with the Caphirian Aureus. Notes are issued by one of three banks, Chartered Bank, Dominion Bank, and Standard Bank, each of which has to deposit an equivalent sum in Aureus’ with the central bank when issuing currency. This ensures that the dollar is backed by one of the largest foreign reserves in the world, guaranteeing a stable exchange rate.

Income, poverty and wealth

Although with the 4th highest GDP per capita, Lucrecia continues to have one of the world’s lowest rates of income mobility and the highest rates of wealth inequality, with a Gini coefficient of 48.2. With the exception of healthcare services, a majority of the nation’s welfare programs have gone underfunded in recent years, exacerbating these issues.

According to the national census, after years of growth, median household income has reached an all-time high, although income inequality has as well. Wealth remains tightly concentrated; with just 10% of the population possessing over 80% of the nation’s household wealth. As maintained by the Central Bank, the top 1% of income earners continue to control 41.2% of the nation’s wealth, with the number growing as Lucrecia continues to develop as a tax haven.

Housing

With high amounts of investment into Lucrecian property, real estate values have risen sharply since 2000. Exacerbated by limits of land area and the limited number of public housing units available, the city-state today has a remarkably low rate of home ownership. Over 67% of the nation’s housing stock comprises private permanent housing, with only 10% and 23% being subsidized or public housing, respectively. As private housing is primarily purchased as an investment by higher income groups, housing for the average Lucrecian accounts for over 41% of household expenditure. This has led rise to the term sandwich class, referring to a middle-class income group which does not qualify for public assistance, yet is not able to afford private residences.

According to the office of the Auditor-General, this can be primarily traced back to the government’s lack of recent interference in the economy. During a wave of immigration in the 1960s and 70s, the nation constructed large amounts of public housing. By 1989, over half of the housing stock was public or subsidized. However, in recent years, there has been a lack of political will for the construction of new developments, which may be due to the increasing influence of foreign and local elites within Lucrecian politics.