Adoki

The Empire of Adoki is a Commonwealth of Peoples member state located in southwest Ambara, frequently referred to as the Empire of the Radiant Sun. Adoki is a largely homogenous nation, reknowned for its beautiful landscapes. Despite her small geographic area, Adoki is largely commercialized and industrially developed. However, even in urban areas, the sacred can be found among the profane. It is not uncommon to find the entrance to a large and finely landscaped Shinto shrine hidden between two office buildings or to see an ornate traditional garden on the roof of a skyscraper.

History

Adoki history began some five centuries ago when settlers from Japan left their homeland to seek a new life. They were led by Prince Shoko(1498-1548), an unrecognized son of Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado who resented being denied a throne he considered rightfully his. The settlers founded their first colony in the city of Aaharo, which remains an important Adoki port city and the site of an important imperial palace to this day.

Over the next five centuries, the settlers expanded throughout present day Adoki. Prince Shoko and his immediate heirs styled themselves Emperors of Japan until 1806, when Emperor Ogimachi (reigned 1797-1808) began to style himself Emperor of Adoki. This change in title marked a recognition both that the line of Shoko would never sit on the throne of Japan and that Adoki had now become a viable nation in its own right.

It was only during the reign of Ogimachi that the office of the Shogun came into being in Adoki. Before this time, while the Emperor had effectively governed the country, he had formally organized his government along the lines of an army waiting to retake Japan rather than as a functioning court. Because the Shogunate appeared so late and after so many centuries of direct imperial rule, the Shoguns of Adoki, unlike the Shoguns of Japan, remained servants of the Emperor in fact as well as name.

From the 1916 fundamentalist and racist revolution in the nearby nation of Marlund until the end of the Second Ambaran War, Adoki has been in a constant state of low-grade warfare with her neighbor. Each side was driven by a strong racial and cultural hatred of the other, considering themselves the natural masters of Ambara. The only lull in this conflict was during the Second World War, when both nations supported the Axis Powers. After the war's conclusion, both nations simply stopped fighting the allies without formally surrendering or undergoing foreign occupation. Accusing one another of betraying the Axis cause and bringing about defeat, the two nations launched into a full-scale war with one another from 1945-1952, the First Ambaran War. While Marlund emerged the victor, it also emerged convinced that any conquest of Adoki would be too costly to be worth it. There was no formal conclusion of peace and the nations both returned to low-grade skirmishes which continued over the next fifty years.

Emperor Nakamikado (1992-2006) allowed very limited parliamentary reforms, including the election of a national legislature, the Kokkai, although one entirely subject to the power of the Emperor. He also allowed the flourishing of a large number of political parties and instituted a policy of freedom of worship, although the government continued to strongly favor the official form of Shinto oriented around the imperial personage.

Nakamikado has no sons and only one daughter, Princess Yuko. Because Adoki law allows only male descendants of Prince Shoko to inherit the throne, Makamikado will be the last Emperor of Adoki. After his death, Adoki will begin the transition to a republican form of government.

Government and politics

Adoki may be regarded as an example of a constitutional monarchy, although it was an absolute monarchy until fairly recently. The Emperor's power is limited by a Constitution adopted in early 2006. The new constitution does leave many powers to the Emperor, powers which will be transferred to an elected President upon the death of the current Emperor.

Despite these new constitutional limitations, the Emperor has found that he is very rarely unable to get his way in political matters. The Emperor continues to enjoy enormous prestige among Adoki people of every class and political tendency merely by virtue of his birth.

Imperial Government

The Imperial Government is the national government of Adoki, consisting of the Emperor, the Imperial Cabinet, and the Kokkai. The officers of the Imperial Government operate according to a system of enumerated powers based upon the Constitution and upon statutes passed in accordance with the Constitution.

The Kokkai is a unilateral body which suggests legislation to the Emperor. The Kokkai has three hundred members. One hundred are Adoki noblemen who hold hereditary seats. Another hundred are Shinto priests from key shrines. The last hundred are elected by the Adoki people divided into one hundred electoral districts.

The head of the Adoki government is, of course, the Emperor, who appoints an Imperial Cabinet. The members of the cabinet are each delegated an appropriate level of authority over their respective Ministries. While they are often choosen from among the majority party in the Kokkai, this tradition is much weaker than it is in true constitutional monarchies. The Emperor reserves the right to give any cabinet position to anyone he chooses. There is no means of appealing the Emperor's decision.

