Feline
| |
| Flag of Feline | |
| Motto: "All beings are created equal." | |
| Region | Haven |
|---|---|
| Capital | Arcology I (Cat City) |
| Official Language(s) | No de jure language. De facto languages are Cat (All dialects, plus High Cat generally spoken publicly) and English (Modified British dialect) |
| Leader | King Buster Boostei (Note: King merely a title, the role is actually one of an elected and recallable president-for-life) |
| Population | 4,813,000,000 |
| Currency | Paw Mark |
| NS Sunset XML | |
Contents
Introduction
The Democratic Arcologies of Feline is a massive, economically powerful nation, remarkable for the extreme degree to which technology is integrated into its citizens' lives, multi-species mix with a majority sapient cat population, and compulsory veganism (The issues of a vegan diet are surmounted for cats by artificially created food). Its compassionate, yet hardboiled and intelligent population of 4.813 billion hold their civil and political rights very dear, although the wealthy and those in business tend to be viewed with suspicion but not hatred.
It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, corrupt government stops and the rest of society begins due to its firm integration into the insanely divergent threads of Feline society, but it juggles the competing demands of Education, Social Programs, and intelligence gathering. The average income tax rate is 100%, but this is surmounted by a dual-layer economy, consisting of the Alpha layer (The actual, taxed exchange of funds) and the Beta layer, a semi-barter market in services and technology. Almost all transactions include both layers. A powerhouse of a private sector is dominated by the Information Technology and Gambling industry.
The nation has opened its arms to an influx of refugees, untold millions of paw marks are going into a new government-funded maternity leave scheme, drunk drivers are sent to rehabilitation paid for by the government, and the people of Feline are renowned for their (superficially) nihilistic attitudes, which are actually part of a different natural way of thinking that the cats possess, and has been largely adopted by humans. This attitude, while it is cynical and pessimistic, also involves an overwhelming embrace of life and its wonders. Crime is totally unknown. Feline's national animal is the cat, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, created by the fact that the nation's entire population is in tall arcologies, and its currency is the paw mark, which is totally electronic.
History
The Mauni Empire
The Mauni Empire was a vast superpower- peaceful, scientifically advanced for the time (Early renaissance technology at the time of its collapse), and possibly the origin of the story of Atlantis. However, the origins of the Mauni empire itself are lost to history- no “Rosetta stone” of Mauni script has been discovered. In fact, no traces of Mauni buildings, save for building they did abroad, have been discovered. It lasted from an unknown point in history to 242 B.C.E.
What we know of the Mauni is what has been passed down through oral tradition of the refugees when the Empire collapsed, and through the writings of other cultures, most notably the similarly disappeared and rival Woofan Empire, and oligarchy similar to Sparta, but of a technological level only slightly behind the Mauni.
The Mauni Empire first was established in c. 3500 BCE, but the existence can only be narrowed down to a few centuries. This date is disputed by many, some saying beginnings of up to c. 5000 BCE, and some saying as recently as c. 3400, the only certain thing is that it predated the establishment of a unified Egypt. General consensus goes around c. 3500, though. It was founded by the Citizen-Emperor Bute Boosti (Believed by many, but unproven, to be an ancestor of current Feline chief of state Boostei.) and Citizen-Judge Ticta Messiae (Known for a fact to be an ancestor of the current powerful Messiae family) and collapsed in 240 BCE due to its abortive intervention in the First Punic War. In the intervening millenia, it created the most powerful state ever known upon the face of the Earth.
It controlled many client states peacefully, most notably Egypt. It’s power was so great that it chose to allow de jure rule of Egypt by the Macedonian Ptolemies, and allowed it to be conquered by Alexander the Great in order to secure an alliance. However, despite this, it retained de facto client state rule. They built the later pyramids, including the Great Pyramids. The Sphinx was a monument to the Egypt-Mauni alliance: Part human, Part Cat.
