Plochytc

From Scandia

Republic of Plochytc

Flags of Scandia
Parent	Haromszek ( CHzS )
Founding Date	3 October 1465
Government  • Type  • President & Overseer	Grainger Republic Jan Krejci
Adjective	Locci
Capital	Santos Grygoros
Administrative Divisions	counties (23)
Largest City	Santos Grygoros (765,000)
Area  • Total  • % water	km² ( sq mi) %
Population  • Total  • Growth Rate  • Density  • Rank in CHzS	6,650,400 0.36/1000 /km² (/sq mi) 7 / 25
GDP  • Total  • GDP/capita  • Growth Rate  • Rank in CHzS	HzSk HzSk + .06% / 25
Time Zones	WNT (SMT -9)
Technology Codes  • scandianet TLD  • Trigraph  • Calling Code	.rp; .hz PLY +77

Plochytc is one of the twenty-five constituent territorial republics of the Confederation of Haromszeki States.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Government 3 Economy 4 Geography 5 Military and Police

Origins

The Republic of Plochytc dates to 1465 as a single unit. Parts of its territory have been portions of fifteen or more prior political entities, none quite the same extent as today's Republic. The contentious dissolution of the Federation of Lucco Hovy in 1461 directly led to the creation of Plochytc, mostly from the Duchy of Hajel, the eastern end of the shaky Grand Duchy of Eschelt, and nine north-of-Jakobrieka Obilnicean counties. There was a short-lived petty Principality of Plochytc in the 1100's, centered around today's Vittorie', and since then there have been various districts, counties, and regions with some permutation of the name. "Plochy" means roughly "flat" or "planar" in several Hz languages, which is a fair description of much of the agricultural republic.

Hajel's titular duke in 1465, Stefanis Brozek, is generally credited with fathering the present Republic. His goal was to form a considerably larger nation, and he remained depressed over his supposed failure until his 1469 death.

Government

A grainger republic has most of the forms of a typical parliamentary democracy. Executive officers exercise a stewardship role over the land, hence there is no separate Ministry of Agriculture or of the Environment. Executive-branch workers are termed deputies, whatever their level in the hierarchy. Plochytc is a unitary state, with Counties being merely administrative subdivisions. Prior to 1484, Counties were in theory sovereign, and the government had more of a federated character. Decades of conflict and deadlock between Counties and the national governement were settled in a referendum, wherein the Plochytc constitution was rewritten. Law enforcement and the military are both executive-branch functions. Executive office elections are held each seven years, nationwide, at all levels.

Members of the Grange, the legislative body, are chosen from landowners in an electoral district. Large agricultural companies grouped together choose five delegates from their ranks - a minor portion of the 76-delegate Grange. Trade organizations, transport guilds, and educators each also choose a pair of delegates at large. In a departure from parliamentary norm, voters select delegates as individuals, not as representatives of a political party. Party affiliation everywhere but the crowded southern fringe is fluid, with no adverse consequences for a switch. In the south, along the River District border and in Santos Grygoros, party membership is practically for life - by custom, if not by law. The President & Overseer does not act as chairman of the Grange - that is the Master's job - the P&O's second-in-command. Legislative elections are held nationwide every two years, at all levels whereas terms are four years - half the districts are open at a time. Counties have rudimentary Granges of their own; few matters are county-only.

A separate judicial branch completes the triad of powers. Judges at the national level certify elections - by whim if the judge is willing to risk impeachment or failing his next election. All offices are open to men and women both. Far more judges are women than either Grange Delegates or Presidential deputies. No woman has yet attained the office of President & Overseer, though several have stood for the office.

Economy

Agriculture dominates Plochytc's economy, but not entirely. The populous southern fringe of the nation has a wealth of manufacturing and service jobs, in support of the belt of industry and commerce along the Jakobreika, in the River District proper. Santos Grygoros is kept from having an industrial focus by the thousands of agricultural comapnies headquartered there. The northern city of Hajel is the financial center of Plochytc - even large banks in the capital tend to be headquartered in Hajel.

Smaller industries dot the north of the nation. Mining is typically a small enterprise, though the Jostef coalfields are dominated by three mining firms. Forest products go to serve national needs with a bit left over to export. Producers of foodstuffs and non-food agricultural products (flax, cotton, fuel ethanol, dyes) are typically family operations.

