The Federal Kingdom of Lower Columbia

[Lower Columbia]

Content in this thread has been adapted from my wiki pages, and was originally designed for another roleplay group entirely. If you want to learn more about Lower Columbia and its original roleplay environment, feel free to browse its wiki pages; articles on more specific topics can be accessed through the main page.

Federal Kingdom of Lower Columbia
Royaume Fédérale de la Basse-Colombie
Förbunds-Konungariket Nedre Columbia




Location of Lower Columbia

Basic facts

Motto: Omnia in modo, fide excepta
(Latin: All things in moderation, except for faith)

Capital: Kendall
Largest city: Nyhaven

Official language: English
Recognized national languages: English, French, Swedish

Form of government: Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Head of state: King Zachary
Heads of government: Lady of the Council Sylvia Lundqvist, CS; Lord of the Assembly Jeremy Weatherstone, FA

Legislature: Parliament (Parlement, Riksdag)
Upper house: Council of States
Lower house: Federal Assembly

Formative events
Monarchy founded: 22 August 1712
Constitution ratified: 4 February 1715
First Parliament elected: 1 October 1715

Total area: 1,548,153 km² (297,745 sq mi)
1.6% water

Population
2015 Q2 estimate: 53,448,312
2015 census: 53,555,022

GDP (PPP) as of 2013
Total: US$ 2.49 trillion
Per capita: US$47,299

HDI (as of 2013): 0.914

Currency: Crown (couronne, krona)

Time zones: UTC-9 to -7 standard time, UTC-8 to -6 DST

Drives on the: right

The Federal Kingdom of Lower Columbia is a federal constitutional monarchy composed of 16 semi-autonomous states. The nation is located in western North America, along the Pacific coast. Its neighbors are the United States of America to the southeast; Canada to the northeast; the United Kingdom of Kingston and Boyce to the northwest, across the Alouette Channel; and the United Republic of Escambia to the southwest, across the Strait of Duwamish.

While indigenous peoples have inhabited the territory that now comprises Lower Columbia for thousands of years, most of the kingdom's population is of European or Asian ancestry, the descendants of thousands of settlers seeking religious freedom. Today's Lower Columbians, as descendants of those settlers, are among the most devout citizens of any XKI nation. They have built a deeply devout nation dedicated to God and free market economics, and have become one of the wealthiest but most philanthropically-minded populations in the region.

[Lower Columbia]

Geography

The heartland of Lower Columbia lies along the lower portion of the Columbia River, from the eastern end of the river's famous gorge west to the Pacific Ocean. The country also includes all of North America west of the Continental Divide between 42°N and 54°40'N, as well as the Saint Catherine Islands and part of the Canadian prairies. Lower Columbia's highest point is the summit of Mount Rainier, 14,411 feet (4,392 m) above sea level; its lowest point is the Pacific coastline. The nation of Kingston and Boyce lies across the Alouette Channel from the kingdom; less than 20 miles separates the two countries at the channel's narrowest point. Escambia is a similar distance from the Lower Columbian mainland, though further south, and across the Strait of Duwamish.

Climatic conditions vary depending on what part of the country one is in. West of the Cascades, it is mostly a temperate rain-forest, with high annual rainfall, thick vegetation, warm summers and cool winters. Snow rarely falls in the cities in this region, owing to their low elevations. Further east, conditions more closely resemble a steppe climate, with lower annual rainfall and a wider range of temperatures. Unlike the west of the country, cities in these regions often receive snowfall in the winter; compare the two satellite photos below to see the seasonal differences between different parts of the kingdom.

The most common natural hazards in Lower Columbia are volcanic eruptions; in addition to the many potentially active volcanos of the Cascade Range, the Yellowstone supervolcano straddles Lower Columbia's border with the United States. Forest fires and flooding are also common hazards. Less common are earthquakes, severe storms and tsunamis (although a major earthquake and tsunami struck the coast in 1700, shortly before the country was formed).

[Lower Columbia]

Government

Political map of Lower Columbia showing the states and their capitals, as well as the federal capital

Organization

Lower Columbia uses a federal system of government, with sixteen semi-autonomous states united under a national government. At all levels, there are three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. This structure is codified in the national constitution.