Eventually, however, the Mauni empire intervened in the First Punic War. A series of disruptions- including plague, sabotage, and fire- at home and lost battles to the Woofan (Who intervened on the opposite side) led to the swift collapse of the Mauni empire. The Woofans stormed Mauni, and the citizens were forced to flee on ships out to the sea, creating an extremely large diaspora population, that went underground as non-sapient cats. In this manner- unable to write- they developed a large oral tradition, replete with epic poetry, songs, and Italic textmiroweItalic text, a unique genre of literature where one recounts (often in glorified form) the actions of one's ancestors just before and at the start of the diaspora.
Also developing was a large "grapevine" of sorts. Feral, nomadic groups of sapient cats and scent markings telling messages served to maintain a mild cohesion over the group. They were by no means unified, but they did have contact.
The Democratic Arcologies
In June, 1997, the plans had been laid. A large percentage of the population of sapient cats, approximately 3750000, revealed their sapience to their human companions. They eventually came to a communication with the shocked humans. Together, they combined technologies from across civilizations and came together in a new land. In this land, they rapidly constructed an arcology, and the Democratic States of Feline was proclaimed, and the arcology named Cat City.
It was five years since then when they were ready to reveal themselves to the world. They did, on December 30th, 2002. Since then, the Democratic Arcologies have grown in size and number to fourteen, the largest still being Arcology I, the only one with an official name: Cat City.
Foreign Relations
Arcologies
Geography
Economy
Demographics
Feline is a very young country. The age distinctions between humans and cats have been eliminated by veternary technology, so the figures are not skewed. Approximately 10% of the nation is under fifteen, 50% is fifteen to twenty-five, 25% is twenty-five to fourty, 10% is between 40 and 70, and 5% is seventy or above. This is largely due to the fact that the sapient cats preferred to settle with young and vital members of the population.
The sex ratio is .88 males to a female. Despite this, however, the birth rate is quite low. There is a strong anti-reproductive bias in Feline society. Cats (A citizen of Feline, distinguished from cats, the species) tend to value personal, unhindered decision-making and often view children as a hinderance. Thusly, the rapid population growth that is experience by the Democratic Arcologies is due a near-constant tsunami of immigrants and expatriates, creating an extremely cosmopolitan culture.
Approximatley 70% of the population is cat, 18% is human, and the remaining 12% is various assorted species.
Ethnicity
Small-C Cats
The majority of cats in Feline come from a mix of three breeds: Russian Blue, Siamese, and Maine Coon. Despite this, there are signifigant minorities of other cat breeds. The percentages are listed below.
23% Predominantly Russian Blue
23% Predominantly Siamese
22% Predominantly Norwegian Forest Cat
18% Predominantly Maine Coon
06% Predominantly Turkish Van
05% Predominantly Egyptian Mau (Believed to be genetically the closest to the Mauni)
03% Assorted Other Breeds
Humans
The ethnic distribution in Feline among the human population is largely reflective of diaspora patterns by the Mauni. There are two predominant human ethnic groups in Feline, those of Scandinavian descent and those of Jewish descent. The former is unexplained by any factor other than the largest flotilla of refugee ships sailed up from the Mauni homeland somewhere in the deserts of North Africa to Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. The Jewish factor is believed to be cultural identification- both the Jews and the cats suffered an ancient diaspora and mistreatment (Although, the cats could have stopped it if they had "come out" as sapient sooner in all likelihood) in the intervening millenia. The reasons for the choice of various ethnic groups is a matter of much debate in the Feline academic community, so no further reasons will be specified beyond the above, generally agreed, theories. The human ethnic groupings, being brought together from various parts of the world less than eight years ago, are less mixed than the cats.
22% Scandinavian
20% Jewish
15% Asian
13% Eastern European
12% Arab and Bedouin
10% African
8% Assorted Western European
Religion
Class
Culture
The lifestyle of a typical Cat
Worldview of a typical Cat
Government
Legislative Branch
Legal System
Civil Court
Criminal Court
Appeals Court
Supreme Court
Executive Branch
Ministries
Department of Espionage and Covert Operations
Department of Public Enterprise
Military
Army
Air Corps
Transportation
(To be finished)
