Two columns remain and we’re into the second of June’s three-week connected theme month. My theme is magocracies. This is also the second-to-last article in my Novagallia series; yes, that means I’m saving Mureure for last. (I’m sure that’s not really a surprise.) Will it be a hugely long entry, surpassing even this one? I guess we’ll see!
Sakosta, officially the Dominion of Sakosta, is a colony and commonwealth of the British Empire. It is the largest non-Earth British holding and the empire’s proxy representative not only on Novagallia but throughout much of the Ingressa. The official language is English and the dominion’s head of state is Queen Elizabeth II.
Founded during Britain’s first real imperial push during the Age of Discovery, Sakosta started out as nothing more than a single island fortress just off the Nelbion Peninsula in Western Ebrasae. The peninsula extends into the Gray Sea northwest of Mureure, the large nation that today borders mainland Sakosta. Over time, the Britons of Sakosta, huddled into their fortress, came into contact with neighboring Pec and Nords, who they eventually subjugated, and French-Murse, who they did not. For centuries, as did their mother nations on Earth, Sakosta and Mureure fought bitter, pointless war after bitter, pointless war. The invasion of the Suri forced the two nations into a cease-fire just to survive, but the rise of the Vomburg Empire and ceaseless raids by Akaean privateers pushed the two colonial powers into a mutually beneficial peace more than a century than did France and the United Kingdom. Although their respective motherlands balked at the arrangement, neither empire could muster the resources necessary to force Sakosta or Mureure to break the treaty and accompanying arrangements.
Today, Sakosta and Mureure enjoy a strong bond of friendship and an unguarded and easily crossed border.
Relationships With Factions
As arguably Mureure’s closest friend and ally, Sakosta enjoys a strong relationship with Tennyson Delinoix Associates. (The Mureure entry next week will elaborate on this more.) The Tennyson family produces several mages every generation, firmly establishing it as a noble family. Those who lack magery instead often work for the family business or in otherwise important positions within the government (and many join the military). The family holds a hereditary appointment to the parliament’s House of Lords, and more than one Tennyson has served as governor of Sakosta. All this together gives TDA relatively free and open access to Sakosta, and as a result it invests heavily in factories, mills, and sheep farms all throughout Sakosta. TDA also maintains several magical research laboratories in Sakosta, which operate with almost absolute freedom from government oversight; the research mages in Sakosta freely share many (but by no means all) of their discoveries with the nation’s ruling mage elite, encouraging a hands-off approach beneficial to all (or at least all who can do magic, of course).
Sakosta is allied with neither Roma Exterra or the WL, but most of its allies (especially Mureure) are friendly to the empire. That said, of the Western Ebrasae powers, the dominion enjoys the closest and friendliest relations with the WL stalwart, Toshima. This closeness does occasionally cause minor frictions between the two nations, as TDA continues its attempts to decipher the matic suit secrets of Toshima and sometimes draws upon its Sakostan resources to do so. Overall, though, Sakosta enjoys generally positive relationships with both Roma Exterra and the WL.
As part of the British Empire, Sakosta’s people officially belong to the Anglican Church. Sakosta is open to other religions, of course, and the Order of the Red Clover possesses several sanctuaries both in the major Sakostan cities of Arcanus, Newring, and Archester as well as on several of the nation’s larger North Islands. This of course gives Sakosta a positive relationship with the Order and both blends together and strengthens the ties among Sakosta, the Order of the Red Clover, and TDA.
The Janus Syndicate maintains two Janusite temples in the capital city of Arcanus and several other scattered across the nation. The temples in the capital are believed to contain beacons, as the syndicate frequently sends its pergressors to the city, often to work with the royal archives located there. This connection provides Sakosta with a greater understanding of—and involvement in—the Ingressa than similarly sized nations elsewhere. This connection benefits both the syndicate and the dominion, and Sakosta works hard to maintain its positive relationship with the Janusites.
Government
The Dominion of Sakosta belongs to the British Empire of Earth, with Queen Elizabeth II as its official head of state. Since the queen has not visited Sakosta in nearly fifty years, though, the dominion’s governor-general possesses a great deal of leeway in his control over Sakosta.
Of course, the governor-general doesn’t have carte blanche to do whatever he wants. Like the United Kingdom itself, Sakosta has a bicameral parliament composed of a House of Commons (none of whose members are mages) and a House of Lords (all of whom are). Although in theory the two houses of parliament are equals in the power they wield, in practice the mages of the House of Lords almost always get their way when the two chambers disagree.
To enter the House of Lords, a prospective member of parliament (MP for short) must prove he or she is a mage. This is usually done publicly, whenever the MP-to-be is named heir to the seat. (Positions within Sakosta’s House of Lords are hereditary.)
Governor-generals are elected to five-year terms from among the House of Lords. While holding the governorship is obviously considered highly prestigious, House of Lords MPs do not all aspire to the position, nor are they even allowed to take it unless they have heirs lined up already. Once a noble becomes governor-general, he or she cannot return to the House of Lords, and for most practical purposes a governor-general’s political career ends when his or her term in office does. That said, governor-generals who retire or fail to be re-elected often become lord magistrates in Sakosta’s courts, regardless of their qualifications (or lack thereof).
Elections from among the general populace determine the MPs of the House of Commons. Terms in the House of Commons last only three years, and MPs elected to it can serve for only a total of two terms their entire lives—consecutive or not. So while an MP in the House of Lords can stay in office his or her entire life, building contacts and friendships all throughout the government, those in the House of Commons have only six years at most.
