Sci

Sci

Flag of Sci
Motto: "Knowledge is wealth."
N/A
Region	Atheist Empire
Capital	Darwin
Official Language(s)	Lenge Scien, English
Leader	(oligarchy)
Population	N/A
Currency	Scien Util (SCU)
NS Sunset XML

The Meritocracy of Sci is a massive, healthy nation noted for its expenditures on scientific research. Its hard-nosed, intelligent population enjoy some of the most opulent lifestyles in the region (unless they are unemployed or working-class, in which case their lives are conspicuously more austere, and frequently shorter), and are ruled by an elitist but mostly-benevolent mandarinate which grants the populace great individual freedoms in everything except politics, in which each citizen's power is limited to whatever the government chooses to give him.

It is difficult to tell where the bureaucratic, pro-science government stops and the rest of society begins, but it is effectively ruled by the Ministry of Education, although it also devotes significant funds to Commerce, Science, and the Environment. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 20%, as well as various usage fees for public services. A powerhouse of a private sector is led by the Pharmaceuticals industry, but is also very healthy in the areas of Electronics, Book Publishing, and Investment Banking.

The government is avowedly atheist, citizenship is automatic for residents, post-mortem organ donation is compulsory, and the freedoms of speech and contract are held sacrosanct. Crime is virtually unknown. Sci's national animal is the coyote, which prospers in the nation's numerous, well-protected forests (as well as in its even-more-numerous suburbs). Its currency is the Util.

Despite its few political freedoms, Sci is considered a world benchmark for civil rights, and has a reasonably strong economy.

Icons

Sci's people have no strong sense of national identity. However, the government prides itself on a tradition of rationality and reason. Realpolitik and cynicism are both perceived as positive traits in decision makers; sentimentality is considered a form of foolish superstition.

Motto

Sci's motto is, in Lenge Scien, "Canor abla hator". This translates literally into English as "Knowing is a prerequisite for intentionally acting." However, it is more commonly translated figuratively, as "knowledge is freedom" or "information is wealth". "Knowledge is power" is also a valid translation, although this version is rarely used in government publications due to its militaristic connotations.

Flag

The flag of Sci consists of a simplified "Da Vinci Man" in gold, against a solid purple background. It is said to stand for the idea that study of the human sciences can be translated into success, status, and strengh. This is more-or-less the same idea as the one appearing in the national motto.

More generally, the "Da Vinci Man" icon can be seen as a symbol of humanism and the Renaissance. The colors gold and purple are both traditionally associated with status and wealth, with gold also somewhat associated with the sciences.

History

Sci was originally a British colony, but a popular independence movement began growing in intellectual circles in 1776, in sympathy with the American revolutionaries. For a century and a half, this movement engaged in various forms of both violent and non-violent protest, until 1917, when heavy losses in World War One caused the United Kingdom to withdraw most of its forces for transfer to the Western Front; the Scien independence movement, led at the time by Owain Craig, took advantage of the opportunity and seized control of the country. The rebels professed neutrality in the war, and were left to their own devices until its conclusion in 1919. Several tense months followed, in which an exhausted British army pondered its options against a fresh force. Ultimately, the United Kingdom backed down without further bloodshed, and Sci gained formal independence with the signing of the Treaty of Copenhagen on June 19, 1920.

Sci was also neutral during World War Two. Some modern historians have criticized this stance as having indirectly benefited the Axis: although it continued to trade in agricultural and medical products with both the Allies and the Axis during the war, the Axis was far more dependent on this trade than the Allies were. On the other hand, Sci is lauded for having accepted far more Jewish refugees (and later homosexual refugees as well) from Nazi-occupied territory than any other state.

Sci initially had universal suffrage, but this eroded over time as additional criteria were placed on voting. By the date of its last "public" election in the year 1996, less than 20% of the total population were eligible to vote, and fewer than half of these actually paid the poll tax in order to do so. Elections scheduled for the year 1998 were rendered moot when the Ministry of Education invalidated all but one candidate for each post, and in 1999 the state changed its official name from "The Republic of Sci" to "The Meritocracy of Sci". Since that time, the Ministry of Education has ruled as an oligarchy. International demands for a restoration of Scien democracy have been ignored.

Government

The government of Sci is a large, constitutional bureaucracy of limited powers. In theory, any resident or property-owner may participate in government, although such participation in limited by rigorous education and testing requirements, as well as by individuals' willingness to undergo the process. There are no elections, unless one counts the decisions made by small committees using majority rule.

