Santosbourg

From Scandia

Santosbourg Technate

Flags of Scandia
Parent	Haromszek ( CHzS )
Founding Date	November 7, 1329
Government  • Type  • Director-General	Technocracy Dr-Engr Jacques Franget
Adjective	Santosbourger
Capital	Oroshtozer
Administrative Divisions	districts (14)
Largest City	Oroshtozer (1.2 million)
Area  • Total  • % water	40,861 km² (15,776 sq mi) 3.5%
Population  • Total  • Growth Rate  • Density  • Rank in CHzS	5,591,000 1.24/1000 121/km² (314/sq mi) 15 / 25
GDP  • Total  • GDP/capita  • Growth Rate  • Rank in CHzS	HzSk 154,511,196,000 HzSk 31,227 +.34% 7 / 25
Time Zones	HCT (SMT -10)
Technology Codes  • scandianet TLD  • Trigraph  • Calling Code	.sb, .hz SBT ++77

Santosbourg 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

Santosbourg has been a political entity of some kind since the Kingdom of Santos Emilios in the 1100s. It has always been centered on the modern cities of Oroshtozer and Gnoblet, or the adjacent vanished city of Knaptery Vin. Its exact boundaries have varied from three times its current size, to a bit less than now.

Santosbourg Historical Development

Government

Santosbourg's success as a technocracy stems partly from its democratic elements. Persons in leadership are chosen by those few deemed qualified to assess abilities. But unlike autocratic technocracies (such as neighboring Quiestrix ), major selections like the Director-General are submitted to a referendum of the citizenry at large. Santosbourger technocratic doctrine asserts that consent of the governed is still an important requirement for an effective leader. This is no party-politics vote but a straight "is this person acceptable in this position?" question.

Santosbourg hosts the home offices of the Ris language republic.

Economy

The Technate took an early lead in the movement toward clean environment and safe workplace. It turns out that those are not only the causes of radicals, but also of scientific businessmen. Better surroundings improve production. And after all, a technocracy is not so much a matter of machines over society, as of a society that works like a machine - efficient, smooth, useful, productive. Director-General Nacy Ruger in the 1460's had to close down some enterprises that could not compete if they cleaned up their coal-powered acts. Other systems prospered under an environmental clean-up -- Santosbourg-owned railways then and now stretch far beyond the Technate's borders. And the modern coal-fired locomotives that run those trains likely are built in Oroshtozer's twin General Railfab plants. GRFZ reburner, superheating, and condensing technologies are licensed to other rail equipment builders Scandiawide -- the mid-1400's saw a growing export market for Santosbourger transport products. Not a single shipyard graces the Santosbourger Jakobrieka banks, but Gnoblet and Dinsovar-produced marine turbines (once, marine diesels) go to shipbuilders across Niveria.

Geography

The Technate is dominated by the valley of the Jakobrieka, middlemost of the three main Haromszeki rivers, and by the belt of hills separating it from the Villemrieka valley to the south. The Szidvarset Canal connects the two river systems, passing through a gap in those hills. Scattered patches of those Kopkov Hills retain wild forest, many more hectares are planted in managed woodlots. Mining areas of those hills bear scars of centuries of use, most with less care for the environment than nowadays. The middle and north of the Technate have predominately small, family-owned farms, while the southern Villemrieka valley section has broad-spread corporate agriculture.

Military and Police

The original setup of Technate governance assumed that scientific management of society would make police unnecessary, since there would be no crime. Perhaps the only function would be to direct traffic... This was, as the Ris say, a flaming crock of onions. The theft of the first Director-General's official car during his fourth week in office presaged a distressingly normal amount of criminal activity. Nevertheless, the body of enforcement personnel is still named the Traffic Direction Corps. If their crimefighting tools are better than average, so are those of the crooks.

The Santosbourger military has no such confusion. It is, simply, the Technate Army. The local attitude far predating the Technate is that the surest way to need an army is to not have a strong one. The immediately neighboring States have not met in battle for almost 200 years. That fortunate condition is ensured by a small standing volunteer force augmented with part-time district militias.

The ground forces are divided into individual regiment-size commands, each outfitted for specific missions but cross-trained for alternate jobs. The air contingent is dispersed evenly across the Technate in air wings of thirty to fifty craft. That Army Air Command participates in the CHzS-wide Air Recon and Rescue service, gaining valuable operational experience, albeit not in combat. Where the aircraft are appropriately sized, they follow the common practice of pilots and crews individually maintaining their planes. The Beliat Dosznyoy Spolecnost microjets that are the force's standard fighters are true one-man vehicles -- a pilot can easily handle routine maintenance, and over half of them are housed in garage-hangers near community airstrips.