The judicial system is composed of multiple, sometimes overlapping, levels of lord magistrates. Regardless of the level of the magistrates (from those who serve a single town or small county to those at the very highest level of royal courts), the number of magistrates who hear a case is always an odd number. For every case, the number of magistrates from noble houses (whether or not the magistrates themselves are mages—and most are not) outnumber commoner magistrates by at least one (two of three, five of nine, &c., &c.).
Unlike the rest of the government, magistrates from noble families can only serve a maximum of twelve years at any one level of the judiciary, while commoners have no term limits imposed. This one example in the government of commoners having more rights than nobles partially explains the popularity of law as a profession among wealthy commoners. Despite this glimpse of equality, though, most Sakostans still hate lawyers.
Being a mage in Sakosta automatically grants a person nobility and all the corresponding benefits that entails. Although rare, a family with no known mages in its history does occasionally produce one, and that person is granted a minor noble title (never more than baron). The title becomes hereditary if the new mage produces an offspring with magery, and the family continues in nobility for as long as its scions are mages. (In Sakosta, a noble family can skip two generations of without losing its titles.)
Like the rest of the British Empire, individuals can gain non-hereditary titles for extraordinary service to queen and country. Most earn their titles through the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
Pertaining to the rest of the empire, Sakosta represents the government of the United Kingdom on Novagallia, acting as a link between London and the empire’s other colonies on the world. In effect, they are as much Sakostan colonies as British ones, and many of these British-Sakostan colonists identify more with the people and government of the Nelbion Peninsula than those of the home isles on Earth.
Demography
On the Nelbion Peninsula, most people descend directly from British colonists who came to Novagallia in the last four centuries. French-Murse mix in near the border, and North Islands folk (ethnic Pec and Nord) live in slowly assimilating pockets at the mainland section’s northwest tip. The cosmopolitan major cities provide a greater mix of ethnic groups from all over the world and the Ingressa.
The same British descendants also dominate the Close Isles, that hug the peninsula’s coast and where the dominion got its start. Beyond the Close Isles, in the archipelagos of Pecland and Norcast, the indigenous Pecs and Nord still fill the towns and villages. Although no almost fully integrated into Sakosta’s culture, some elements of their own respective civilizations remain intact. Most signs written on the North Islands, for example, are written in two languages –English and Nord.
The nation’s three largest cities boast cosmopolitan populations drawn from scores of ethnic groups. So diverse is Arcanus that those of primarily British descent are now merely the largest minority in the city. The diverse populations of the cities come not only from across Novagallia—drawn by both the empire’s spread and by its reputation as a mage-friendly nation—but from all over the Ingressa as well. Those who visit Arcanus from other worlds usually do so in order to visit the royal archives there.
Geography
Mainland Sakosta exists on two different peninsulas in Western Ebrasae. The dominion’s capital of Arcanus, as well as most of its other major cities, all stand on the Nelbion Peninsula, a spur of the western peninsula on which Mureure, the Vomburg Principalities, and parts of Xindaming and Kasalfki Tsarinate exist. The Nelbion Peninsula is largely flat and lightly forested, bisected by a tall but narrow mountain range that separates the agriculturally rich lowlands in the southwest from the mineral-rich highlands across the northeast. Arcanus stands in the southwestern lowlands.
Just off the northeastern coast of the peninsula are the appropriately named Close Isles. These small rocky islands forma barrier from the storms and raiders that occasionally bear down on the peninsula from the north. Beyond them, further north, spread the North Islands, a number of rocky archipelagos that seem to be the jagged ridges of several underwater mountain ranges.
The North Islands eventually give way to another mountainous peninsula, where the Norcast Counties stand. These counties bear the double punishment of rugged, rocky terrain and harsh northern winters.
The Royal Archives
Part library, part museum, and part—yes—archives, the royal archives of Sakosta in Arcanus boast the largest collection of information pertaining to the Ingressa in, well, the Ingressa. Scholars, scientists, and mages from all across the Ingressa come to Arcanus to spend time in the archives.
Currently, the main building of the archives is undergoing renovations and much of the collection is held in various locked rooms unavailable to the public. Every week, though, more of the collection is uncovered and made available to everyone—not just with special permissions or particular connections. In addition to the main building, the archives controls several other holdings throughout Arcanus, but especially near the city’s center and governmental district. Some of these holdings consist of entire buildings, while the smallest is a suite within a mages’ university in West Arcanus.
The royal archives enjoy a centuries-old partnership with the Roman Library of the Outer Worlds, and traveling exhibits and special collections of the library occasionally pass through Arcanus in one of the archives’ buildings. Other beneficial partners also exist with the other factions as well, including, it is said, a non-public copy of Biography of Lady Delinoix (heavily guarded by TDA security forces).
The royal archives remain staunchly neutral in political affairs—even those that affect Sakosta in general—and are open to members of all the factions. It is not entirely uncommon to see a Roman scholar sharing a table with someone from the WL and the Derinam. Within the walls of the archives, all quarrels are forgotten in the name of learning.
In theory.
In practice, the Sakostan government keeps a number of mages and other security guards patrolling the archives’s scattered possessions. These security patrols are augmented by those on loan from TDA. When collections from the Library of the Outer Worlds are present, so too are Roman Legionnaires and combat mages.
The current head archivist is Sir Oliver Quimby, Seventh Baron of Deginshire. Under Oliver’s guidance, the archive’s holdings have more than doubled, forcing the current renovation of the main building. He is aided in his tasks by a small army of assistant archivists, unpaid interns, and the occasional volunteer.