The government is--or at least appears to outsiders as--a tangled, bureaucratic mess. (This was intentional on the part of the Founders, who wanted to make it difficult for the government to interfere in people's lives, and so decided to make it difficult for it to do anything at all. The nation hovers on the brink of anarchy.) It is divided into "overministries" which are further divided into "ministries". Each ministry has its own budget. Each overministry also has an overminister, who controls the distribution of the overministry's discretionary budget.

Current Ministers

Below is a list of the current heads of Sci's government, in their official hierarchy. Note that overministers are not reliably more powerful than the ministers positioned below them. The most important positions are the ones for which additional titles (e.g. "Prime Minister") are listed.

• Overminister of Education: Robin Eisenstein
  • Minister of Standards ("Prime Minister"): Rebecca Hofstadter
  • Minister of Human Development: Viviane Goodkin
  • Minister of Sciences: William Singer
• Overminister of State: Charles Watson
  • Minister of Justice ("Attorney General"): Thucydides Sugre
  • Minister of Finance ("Treasurer General"): Ronald Green
• Overminister of the Interior: Abraham Galtin
  • Minister of Commerce ("Chief of Legislature"): Patricia Friedman
  • Minister of Health: Verity Iosifovna
  • Minister of the Environment: Sophie Sigurdst
  • Minister of Arts: Sigmund Hamish
• Overminister of the Exterior: Kimberly Fitt
  • Minister of Foreign Affairs ("Foreign Minister"): John Williams
  • Minister of Defense ("Chief of Armed Forces"): Darwin Newcomb

Overministry of Education

The Overministry of Education--specifically its Ministry of Standards--can be considered the executive branch of Sci. While it does not have the power to explicitly appoint or remove members of the government, its powers include both the ability to determine the metric for qualification to any given post, and to administer the tests for that metric, which together amount to essentially the same thing.

Standards' powers also include the ability to (re)define the bounds of any term referring to persons that appears in other laws (such as "impoverished" or "female", and including "person" itself), or to veto any law (coercive or pecuniary) that uses such a term (nominally on the grounds that the law is unfairly discriminatory).

In addition to the Ministery of Standards, Education also includes two other, much less powerful ministries. The first is the Ministry of Human Development, which has the power to make laws regarding the treatment and behavior of minors, and which controls the nation's actual education budget, which is spent primarily to subsidize schools, other forms of training, libraries, museums, media, etc.--in theory, the government does not have the power to run such institutions directly, although in practice its ability to determine the criteria for how much public funding each receives allows it to more-or-less call the shots. (This is fact is particularly disturbing with respect to the nation's news media: as measured by market share, only 20% of Sci's television news, 30% of its print news, and 50% of its Internet news is truly independent.) Human Development is held responsible for insuring that all citizens are literate, and for insuring that, at least in theory, a citizen could receive sufficient education to qualify for any position in the government, without ever spending a single Util of his own funds. The second is the Ministry of Sciences, which has the power to make patent law (including the collection of filing fees), and which controls a highly discretionary budget to fund, incentivize, or reward scientific research (including technological development, and including, if it wishes, private, for-profit research), and to negotiate early release of patents into the public domain (subject to approval by the Ministry of Standards).

Overministry of State

The two Ministries of State are almost as powerful as the Ministry of Standards.

The Ministry of Justice is responsible for enforcing all coercive laws (criminal law, environmental and other regulations on public goods, taxes, and various specific categories), and has the power to interpret any ambiguities or conflicts in them; it also controls the judiciary. (Any outside reader must cringe at this lack of separation of powers, althoough in fairness Justice at least makes an effort to provide checks and balances to itself, and like all of the government its members serve only at the tolerance of the Ministry of Standards.) Any government ministry wishing to make a law must cede a portion of its budget to the Underministry of Justice to pay for that law's enforcement. Justice has the power to veto any coercive law (nominally, it must specify that it is doing so on the grounds that the law violates Sci's constitution, on the grounds that the law falls outside the area of competence of the ministry which legislated it, or on the grounds that insufficient funds have been provided for its enforcement), although by doing so it of course loses the funds which were provided for the law's enforcement. (Coercive laws can also be terminated at any time by the ministries which inacted them, if they are unsatisfied with the results they receive from Justice.) Lastly, Justice has the responsibility of enforcing contracts, and has the power to determine the "stamp fee" that must be paid to make a contract legally enforceable.

