Yucatec

Yucatec is a technology-oriented direct democracy with near-total equality of opportunity but a stressful, success-oriented environment. A small nation, it relies on superior military technology and asymmetric warfare tactics to discourage foreign influence.

Colonialism Era
Yucatec is located on the east of the continent of Avalonia, and has been inhabited by its indigenous peoples for thousands of years. When colonization efforts came in from Artemia and the Tiperyn Isles, the Yucatec were one of the few peoples not conquered and subjugated. This was partially by luck, and partially due to the negotiating skill of the tribe's leadership. The nation's geography is mostly open savannah, making practical defense difficult. A lack of natural resources, especially metals, made it hard for the Yucatec to protect against foreign aggression, as shown in conquests xxx and xxx. While the pen is not always mightier in the sword, it sometimes is, and the Yucatec honed their diplomatic skills to a razor edge. When colonial powers significantly more advanced than the Yucatec entered the regional geopolitics, the tribe's leadership wielded their unique mastery of bandit-ridden jungle isles as a bargaining chip to ensure relative independence and safety.

Development and Modernization
They soon discovered that their honey tongues could sway the currents of trade as well, and information, refined goods, and new ways of thinking kicked of a mini-Renaissance in Yucatec culture. The biggest innovations were the introduction of effective, large-scale irrigation and fertilizer. A united government and people toiled for 22 years of hard labor to construct massive aqueducts and re-routed rivers from the great southern mountains' glacial rivers to turn the mostly unproductive savannah regions into one of Anterra's greatest breadbaskets. This sudden food surplus caused a population explosion, and attracted fortune-seekers from all corners of the globe to Yucatec in search of a better life.

An Era of Change
The mass migration and chaotic culture mishmash had three important effects.


 * 1) First, the influx created the need for large new housing communities to take in the newcomers and newborn generation.  This directly led to construction of new, huge cities all around the savannah.  These [metropolis-ish name] were designed from the ground-up, and as such looked very different from hundred-year-old, organically grown settlements.
 * 2) Second, the chaotic mishmash of culture led to the need of a set of core tenants that would define Yucatec's future.
 * 3) Last but not least, the large-scale expansion combined with very limited resources made efficiency and ingenuity a must to make the best use of what was available.  This is the source of many unique quirks in Yucatec architecture, born out of necessity, not found anywhere else on Anterra.

A New Order
It was in this time of great change that the informal tribal government that had ruled over the area of Yucatec for thousands of years realized that they were no longer adequate to serve the needs of their people, and so spent many years with the nation to decide on a new form of government that would thrive in this new age. After much deliberation, the formation of a new state, Yucatec, from the phrase "striving for success," was announced. It would reside on four core pillars: efficiency, ingenuity, diplomacy, and perseverance. Faced by a world with a larger population and more raw resources, Yucatec would have to survive by working smarter with what they had; countering numerical inferiority with smooth diplomacy backed by technological dominance. Yucatec military forces are small in number but are undoubtedly some of the best trained and equipped in the world, living on the bleeding edge of scientific progress.

Present Day
Yucatec's unique history and reverence for their core pillars lead to an exceptionally well educated and efficient culture, but also one left overworked and often emotionally empty. The nation's children are taught from a young age that with sufficient work, everyone is capable of success; therefore, everyone should succeed. The nation's largest remaining hurdle to overcome is changing its style of military to successfully counter emerging threats and to decrease reliance on imports for resources like metals and fossil fuels.

First Posts
The Yucatec primarily function as a direct democracy, but it is too inefficient to vote on every small detail in the nation. As such, it has a semi-feudal system based strongly on a meritocracy model, with individual cities and regions each having a wide range of autonomy to operate as efficiently as possible and solve day-to-day issues. The order is generally district -> city -> region -> national. Each level elects the leader for the next level up, ensuring familiarity with the candidates. There are no political parties in Yucatec, and all leader's lifestyles are conducted with complete transparency to stave off outside political pressures. Accepting a top post corresponds with an almost total lack of privacy, a responsibility accepted as for the greater good.

At the peak of the political hierarchy are the three "First Posts" representing the essential positions in Yucatec society. The First Scientist, Engineer and Diplomat are charged with keeping their corresponding fields supported and successful. They are accompanied by a cabinet of an ever-changing group of leaders in their domains. The First Diplomat functions as the figurehead of the nation in international affairs.

Direct Democracy
The nation is heavily industrialized, and connected by an extensive, hardened fiber-optic domestic intranet system. One of the primary functions of this system is the enablement of a direct democracy for major policy decisions. At 8:00 PM local time, every eligible citizen casts votes for, against, or abstains on the national vote system. This system is protected by redundancy, several layers of SHA-256 end-to-end encryption, physical backups, and transparent data verification. The possibility of foreign influence in the system is treated as a constant threat, and many of Yucatec's top cybersecurity minds devote their lives to keeping the system safe. It is and has been official policy that discovery of attempted foreign influence in the system is an automatic act of war.

