Post by Candlewhisper on Sept 17, 2015 11:45:01 GMT -5
People and culture
Official Language: English
How its citizens are known/referred to (IE, Americans): Archivists
Population (As per NS 17.9.15): 56 million
Economy
Currency: Data
Assessments:
NS Civil Rights: Good
NS Economy: Fair
NS Economy: Few
Government
Capital: Monaster
Government Type: Enlightened Meritocracy, (or Despotism, as others would call it)
Current Chancellor: Nathan Ortega
Legislative Body: The Candle Collegia
Military
Archive Defence Force: 31,220
volunteer standing troops, plus a sizeable draft reserve of fluctuating size, normally 3-4 times that. Note no division between army, military and naval branches, emphasis placed on flexible combined arms warfare.
Archive Memetic Warfare Division: 4,000
Excerpts from the Factbook:
Overview
Initially an island monastery established by Jesuit missionaries, the Candlewhisper Archive was intended as a repository for theological lore, and the preservation of interpretations of Christianity. The genuine desire of these monks was to know the mind of God, and to do so by never rejecting any knowledge or doctrine. That is not to say they embraced every heresy, but rather that they believed that all should be preserved and remembered, and that the truth would eventually be emergent even from a thousand lies.
The religious roots of this settlement are now long gone, and the land is proudly secular, humanist and rationalist. However, a deep and abiding belief in the sanctity of knowledge has remained, with a desire to gather and provide unrestricted access to data and knowledge of all sorts.
Practicality has limited this somewhat, and the nation's currency, the "Datum", is in fact anchored to the nation's government-run data reserves. While there is a Freedom of Information principle enshrined in law, it is also the case that accessing this data has a cost, and the primary tax revenue of the government is in charging currency for access. Anything can be searched and retrieved from the Archive, but very little is available for free.
A good portion of the government's budget is eaten up with the provision, maintenance and backing up of data servers, and this is a point of some controversy amongst the citizens of the nation. Likewise, while education is prioritised, healthcare, welfare and police are relatively underfunded: there's a definite feel here that knowledge matters more than people.
As an evolving nation, things may change, but for now Candlewhisper remains a library-nation, preserving all information for its own sake, and holding as its central tenet the rule that knowledge is all important, and that if something is known, it must be remembered.
Introducing Chancellor Nathan Ortega
Often referred to by his countrymen simply as "the Leader", who is Chancellor Nathan Ortega?
A radical tyrant with an extremist ideology? An educated rationalist and humanist with brave new ideas? Perhaps he is all of these things and more.
As self-proclaimed benevolent dictator of The Protectorate of Candlewhisper Archive the 55 year old foreign-born and college-educated mathematician was first attracted to the then small island city of Candlewhisper when browsing the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its unusual history, being built around a former Jesuit mission and library fascinated him, and Ortega was especially entranced by the idea that the accumulation of all knowledge was a "sacred task".
In his early thirties, using considerable inherited wealth, he moved to Candlewhisper and established a school there. Through a mix of ruthless ambition, political cleverness and dumb luck he positioned himself to become Lord Mayor of the city, and then through hard fought legislation (with hefty bribes) declared the island's independence as a fledgling nation.
His own political leanings and ideologies seem to have been shaped by his early life experiences. In particular, he recalls that in his twenties his deeply (but mysteriously) ill father was being cared for in a private nursing home, but of the medical conditions and causes behind his father's sudden mental and physical disability Ortega knew nothing. Repeated demands to the health service to release medical notes were met by walls of bureaucracy, with national law placing the confidentiality of medical records first, and stating that Nathan Ortega - who had never been named as holding any power of attorney - had no right to see the records.
Eventually his father died, and through legal wrangling Ortega was able to access the records, and trudging through the information there he found that his father's illness had been the result of medical negligence and a botched spinal operation causing cerebral infection. Ortega did his own research, and in the course of doing so became convinced that novel stem cell treatments - available privately of course - could have restored his father to health.
As far as Ortega was concerned, it was the walls of secrecy as much as the incompetent doctors that had killed his father.
His oft quoted statement to the press was "There can be no confidence in a system based around confidentiality. There can be no morality in secrecy."
This statement has proved to be the cornerstone of Candlewhisper's government. In this nation, there is no right to privacy or secrecy, and the collection of data that can be accessed by all is a government priority.
Ortega considers this position to be an ultimately moral one, and has built his belief systems around this. He believes in critical thinking, in rationalism and in progress through knowledge. He believes in truth and lies being equally visible, and for any censorship to be forbidden.
His critics have called his extreme position ultimately flawed, for example in the case of intrusions into privacy and a burgeoning industry of unregulated pornography. Others have noted that his disdain for the concept of state secrets is a strategic weakness, and his failure to respect the secrets of other nations is a diplomatic minefield.
However, his message resonates with the history and culture of Candlewhisper, and so he remains oddly popular. His nation will grow from strength to strength under his leadership, he claims, and all knowledge, all information, all data will be the basic human right of every citizen.