River traffic carries a large part of the nation's exports, but internal transport is largely by road and rail. No large airlines are based in Plochytc, but small operations of ten or fewer routes abound. The flat terrain allows for widespread airfields - countering that is the seasonal difficulty of storms. Even small airstrips may have sturdy tiedowns for large planes, since flights may neeed to take shelter on short notice. A network of canals does crisscross the nation, but the small vessel size and convoluted routing limit carriage to bulk materials, and nonperishables at that.

Plochytc has a lively radio market, reasonably free of government or corporate coercion. Print and television broadcasters are not so free; the national government licenses those media outlets, and exercises some editorial control. Censors are clearly so-named, not hidden under deceptive titles -- the populace seems to truly want restraint in its news and entertainment. Perhaps the granger character of the society is more conservative than say, the free-wheeling and notoriously licentious River District press. Santos Grygoros has the only real yellow journalism outlet in the Republic.

Geography

Plochytc is flattest in the Jurajreika and Jakobreika bottomlands, and in the plains region centered on Bois d'Barroux. Other terrain is rolling, with a few actual hills between Yomhany and Frincep Dul. There is of course The Escarpment, the northern edge of the Jakobreika valley. That hundred to two-hundred meter rise from the river bottom flats to Plochytc's central plain lies within the nation from about Santos Grygoros westward. East of Santos Grygoros, the rim of these bluffs and outcrops forms the border with the River District.

Those Jakobreika-bottom counties, and those along the Escarpment rim to the east bear the overflow of the River District's dense population. Still, more of that minor Plochytc strip is farmed than nearby seemingly-similar stretches of the River District. The character of the Plochytc people, of whatever ethnic or language republic, seems to lean to agriculture. Szeglocsvarnoszlo has its own hinterland to partly feed its million-plus inhabitants. But St-Lucien is utterly dependent on Plochytc to feed even its smaller population.

The Jurajreika valley is less pronounced within Plochytc, save for some few-dozen-meter bluffs along the Juraj-tributary Maakoreika, near Vittorie'. The drops there were enough to power mills before the advent of steam and electric motors, granting Vittorie' a still-existing edge in the milling and processing of central-Plochytc's produce. Yomhany is on an even more minor Juraj tributary, the Stree. That whole northern portion of Plochytc is flat enough that Yomhany and the Stree share the Jurajreika's floods, for many kilometers upriver.

The Danjojhe Hills southeast of Vittorie' are "overrun" with holiday seekers from Logszemsce, so say the locals. But the Plochytc government overall welcomes that flow of people and money. Those same hills just over into Hrebenisc do not have near the tourist traffic; the roads are just a bit rougher, and infrastructure a bit further away. Plochytc "wilderness" is carefully tended and milked for maximum economic effect. It is said that the rest of Plochytc grows grain, in the Danjojhes they grow Skana.

Military and Police

Law enforcement is organized on a county basis - only the four largest cities have their own Police. Elsewhere, the "civil deputies" constitute a mostly-professional force able to mostly-fairly enforce the laws. Some counties though have always had looser standards, and the civil deputies there may be most uncivil. Do not get caught speeding on the highways between Yomhany and Hajel. Police vehicles in Plochytc follow the general Haromszeki norm of black-and-white coloration. Exceptions are the forces of the two counties between Yomhany and the Jurajreika. The notorious fogs there call for all emergency vehicls to be high-visibility orange or yellow.

As befits a landlocked nation that has had peaceful borders for a century, Plochytc has a minor military. There is a full-time officer and logistics corps, and the bulk of the troops are militia, subject to callup when needed. That need has been strictly natural disasters and international exercises for many decades. Plochytc, like Szombartathy to the west, still has a horse-mounted cavalry. Its exercises are both training and sport, with cross-country movements being televised nationwide. Plochytc's component of the trans-Haromszek Air Recon and Rescue corps holds exercises mostly with Obilnicean and Hrebenisci ARR units. Opposing forces in any competitive exercise tend to be Santosbourger or Stary Vevodstvian - those nations' ARR arms are viewed as having usefully divergent combat doctrines and capabilities. "Why train to fight yourself?" is a constant refrain in the Military Institute in Santos Grygoros. The ARR in Plochytc has few lighter-than-air vessels of its own - when such equipment is called for, it is leased from neighboring Republics. Plochytc's legendary storms make storage of dirigible aircraft problematic.