The Ministry of Finance has the power to modify tax law (although all taxes are subject to veto by the Ministry of Justice, any non-flat tax is also subject to veto by the Ministry of Standads, income taxes are subject to veto by the Ministry of Human Development, sales and property taxes are all subject to veto by the Ministry of Commerce, and customs duties are subject to veto by the Ministry of Extraterritorial Affairs), and to allocate the revenue from such taxes to Sci's various ministries and underminstries (within certain limits set by Sci's Constitution). With the approval of the Ministry of Commerce, Finance also has the power to print money for the government treasury. Finance is thus the primary source of government funding, although some ministries also collect usage taxes which are not under Finance's control.

Overministry of the Interior

The Overministry of the Interior is the largest purely "legislative" branch of the Scien government. It includes: the Ministry of Commerce, which has a budget for the advancement of the economy (spent largely on public infrastructure, for which it can also charge usage fees), has the power to set labeling requirements for consumer good (and to protect trademarks), can make laws against anticompetitive behavior in the marketplace (although this last power is rarely invoked, due to the general laissez-faire beliefs of Sci's government), and is responsible for Sci's compact-by-any-standards criminal code; the Ministry of Health, whose most notable power is the disposition of the remains of any human who dies within Sci's territory; the Ministry of the Environment, which can place usage fees or outright restrictions on the consumption of public resources; and the Ministry of Arts, which promotes artistic endeavors and has the power to make copyright law (and, subject to approval by the Ministry of Standards, to negotiate early release of copyrights into the public domain).

Overministry of the Exterior

The Overministry of the Exterior includes two ministries: Extraterritorial Affairs and Defense. Each has special powers.

The Ministry of Extraterritorial Affairs is responsible for foreign relations. It has the power to treat with foreign powers (although treaties must be approved by the Ministry of Justice and by all individual ministries deemed to be implicated), and also has veto power over any activity any other ministry wants to undertake outside of Sci's territory.

The Ministry of Defense is responsible for Sci's military, such as it is, and has the power to direct military personel (subject to oversight by the Ministry of State, the Ministry of Standards, and the Overminister of the Exterior). (Sci relies mainly on irregular forces, its biological warfare program, and a highly isolationist foreign policy to protect it from conflicts, although it does have a--very small--standing army.) It is notable as the only ministry allowed to operate in secret (the rest of the government is constitutionally required to operate in complete transparency)--although all Ministers (and Overministers) of the government are kept informed of its activities, and any has the power to unilaterally decide to declassify a secret or to expand the number of people allowed access to it, so this power is used only rarely (at least if the rather small size of the Black Budget is any indication). It also has the power to make laws restricting public possession of weapons (however, it cannot control the possession of weapons by employees of the Ministry of State).

Constitution

Sci's constitution contains many important provisions and guarantees.

Sci's government is explicitly of "Limited Powers" and operates (with the exception of the Ministry of Defense) with "Full Transparency": when any ministry takes a government-related action (even simply vetoing an action of another ministry), it must publicize that action and a justification for it out of a very limited menu of possibilities. (Most importantly, the Ministry of Standards must make public the requirements--even test questions and answers--which it uses in appointing government officials. This supposedly helps to ensure fairness.)

Two very broad rights are highlighted for protection: "Freedom of Contract" prevents the government from interfering in private affairs (except for non-intrusive monitoring), subsuming traditional rights to assembly, speech, religious exercise, etc; "Equality Under the Law" prohibits the government from arbitrarily discriminating among residents, or for singling out any individual for special treatment. There are also various other explicit limits to government power, most notably: "Balanced Budget", which prohibits any ministry from borrowing money; and "No Retroactive Legislation", which does what it sounds like it does.

The Constitution can be amended by the Ministry of State, but only with the unanimous approval of all four Overministers, and approval by least half of the Ministers. The Constitution can also be temporarily suspended, in whole or in part, by the Ministry of Defense; this also requires the unanimous approval of all four Overministers, and approval by at least half of the Ministers; the suspension ends as soon as the Minister of Defense, one of the Overministers, or a majority of the Ministers wish it to end.

Church and State

There is no constitutional requirement of Separation of Church and State, and the government has a mixed record which satisfies neither its atheist nor its theist populations. Its relative tolerance of religion has created a safety valve for several of its more strongly atheistic neighbors, but also weakens its foreign relations with them.

The Ministry of Standards has consistently read the Right to Equality Under the Law as prohibiting the denial of government positions to people on the basis of their religious beliefs or affiliations, and, indeed, Sci's current Overminister of the Interior is a practicing Jewish rabbi. However, Standards has still managed to keep the government mostly atheist by requiring that applicants for any high-level government position demonstrate "intelligence", "understanding of the scientific method", "familiarity with modern science and metaphysics", and "prudence".

