Hendalarsk: Difference between revisions

The Most Serene Federation is a geographically and culturally diverse nation, noted in modern times for its extraordinary and relatively unspoilt natural beauty. Mountain ranges, such as those which mark the nation's southwestern and central frontiers, give way to extensive tracts of arable lowland and, in the west, substantial areas of virgin forest, while large rivers such as the [[Zalgis]] have played an often crucial role in shaping Hendalarskara history. Long dominated by its Hendalarskara ethnic majority, recent decades have seen a pronounced increase in the influence of Khunyer and Pentapolitan culture, as well as the gradual penetration of [[Julian_Ænglish|Junglish]] through modern communications and mass media.

==Etymology==

The [[Zalgis]] watershed has been known by variants of the name "Hendalarsk" since at least 300 BC, in a textual fragment which is the earliest written evidence of [[Hendalarskisch]]. The name is Gothic in origin, and is hypothesised to stem from the Old Central Gothic components ''haim'' ('home, base') and ''dala'' ('valley'); the suffix fragment '-sk', while no longer present in modern Hendalarskisch, is believed to have indicated possession, rendering the full name "Haimdalask" as "Our valley home".

In [[Khunyer language|Khunyer]], the nation is known as ''Hóndalacs'', a borrowing from the Hendalarskisch which became official through comprehensive language reforms in the aftermath of the Hendalarskara Civil War. The nation's prior official Khunyer name was ''Gotet Főkirályság'' (literally "the Goth[ic] Archkingdom"). This factual description of the Archkingdom's Hendalarskara ethnic hegemony nevertheless caused some unease in both Hendalarsk proper, where it could be read as the Khunyer distancing themselves from a state in which they were of secondary importance, and in Khunyeria itself, where more militant nationalists denounced the name as appeasement of the archroyal authorities. They often came to refer to Hendalarsk as ''Ellenség'' ("the Enemy"), a term which saw widespread and fateful usage in the turbulent years preceding the Civil War.

==Geography==

Hendalarsk is divided into two broad geographic zones by the [[Kupferberg]] massif in the centre of the country. The west is dominated by the watersheds of the [[Zalgis]] and the [[Stederau]], with the westernmost [[Khunyer]]-dominated areas of the country and the great primeval woodland of the [[Großwald]] under the Stederau's influence. While the old Hendalarskara heartland is on average at a much higher elevation than the rest of the country's urban areas, it is kept arable and fertile by the flow of the Zalgis and irrigation from [[Lake Helawara]]. The Zalgis lowlands from [[Schullerhausen]] northwards are the breadbasket and industrial core of the contemporary federation, although the great river itself is prone to flooding.

The Kupferberg massif itself is an area of great natural beauty which is also home to enormous mineral deposits, principally copper and aluminium. Recent years have consequently seen the massif targeted by mining concerns on these grounds. Hendalarsk's highest mountain, die [[Einsame Maria]], stands at 5734m and is located amid the massif; the [[Frehmenwerth-Kupferburg railway]] passes along its eastern flank.

==History==

''See also: [[History of Hendalarsk]]''

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===Civil War (1919-1925)===

''For further information, see [[Hendalarskara Civil War]].''

Despite the carnage, the war also further accelerated the economic rise of the country's north and east, which were relatively undamaged compared to the antifascist battlegrounds of the south, while many of the governing conventions which still define Hendalarskara political life today were laid down in the war and its aftermath. Hendalarsk's modern political stability has been attributed to the Civil War, with the memory of the horrors wrought by the conflict still fresh in the national psyche.

==Politics and administration==

Although the Archking is officially the head of state of the Federation, they have no legal power beyond that of an ordinary Hendalarskara citizen and have not since the conclusion of the Civil War. Power is instead constitutionally vested in the [[Primarch of the Great Chamber]] or '''''Prigrokam''''', the first minister of the [[Great Chamber|lower house]] of the [[Hendalarskara Parliament]]. The upper house, the [[Forum of the Nations]], is a deliberative body. Members of the Chamber, known as KMs (Kamermidglíder), are elected from all areas of the nation except the Pentapolis; each Free City does, however, have representation on the Forum, with it being the responsibility of individual provinces, marches and Free Cities to determine the system used to elect or appoint their Forum representatives.