The Emperor personally makes 923 appointments, including, but not limited to, cabinet ministers and foreign ambassadors. With these appointments, the Emperor also bestows upon the appointee the right to appoint all government officials beneath him in the Emperor's name. This person delegates the right to make some of these appointments to his own ranking officers, still in the Emperor's name. Officially, the lowest paid janitor in the Imperial Government is hired and fired by His Imperial Majesty, albeit through deignated agents. The power of the Emperor's literally holy personage is held to inundate the government in its entirety in official propaganda. Most ordinary Adoki do, in fact, view the government in close to the same light as the official view, if they are not quite so extreme.

Local government

Local governments have no rights against the imperial government. However, as a practical matter, local leaders are allowed to make many of the supposedly apolitical decisions which have the most effect on people's daily lives. The provision of bus services, roads, subways, light rails, public parks, and similar services is normally left to local governments. Local governments do not have their own laws but do have local charters, providing for the selection of local officials. These charge vary wildly, leaving some towns in the control of a local lord while allowing others to freely elect their own officials.

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of local government in Adoki: The government of towns and the government of provinces. Provinces tend to have a somewhat balanced charter, giving elected representatives slightly more authority over the matters in the charge of the province than Adoki gives elected representatives in the imperial government. It is largely in towns where wide deviation in either direction is tolerated, whether towards the rule of a lord or towards democracy.

Political divisions

Officially, Adoki admits of no genuine political divions. The Emperor has absolute sovereignty over the entirety of Adoki. While the land is subdivided into provinces, these are mere administrative districts all under a universally applicable imperial law. Likewise, the country does not have any major geographical divisions. Adoki has no overseas territories of even territories on the northern coast of Adoki Bay, an area claimed entirely by Pantocratorian Ambara.

Foreign relations and military

Because of Adoki's small size, her foreign policy is fairly narrowly confinded to the continent of Ambara. In general, Adoki gives political and diplomatic support to efforts to effect reconciliation between the races and religious groups of Adoki, even though xenophobia remains wide-spread among the Adoki people themselves. Adoki enjoys relatively friendly relations with all other Ambaran powers, although its strongest ties remain to the Resurgent Dream.

The military of Adoki consists of the Imperial Army, Imperial Navy, and Imperial Air Force. There is no legal ban on the use of military forces for law enforcement duty and the Imperial Navy also performs the function of a coast guard.

The combined armed forces of Adoki employ some 160,000 people of whom most are support or logistical personnel. 6 million Adoki are considered eligible for conscription, although the military currently consists entirely of volunteers. As of February 2006, the total military budget for Adoki was 2,682,746,927,991.65 yen.

Physical geography

Adoki is located in the southwestern corner of Ambara. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the south and the west. To the north, Adoki is bordered by Chiba Bay and by Pantocratorian Ambara. While Adoki has many mountainous areas in the eastern part of the nation, 78% of her land is arable.

Because of the presence of the [{Saetsumi Fault]], Adoki is occassionally the victim of earth quackes. There is also limited volcanic activity along the fault line and many of the island's off the Adoki coast are volcanic in origin.

Adoki experiences a rainy season in the late summer and early autumn. Although the temperature is the coldest in Ambara, it is still temperate at worst. Adoki contains two ecoregions: Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests and temperate coniferous forests.

Economy

Although it has little economic influence internationally, Adoki has a reasonably strong domestic economy. The strength of Adoki's economic sector rest largely on a strong work ethic and close cooperation between business and government, a vibrant market, and an emphasis on technology.

Two distinguishing characteristics of Adoki's economy are the cooperation of banks, manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors in closely knit groups and guaranteed life time employment in most large corporations and in unionized factories.

Demographics

As of 2006, there were an estimated 16,125,000 people living permanently in Adoki. The population growth rate was roughly 0.12% per annum. 81% of the population lives in urban areas. No ethnic minority in Adoki comprises more than one million people. In terms of the distribution of wealth, roughly one million Adoki citizens live below the legally defined poverty line. The top 12% of the nation's population owns 54% of the wealth.

The overwhelming majority of Adoki's people, 91%, are of Japanese ancestry. The only other ethnic groups with a significant presence are Europeans, Cambodians, and African-Ambarans. Recent demographic trends include the immigration of many African-Ambarans from Marlund in the wake of the Second Ambaran War.

Adoki has over a dozen cities with populations of greater than a hundred thousand and three cities with populations exceeding a million: Ajuki, Shoko, and Aaharo.