The Ministry of Justice reads the Right to Freedom of Contract as, in general, allowing adults to voluntarily give up their rights. In a notorious incident, a young Christian woman was once executed in accordance with a marriage contract she had signed which was insoluble and which mandated death by stoning as the punishment for infidelity. The Ministry of Justice charges extremely high prices to stamp insoluble contracts with harsh penalties for non-compliance, but every year still sees several hundred new ones enacted.

The Ministry of Human Development subsidizes a number of sectarian schools, giving them the same funding as secular schools for each student who is demonstrated to have learned material from the (secular) national curriculum. It has been alleged that sectarian schools tend to be superior than competing secular schools within a similar price range (including schools which are free to all pupils), due to their large sources of outside (indeed, generally foreign) funding; the government refuses to do anything about this situation.

The Ministry of Health operates "eupraxotheques", Scien Humanist (see below) community centers featuring guest lecturers (some of whom are religious figures) and psychological counseling (again, frequently including theist counselors); it also rents them out, for rather low fees, to private organizations for "educational or spiritual activities". The Minstries of Standards and of Justice have investigated this situation repeatedly, but have not intervened.

The Ministry of the Arts occasionally funds artwork with religious inspiration, although, having learned a lesson from the public outrage (by both theists and atheists) toward a contest for "best visual portrayal of the monotheistic deity", it usually does not do so explicitly.

However, most of Sci's legal code is hostile to religious viewpoints. The Ministry of Human Development refuses to even consider banning abortion or even infanticide of pre-verbal babies. The Ministry of Health is frequently criticized for priorities ranging from family planning to euthanasia, and also refuses to respect religious wishes with respect to the post-mortem treatment of bodies (barring exceptional circumstances, human corpses are harvested for viable tissue and organs, routinely autopsied, and only then either handed over to the families or cremated).

Political Parties

Political Parties play no official role in the Sci political process. However, they do exist as non-profit organizations. The most popular ones are the Technocratic Socialists, who believe that government members should use the government's resources to pursue whatever they think is socially valuable; the Green Libertarians, who generally favor minimal government intervention in individual lives; and the Democrats, who favor increased democratization, and who collect polling data on public opinions and urge the government to act in accordance with it. Relatively minor parties include the International Greens, the Rational Imperialists, and the Extropians.

About a third of Sci's government employees belong to a political party. The general population, by contrast, tends to be politically apathetic (perhaps due to their complete lack of power); only about 5% have joined a party.

Demographics

• Population: approximately 200 million (2003 census)
• Median age (not including infants): 42 years (males), 44 years (females)
• Life expectancy at age 1: 81 years (males), 85 years (females)

Note: people are not counted, nor given any legal rights--not even a right to life--until they demonstrate minimal communication ability. Information on infant mortality and infanticide rates is not available, although the rates are not believed to be significantly higher than they are in other developed nations, Sci's permissive laws notwithstanding. Indeed, they may actually be lower, since couples who want to adopt a child can, and typically do, offer monetary compensation in exchange for a baby.

Religion

Sci was originally founded as an atheist state. However, it has actively welcomed religious refugees from other countries, and now contains a substantial theist minority. The government has stopped collecting information on citizens' religious affiliations. (There is some speculation that the theist minority has become a majority, and that the government is trying to hide this fact. It is also speculated that the state's shifting religious demographics are responsible for Sci's increasing reduction in political freedoms.)

Despite the lack of official figures, various sources have attempted to estimate the figures; the following is a "best guess" estimate derived from a number of sources:

• Atheist - 50%
  • Scien Humanist (see note) - 20%
  • LaVeyan Satanist - 5%
• Agnostic - 10%
• Monotheist - 30%
  • Jewish - 15%
  • Deist - 5%
  • Christian - 5%
• Polytheist - 10%
  • Wiccan - 5%

Scien Humanism

Sci has a native religious institution (albeit an atheistic one) sometimes called "Scien Humanism" (or simply "Humanism") which receives some official encouragement from the government. It advocates a naturalistic, scientific worldview, and a moral code based on the values of life and freedom; however, it is non-dogmatic, encouraging members to think about its tenets, to learn about those of other worldviews, and to adopt practices from any source that they judge to be beneficial.

Members typically assemble at their local community center ("eupraxotheque") or park once a week for a public lecture followed by a potluck meal and discussion. There are also ritual ceremonies for namings (a ceremony typically performed on infants, celebrating their birth or adoption; it is not a baptism, in that it carries no assumption that the infant will be a Scien Humanist), comings of age, domestic unions (and their sundering), and deaths within the community. There are also four major holidays, one on each solstice and equinox--"Hope Day" in the spring, "Nation Day" in the summer, "Memory Day" in the autumn, and "Peace Day" in the winter--for which the community usually gathers in the morning for communal rituals before proceeding on to specific (and usually more private) holiday activities.