Politics in the [[Great Chamber]] is dominated by the [[Hendalarskara Social Front]], a coalition of social democrats and democratic socialists that has ruled the nation continuously since the 1930s, a period known as the [[Great Consensus]]. Since the turn of the millennium the nation has nevertheless seen the rise of strongly autonomist parties such as the [[Zalgisbeckerbund]].

===Administrative divisions===

{| class="wikitable"

}}

==Culture==

===Religion===

The dominant religion in Hendalarsk is the [[Hendalarskara Catholic Church]], a faith which is rooted in the [[Catholic Church]] but not considered in communion with it. Catholic missionaries reached the lands of modern Hendalarsk by the fourth century AD but, without military force at their disposal to subjugate the local pagan polities, conversion was slow and fitful. The only native group to convert to the Levantine rite were the [[Agarii]] but, when their chief [[Agnauts]] attempted to destroy his people's former sacred grove in 621 AD, he was killed and the missionaries expelled in the resulting tumult. The Christianity which developed in the region, once the advantages of an institutionalised faith became clear to secular rulers, was instead a strongly syncretic one. While retaining the orthodox conception of the Trinity and the seven sacraments, Hendalarskara Catholicism retains pronounced elements of nature worship - even urban churches typically possess a sacred grove in their churchyard. Pagan river worship has also endured in an abstract fashion, with rivers (particularly the Zalgis) understood as God's instrument for giving and maintaining life rather than deities in their own right. The Hendalarskara Catholic Church is therefore a powerful landowner, with large swathes of the nation's woodland legally recognised as falling under its guardianship.

Aside from the Hendalarskara Catholic Church, Levantine Catholicism is a relatively popular minority faith in the Khunyer areas of the country. Traditional pagan cults claim many adherents in Nünsyi communities across the [[Kupferberg]], while the Vandarch littoral (and in particular the Pentapolitan city of Hukenen) is also home to a notable Protestant minority, the descendants of refugees who fled the [[Great Confessional War]]. Around 20% of the population self-defined as "unbelievers" in the 2015 census, while the nation's most cosmopolitan cities (principally Zalgisbeck and the Pentapolis) are home to small diasporic communities of other faiths from around the world.

===Cuisine===

The wide spread of cultures and biomes across Hendalarsk has given rise to a similarly diverse array of food and drink.

====Food====

====Drink====

The nation's most renowned alcoholic export is [[jenwer]], a beverage made from the infusion of various botanicals including juniper into a base of neutral grain spirit. Distilleries specialising in the production of jenwer can be found across the length and breath of Hendalarsk, with more than 300 logged by the Federal Duties Bureau in 2018; as of 2004 it is also the nation's largest alcoholic export by value, although it remains surpassed in volume by the arrayed beers of [[Heferau-Jung-Brauerei]]. While jenwer-drinkers nearer the equator tend to mix the spirit with various tonic waters, the fashion in Hendalarsk is to mix it with ginger ale, ginger beer or fruitades.

[[Hendalarskara Feinriesling]], the most prestigious grade of Zalgistal Riesling, is traditionally paired with Vandarch sturgeon's caviar to form a dish known as Royal Soil, or ''Königsboden''.

===Sport===

Baseball, although nowhere near as popular in Hendalarsk as in eastern Levantine nations, enjoys a small but devoted (and gradually growing) fanbase, although the sport is treated notably coolly by the Hendalarskara authorities due to a perceived risk of cultural penetration from major powers such as Urcea.

==Economy==

===Infrastructure===

This largely electrified transport network is predominantly powered by a mix of nuclear and renewable energy. Hendalarsk's last coal-fired power plant was closed in 1992, although small quantities of coal are still used for blast furnaces. Hendalarsk has no proven oil reserves and minimal reserves of natural gas, and so combined with historical suspicion towards the private car these fuels have played relatively little role in Hendalarskara history. The country imports small quantities of these fuels as required, principally for military uses and shipping, and some synthetic oil is manufactured for use in the production of polymers. The country's nuclear power stations are principally fuelled by uranium sourced from [[New Harren]], and a consequent desire to avoid unduly antagonising Urcea is a key factor in modern Hendalarsk's pursuit of a neutral foreign policy.