Please come and visit the Candlewhisper factbook at:
www.nationstates.net/nation=candlewhisper_archive/detail=factbook/id=477307
OOC note: Have expunged references to real world from this profile to match rp guidelines. Regardless, please take anything not referencing real world within my factbook as true for my nation on this forum too
Official Language: English
How its citizens are known/referred to (IE, Americans): Archivists
Population (As per NS 17.9.15): 56 million
Economy
Currency: Data
Assessments:
NS Civil Rights: Good
NS Economy: Fair
NS Economy: Few
Government
Capital: Monaster
Government Type: Enlightened Meritocracy, (or Despotism, as others would call it)
Current Chancellor: Nathan Ortega
Legislative Body: The Candle Collegia
Military
Archive Defence Force: 31,220
volunteer standing troops, plus a sizeable draft reserve of fluctuating size, normally 3-4 times that. Note no division between army, military and naval branches, emphasis placed on flexible combined arms warfare.
Archive Memetic Warfare Division: 4,000
Excerpts from the Factbook:
Overview
Initially an island monastery established by Jesuit missionaries, the Candlewhisper Archive was intended as a repository for theological lore, and the preservation of interpretations of Christianity. The genuine desire of these monks was to know the mind of God, and to do so by never rejecting any knowledge or doctrine. That is not to say they embraced every heresy, but rather that they believed that all should be preserved and remembered, and that the truth would eventually be emergent even from a thousand lies.
The religious roots of this settlement are now long gone, and the land is proudly secular, humanist and rationalist. However, a deep and abiding belief in the sanctity of knowledge has remained, with a desire to gather and provide unrestricted access to data and knowledge of all sorts.
Practicality has limited this somewhat, and the nation's currency, the "Datum", is in fact anchored to the nation's government-run data reserves. While there is a Freedom of Information principle enshrined in law, it is also the case that accessing this data has a cost, and the primary tax revenue of the government is in charging currency for access. Anything can be searched and retrieved from the Archive, but very little is available for free.
A good portion of the government's budget is eaten up with the provision, maintenance and backing up of data servers, and this is a point of some controversy amongst the citizens of the nation. Likewise, while education is prioritised, healthcare, welfare and police are relatively underfunded: there's a definite feel here that knowledge matters more than people.
As an evolving nation, things may change, but for now Candlewhisper remains a library-nation, preserving all information for its own sake, and holding as its central tenet the rule that knowledge is all important, and that if something is known, it must be remembered.
Introducing Chancellor Nathan Ortega
Often referred to by his countrymen simply as "the Leader", who is Chancellor Nathan Ortega?
A radical tyrant with an extremist ideology? An educated rationalist and humanist with brave new ideas? Perhaps he is all of these things and more.
As self-proclaimed benevolent dictator of The Protectorate of Candlewhisper Archive the 55 year old foreign-born and college-educated mathematician was first attracted to the then small island city of Candlewhisper when browsing the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its unusual history, being built around a former Jesuit mission and library fascinated him, and Ortega was especially entranced by the idea that the accumulation of all knowledge was a "sacred task".
In his early thirties, using considerable inherited wealth, he moved to Candlewhisper and established a school there. Through a mix of ruthless ambition, political cleverness and dumb luck he positioned himself to become Lord Mayor of the city, and then through hard fought legislation (with hefty bribes) declared the island's independence as a fledgling nation.
His own political leanings and ideologies seem to have been shaped by his early life experiences. In particular, he recalls that in his twenties his deeply (but mysteriously) ill father was being cared for in a private nursing home, but of the medical conditions and causes behind his father's sudden mental and physical disability Ortega knew nothing. Repeated demands to the health service to release medical notes were met by walls of bureaucracy, with national law placing the confidentiality of medical records first, and stating that Nathan Ortega - who had never been named as holding any power of attorney - had no right to see the records.
Eventually his father died, and through legal wrangling Ortega was able to access the records, and trudging through the information there he found that his father's illness had been the result of medical negligence and a botched spinal operation causing cerebral infection. Ortega did his own research, and in the course of doing so became convinced that novel stem cell treatments - available privately of course - could have restored his father to health.
As far as Ortega was concerned, it was the walls of secrecy as much as the incompetent doctors that had killed his father.
His oft quoted statement to the press was "There can be no confidence in a system based around confidentiality. There can be no morality in secrecy."
This statement has proved to be the cornerstone of Candlewhisper's government. In this nation, there is no right to privacy or secrecy, and the collection of data that can be accessed by all is a government priority.
Ortega considers this position to be an ultimately moral one, and has built his belief systems around this. He believes in critical thinking, in rationalism and in progress through knowledge. He believes in truth and lies being equally visible, and for any censorship to be forbidden.
His critics have called his extreme position ultimately flawed, for example in the case of intrusions into privacy and a burgeoning industry of unregulated pornography. Others have noted that his disdain for the concept of state secrets is a strategic weakness, and his failure to respect the secrets of other nations is a diplomatic minefield.
However, his message resonates with the history and culture of Candlewhisper, and so he remains oddly popular. His nation will grow from strength to strength under his leadership, he claims, and all knowledge, all information, all data will be the basic human right of every citizen.
Please come and visit the Candlewhisper factbook at:
www.nationstates.net/nation=candlewhisper_archive/detail=factbook/id=477307
OOC note: Have expunged references to real world from this profile to match rp guidelines. Regardless, please take anything not referencing real world within my factbook as true for my nation on this forum too