Administrative Divisions
Yucatec lands are broken down into several layers of government. Due to the rapid industrialization that took place during the Era of Change and New Order periods of history, the nation is almost completely urban (>95% live in cities). New cities were planned from the ground up with this in mind, and were separated into several self-contained Akte, or districts, with a mix of housing and essential services. These districts form the first layer of administration, between 1,000 - 10,000 people each. A collection of districts forms the Uxmal, or city level. Government at this level consists of managing essential industries as well as ensuring that the Akte have the needed resources to function smoothly. A group of cities nearby one another forms the Yaxha, somewhat analogous to a province. These serve to ease the burden on the highest level of government, the national government, by creating an administrative buffer. These are also often grouped by nations with similar production roles.

Historical
Early in the history of the Yucatec, limited technology and frequent pillaging left little opportunity for large structures. Mysterious dirt and stone pyramids have been found in the remote Xx Jungle, but most other construction was temporary and their wooden foundations rotted away millenia ago. The only other significant remaining structure is the ancient city and capital of Port Tikal, located on the coast of the Iapetus Ocean. The historic heart of Yucatec power and the seat of tribal leadership, rings of architecture stand out like rings of a tree in this organically-grown city, with the seat of government in a modern building on the same ancient hill tribal elders met and formed an alliance on thousands of years ago.

New Order Era
With new, advanced tools and techniques, the Yucatec chose to design their new cities from the ground up to be as efficient and defensible as possible. They quickly discovered that the thick layer of limestone in most of the nation provided easy-to-acquire brick, but also that excavating those bricks could be turned to useful space as well. Consequentially, a style of bunker-like white limestone towers with thick walls and an extensive underground network of tunnels and caverns emerged. It is common to have over half of a structure located underground, taking advantage of subterranean cooling as a respite from the heat above, and improving defensibility in the event of an attack. Cities and settlements from the New Order Era are characterized by large expanses of carefully shaped collections of squat white towers, with no windows and crenellations at the top to aid in defense. Each dwelling is like a miniature castle. Most have a winding staircase from the top level to the lowest basement, allowing access to the entire structure. The above-ground level(s) served as storage, with minimum time spent in the unpleasant heat. The top level usually consisted of a small garden and covered patio to allow for quality time spent outside and cooking, with the garden proving herbs and some vegetables. The basement levels were naturally cooler and served as the primary living quarters, with layers for living and sleeping, respectively. Underground, an elaborate network of tunnels mirroring the city streets above connected every building, with frequent gates that could be shut in the event of an invasion. Each Akte (district) also contained underground bunkers that contained enough stored food and weapons to survive a lengthy siege.

Military
Main Article

Combined Arms
Yucatec's military is small and professional, with an emphasis on quality and technological superiority over overwhelming numbers. The full-time professional military makes a life-long commitment, spending almost all free time training and studying the art of war. Each element of the military hierarchy has a specific role to fill, all complementing one another under Strategic Command (S-COM), with logistics handled by Integration Command (I-COM). No unit acts alone, as the high investment in every soldier necessitates minimizing casualties as much as possible.

Yuka
The Yuka [flowing water] doctrine combined diplomatic and military aims of flexibility and fluidity in conflict. This involves a sort of asymmetric warfare, replacing conventional tactics of direct confrontation with destabilization of supply lines, rapid hit-and-runs, deploying behind enemy lines, and use of cyber and psychological warfare to inflict as much damage as possible on the enemy. The primary focus of S-COM is to pick the enemy force apart into small, isolated units where numbers are comparatively equal to Yucatec forces, and superior training and equipment can hopefully turn the tide in Yucatec's favor.

Realistically, against a major power, Yucatec's best hope is a prolonged insurgency. The underground tunnels that form the core of Yucatec cities would make clearing them a living hell, and the lack of significant natural resources in the area would nearly ensure that any invasion would be a negative investment of time, resources, and lives. It is public policy that in the event of an attack, all technology and data is to be destroyed before the enemy can take it. Technology is Yucatec's most valuable asset, and controlling access to it makes the nation more valuable as an ally than a conquered zone. Yucatec doesn't need to be unattackable to remain free, it just needs to be not worth it.

Diplomacy
Realistically, against a major power in open war, Yucatec's best hope is a prolonged insurgency. As such, their foreign policy has been one of non-intervention and de-escalation. The three core tenants of Yucatec's foreign policy are as follows:


 * 1) Do not unnecessarily interfere in foreign conflict
 * 2) Attempt to resolve differences and issues diplomatically and without conflict, if possible
 * 3) In the event of conflict, use scorched-earth and other strategies to erode enemy will to fight