==Defense==

===Overview===

Since reaching its "natural bounds", Hendalarskara strategic thinking has remained remarkably consistent across differing governments. First formally articulated by Marshal [[Kovács István-Urbanus]] in 1913 in a paper of the same name, "Counterpunch Theory" is nevertheless recognisable in almost every major strategic decision undertaken since Maximilian's Great Conquests brought the bounds of Hendalarsk to defensible frontiers. Counterpunch Theory can, ultimately, be summed up in three precepts:

The Hendalarskara Armed Forces are divided into fourandone branches; the Army of the Federation (''Bundeshér''), the Federal Air Force (''Bundesluftflote''), the Federal Navy (''Bundeswérmarine''),<ref>The Pentapolitan Grand Fleet is formally separate from the Federal Navy, with an entirely distinct chain of command, but is generally grouped with it in strategic discussion.</ref> the Special Brigades (''Sonderbrigáden'') and the Emergency Corps (''Nottrupe'').

===Army===

The Army is the largest component of the Armed Forces, with some 225,000 active service members in its standard configuration.

===Air Force===

The Air Force consists of around 75,000 active service members. In addition to the maintenance, supply, deployment and piloting of aircraft, the Air Force also oversees the numerous and well-equipped Interdiction Initiative (''Abriegelungsinitiative''), the division-level tactical and strategic ground-based anti-aircraft and anti-missile component of the Armed Forces. The ability to dictate overwhelming domestic airspace control using both aircraft and anti-aircraft capabilities is a key pillar of contemporary Hendalarskara military doctrine and research in line with Counterpunch, a priority reflected in the funding the unit is assigned, and the division as a whole carries a level of prestige unusual for a non-frontline military unit.

===Emergency Corps===

The Emergency Corps is the humanitarian wing of the Armed Forces, explicitly intended by the Hendalarskara state to act as both a domestic reserve force in the event of natural disaster and as a foreign policy asset. Capable of establishing an initial "crisis beachhead" anywhere in the world within 24 hours, the Corps is trained in responses to a wide array of threats, from epidemic disease to earthquake aftermath. Even outside of disaster, it liaises extensively with civilian emergency and rescue agencies domestically and abroad; the official Hendalarskara first aid course is run and certified by the Corps. Conscientious objector conscripts are sometimes redirected into the Corps if a useful prior skillset is identified, and many have gone on to join the Corps professionally after the completion of their service.

===Navy===

The Federal Navy was only formally founded in 1757, despite Hendalarsk having been in possession of a Vandarch coastline for rather longer; prior to this point, the Archkings had been content to devolve the entire issue of maritime military capability to the Pentapolis. However, the increased economic importance of the Herne, Werdach and Zalgis rivers ultimately came to pose challenges beyond the resources or population base of the cities, while the strategic needs of a continental middle power, particularly a need for sea-to-land interdiction, came to differ from those of merchant city-states.

The most awkward strategic question facing the Hendalarskara navy is that it has a long and vulnerable coastline but, save for the great Vandarch-oceanic canal, no maritime connection to the outside world. Hendalarsk is thus unusual among developed countries in neither possessing nor seeking to acquire fully-fledged aircraft carriers, since the Vandarch does not require them and Hendalarsk possesses no independent port capacity outside of the great landlocked sea.

===Special Brigades===

The Special Brigades are a wide and diverse array of special forces trained in a range of capabilities. In addition to the marine units typical of such an assembly, the Special Brigades also incorporate troops from the Kupferberg highlands with considerable skill in mountain warfare, rapid-deployment elite fire teams, and a large and growing electronic warfare brigade. Additionally, while no official record of it exists, there is evidence that the Brigades incorporate a specialised urban insurgency-counterinsurgency unit, with doctrine developed from the lessons of the urban conflicts of the 1960s. Its existence nevertheless vehemently denied by Armed Forces spokespeople, allegations persist that the unit recruited from enemy combatants in the conflict in exchange for pardons as a means of diversifying its tactical base.

==Notes==

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[[Category:Hendalarsk]]

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