There is some rivalry between the "True Atheists", who abjure rituals of all forms and generally take a negative view toward religion and its impacts on the world, and the Humanists, who take a much more tolerant view. Both sides accuse the other of religiosity: the Atheists see Humanist rituals as forerunners of superstition and mysticism, while the Humanists see Atheist conservativism as the first step toward a blind faith in an arbitrarily-chosen dogma. Sci's ever-increasing population of theists views this split among the atheists with amusement.

Ethnicity and Language

Data on ethnicity are not available. Sci's population was originally of Northern European descent, but almost half of its population are immigrants, children or grandchildren of immigrants, or temporary residents, haling from a wide diversity of cultures.

Sci's primary language is English, which is estimated to be spoken in approximately 75% of households; Yiddish and German are also common, and there are small pockets of Spanish and Mandarin speakers. However, government business is done in an artificial language, "Lenge Scien", which was designed to minimize ambiguity and to be easily machine-translatable into other languages. Lenge Scien is also occasionally used in some sciences, especially computer programming, but has not caught on with the general populace despite government efforts to promote it.

Economy

Sci has a very high income gap: there is no minimum wage, and some people are vastly more highly trained than others (due to the facts that the government subsidizes higher education only to the extent that students show talent, and that unskilled laborers are allowed to immigrate with few restrictions). However, the availability of cheap labor has been tempered by Sci's relatively high nonemployment rate (which is due primarily to the large government subsidies on basic needs, which allow many individual to survive with only part-time labor).

Sci's is a world leader in biotechnology and other high-tech industries.

International Trade and Tourism

Sci is a net exporter of pharmaceuticals, electronics, chemicals, aerospace equipment, and agricultural goods. It is a net importer of manufactured goods, textiles, and fuels. It operates at a hefty trade deficit, but the government does not seem to be alarmed by this.

While not a major tourist destination, Sci does enjoy a steady stream of nature enthusiasts, botanists, and geologists, coming to visit the pristine forests and mountains which it has set aside as wilderness areas. It also receives some "medical tourism" from super-rich individuals who are seeking the best treatments possible for their illnesses.

Energy

Sci is a petroleum importer; what reserves it has are locked beneath federally-protected wilderness areas. However, in the past decade it has been steadily converting to nuclear power, and now derives almost half of its energy from that source.

Electric and hybrid gas-electric vehicles are common, due to government taxes on automobile fumes. Also, most new construction projects incorporate solar paneling, probably because of anticipated rises in energy costs over the next few decades. However, these facts have yet to generate a significant impact on Sci's consumption patterns.

Sci is not party to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. Nevertheless, it is voluntarily attempting to comply with that and several other standards. It hopes to have its greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2012.

Agriculture

Major Scien agricultural products include wheat, soybeans, fruits, and forest products. The government has heavily subsidized research into genetically modified crops, and also encourages private individuals to use food plants--especially fruit trees--in their landscaping.

Desideria, a washed-rind cheese with a relatively tangy flavor familiar to gourmets around the world, comes exclusively from Sci, as do the Blue Sweet apple and various other specialty foods.

Transnational Issues and Disputes

Sci's government is generally isolationist in outlook, and tends to avoid signing international agreements (although it usually makes an effort to conform, at least in appearance, to the letter of U.N. resolutions). This is a constant source of tension with the world's major powers.

Biological Weapons

Sci has refused entry to U.N. weapons inspectors and has occasionally threatened that "dire consequences" would result from any invasion. Given Sci's extremely small conventional military, these threats--and their vagueness--are an important part of its defense system.

Extradition

Sci refuses to sign extradition treaties. Under Scien law, nobody may be sent to trial in a foreign state unless it is first demonstrated that the law he is accused of breaking, as well as the management of his trial and potential punishment, are all consistent with the rights enshrined in the Scien constitution and legal code. The situation is exarcerbated by Sci's extremely porous borders.

Intellectual Property

The Sci government has refused to sign international treaties on intellectual property. Instead, it applies its own standards--which are rather lax relative to those of the U.S. or E.U.--to foreign patents and copyrights. The Ministries of Science and the Arts openly distribute "expired" materials to the populace.

Illicit drugs

Sci is a source of synthetic drugs. It is also a very minor transshipment point for opiates and cocaine. Sci has also been accused of distributing contraceptives and other medical goods through its embassies in countries where they are illegal.