Yucatec

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 [message me if you want to have taken me over in the past :)]. 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. Rates of depression and suicide are several points higher than in any other developed nation, and the constant pressure to succeed leaves those who cannot keep up broken and cast aside. The government began a program in 2000 called "a new millennium of progress" focused on shifting some priority to emotional health and well-being, even so far as to proposing "spirit" as a new core pillar, but decades of ingrained culture and habits have made any significant progress slow at best.

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.