Ubep

Ubep

Flag of Ubep
Motto: Submit
[1]
Region	Woe Unto Us
Capital	Num-Poki
Official Language(s)	Ubu
Leader	Gogit Omonia
Population	11 million
Currency	Tark
NS Sunset XML

The Most Serene Republic of Ubep lies in its glorious fecundity on the oil-caressed shores of the Caspian Sea, or, by the reckoning of certain Janerosian cartographers, the shores of "Lake Constantine" and "Lake Tiberius." The Ubu currency is the tark and the official language is Ubu.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent government stops and the rest of society begins, but it devotes most of its attentions to Law & Order, with areas such as Social Welfare and Religion & Spirituality receiving almost no funds by comparison. The average income tax rate is 57%, and even higher for the wealthy. A healthy private sector is led by the Arms Manufacturing industry, followed by Uranium Mining and Basket Weaving.

Toad populations thrive as dogs are slaughtered in their millions, archaeological discoveries are often followed by mysterious hamster abductions, all marriages are arranged by the government, army rations are served on silver platters, birds and children's kites are regularly brought down by anti-aircraft fire, and all beauty contests have been banned. Phone taps are frequently carried out by the police, citizens rise at daybreak every day for mandatory exercise, the country is preparing for war, and foreigners are treated with great suspicion. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is well under control, thanks to the all-pervasive police force. Ubep's national animal is the toad, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the tark.

Location

Membership in the region of Woe Unto Us has brought Ubep into alliance with the sprawling imperial power New Pandemonia, the smaller, neurotic Janerosis, and the perpetual nuisance of Vengeful Clowns.

Since Ubep is located both on the Caspian Sea on Earth and in an area of Woe Unto Us, it has been conjectured that the Ubu people live in extra dimensions. The exact nature of this metaphysical difficulty is considered a state secret by the government, and though it is allegedly common folk knowledge among the people, they refuse to divulge any information, holding their hands over their mouths and making the "devil's horns" gesture.

We may conjecture, however, that there is very little difference between the two worlds in the average Ubiak's mind. There is the vast, frigid Northern empire of Pandemonia/Russia, the extravagant and business-minded southern area of Janerosis/the Gulf States; the distant interloping annoyance of Vengeful Clowns/America; and the dimly-known, far-off Utopian entity of Lumoria/Europe. Historically, fighting with bands of Indo-Aryans and Arabs and Russians was much like fighting with the Piwahrians and Janerosians and Pandemonians; one history blends into another, forming only one; one time; one place; one people.

History

Early Piwahrian texts indicate that ancient Ubiaks were frequently rounded up and empressed into slavery. Ubu legend refers only to a "horde of foreign interlopers who oppressed the True People, ate nothing but copious amounts of goat, and spat out their own teeth when they rotted away." Current ideology has tended to equate these people with the interloping forces of the Russian Empire/Soviet Union/Russian Federation.

Contact with such people indicates a migration from much further south. The most obvious route into present-day Ubep would have taken the tribe through Sisorena ca. 1000 BC; Ubu legends do, indeed, speak of being driven out of the Hakmun ("Southern Land") by a very brutish people. Sisorenan accounts perhaps confirm this in a few cryptic passages.

Veneration of ancient chieftaness Lady Ka has been developed into a kind of Nationalist cult since the early 20th century at least; more recently it has been tied in with the People's Dialectic Cult of Succession of Prominent Ubu Females and the Cult of the Two Nargas.

The Ubu people are noted for driving the Mongols away in 1322 with, according to legend, their body odor. In 1957, after several decades of Nationalist agitation, the Soviet Union let the Ubu SSR secede. A struggle in the following years centered on breaking all ties with the Soviet Union, though Krushchev expressed some measure of relief to have Ubep off his hands.

Dr. Puat Hokz.un (1888-1968) and Dr. Narga Tam-Bôtxal (1896-1962) are remembered as heroes of the 1961 "Revolution."

Hokz.un's death in 1968 threatened to put the country back on friendly terms with the Soviets. The Ubu Communist Party cell in Num-Poki, led by former campus radicals Gogit Omonia (1937-) and Narga Txorkulag (1938-), engineered the assassination of the moderate who had been appointed as the new Prime Minister (No Kapurgol, 1920-1968), though his associates drove the Omonia/Txorkulag cadre into the foothills along with their "Grey Guards."

The tide of the Civil War turned when the citizens of the major cities revolted in 1971 due to boredom. From 1972 Omonia has been President-for-Life.

The Mid 2000's ushered in a period of chaos. A split vote within the council on a UN resoultion led to the declaration of a ceremonial Civil War; New Pandemonia and Janerosis, sitting menacingly on Ubep's borders, willingly sent troops in as a sort of sacrifice; Janerosis was declared the winner and several endorsements were awarded in the aftermath; these were removed in the wake of the Ubu-Clown-Janerosian War and the subsequent Great International War of "Pwnage" (internazional punaz.egankter)--ostensibly an "emergency provision" to restore stability to the region.

Soon after, Ubep became the regional UN delegate, but held the post only for a few months.

In 2006, guerrillas representing the ethnic minority of Aipatxians, headed by Hurč Dlatkn, seized all towns in their corner of Arbolgek Province, declaring the independence of the People's Republic of Aipatxia.

The Ubu People

Physically the average Ubiak man is of medium height, stocky, dark-haired, and with features suggesting Slavic and Asian descendence. Ubiaks are known for their hard-edged and brusque demeanor, their love of jam (introduced by the English in the mid-19th century), and their propensity for violent poetry.

Culture

The standards of "High Culture" are largely dictated by the government, trying to draw on the lively elements of traditional culture, combined with a hyperbolic enthusiasm for propaganda, and veneration of patriotic bloodshed.

Traditional art has a distinct style cultivated over centuries. Small, strange miniatures of people are drawn in rows creeping across the walls; the figure-eights of the eyes stare out blankly at the viewer; the mouth a thin, expressionless blade; mystical symbols bloom from their bodies and over their heads. Native Ubiaks are depicted without nostrils; foreigners always have them.

Ubu music has been described as oddly arrhythmic.

Religion

Though a Christian nation since medieval times, Ubu has retained a surprising amount of ancient paganism. Much of the old mythology has undoubtedly been lost in the muck of history, but versions of the invaluable Secret History of the Ubiaks are consistent in presenting a creation myth, a description of the principal gods, several legends centered on heroes such as Lady Ka, a basis for the tradition of shamanism, and often an assessment of more recent history and Christianization from a native standpoint.

The Christians arrived in several waves in the first millennium AD; there are records of various sects such as the Nestorians attempting to establish a foothold in the country, but they were killed or driven out. Wandering Manichaeans, Mandeans, Zoroastrians and Jews were taken to be representatives of the same religion and were treated much the same. The Christians were finally allowed in beginning ca. AD 1000. This was soon after justified as fulfilling an old covenant between Jesus and Lady Ka.

Religious practice in Ubep was confused and varied between regions for centuries due to the mixed influences of traditional paganism, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Nestorian movement, Sunni Islam, and the Assyrian Church of the East. The creation of a unified Ubu Orthodox Church in 1865 by the Russians did little to help the confusion, as did the suppression of religion under Soviet rule. Puat Hokz.un, following the 1961 Revolution, decided to confront the problem head-on by standardizing all Church doctrine and practices and appointing his nephew as the Patriarch of Num-Poki.

Cuisine

An Ubu meal might consist of a couple rounds of bagbag (toast) spread thick with gun-bolp (elderberry jam) and then some tukturgi (horse cheese) and a txaktamuk (blood pudding) covered with raw egg.