Federal government

The head of state in Lower Columbia is the king. His main duties are to execute the laws of the kingdom, to negotiate treaties with foreign nations, and to appoint national officers. He also has the power to either grant royal assent to bills, thus making them laws, or veto them by withholding assent. In addition, the king serves as Lower Columbia's main representative abroad. The position is hereditary and for life; however, Parliament can vote to exile the king and elect a new one if they feel it necessary for the benefit of the country. Both houses of Parliament must vote with a 2/3 majority in order to exile the king; if he is exiled, a new king is elected from among the members of the Council of States. The royal family receives its income from a special tax, which has resulted in the accumulation of a large royal fortune. The king does not belong to any political party, although several past kings have been known to favor one party over the others. To date, there have been 14 kings, with King Zachary being the 14th. He was crowned in 1985.

Parliament is the national, bicameral legislative body. The two houses of Parliament are the Federal Assembly, which is the lower house, and the Council of States, the upper house. Assemblymen are directly elected by citizens over the age of 21 who participate in the quadrennial elections; states are allotted a number of assemblymen in proportion to their population. Each assemblyman represents approximately 100,000 citizens under current law. State governments each appoint seven councilors to serve on the Council of States when they come to power after elections. Parliament is led by the two Lords of Parliament, one over each house. While the Lords of Parliament are appointed by the king, in practice they are always the leaders of the ruling parties of each house.

Members of both houses are limited to a maximum of five terms total, though they need not be consecutive. They each can belong to one of the country's political parties, or they can choose to be independent. Parliament can override a royal veto with a 2/3 majority vote in both houses. There are currently 512 assemblymen and 112 councilors; there are thus 624 total members of Parliament, and the Libertarians are the Government. A political party must have a simple majority of parliamentary seats in each house to claim a mandate to govern; otherwise, the two parties with the most seats must form a coalition. Single-party mandates and coalitions have been equally common in recent decades, but mandates were more common before the current three leading parties formed.

The supreme judicial authority in the kingdom is the Federal High Court. It is composed of nine justices, including the chief justice. Its main role is to review the laws of the nation and ensure their compatibility with the constitution.

State governments

Like the federal government, each state has an executive (its premier), a legislative body (the state assemblies), and a supreme court. Each state also has a viceroy, whom the king appoints as his representative after each election, and who rarely wield the reserve executive powers they hold. The Constitution of Lower Columbia guarantees each state a republican form of government. However, Saint Catherine is legally a principality for historical reasons, although the Prince of St. Catherine (who is usually the Crown Prince of the kingdom) has only reserve powers and delegates everyday executive powers to the state's elected premier. Premiers and assemblymen are both elected to terms whose lengths vary by state. States are allowed a great deal of freedom in their self-governing abilities, with state assemblies making laws to regulate many areas of everyday life. However, all state laws must not contradict the constitutions of the nation, or of the state where they are enacted; if any party brings a case against the constitutionality of a law, that case may be decided by the Federal High Court if the losing party appeals the verdict given by the state supreme court.

Political parties

Lower Columbian voters and members of Parliament can either be independent or belong to one of seven political parties. Three of these parties enjoy widespread support among voters, two others have small but substantial contingents in Parliament, while the other two generally do not get enough votes to have more than a handful of members of Parliament elected. Despite their names, all major parties are rather conservative; their political stances are described elsewhere. In addition, each party is traditionally associated with a color, which serves as its nickname in everyday speech. Finally, each party enjoys the most support in certain regions of the kingdom.

Current politics in Lower Columbia is dominated by a three-party system; the dominant parties are the Conservative Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Progressive Party. These three parties have shared control of Parliament since 1935, whether by themselves or in coalitions with one another, and two of their leaders have been the Lords of Parliament since 1887.

Conservative Party

The Conservative Party, associated with light blue, has held parliamentary power the most in Lower Columbia's history. They have had nine constitutional mandates and been part of 13 coalition governments, mostly with the Libertarians. Their stronghold and common affiliations are with the national heartland and Puget Sound.

The Conservatives are most often identified as war-hawks, since they have historically supported territorial expansion and increased defense spending. They are also the most pro-business of the major parties, favoring free-market economic policies and as few regulations as possible. In addition, the Conservatives favor small government and fiscal responsibility, which together have resulted in Lower Columbia having a very small national debt. True to their name, their social policies are very conservative, with a heavy focus on patriotism as the motivating factor for continuing the compulsory military service program, tough restrictions on immigration and encouraging new immigrants to both acculturate quickly to the nation and seek to become citizens. The Conservatives also strongly support freedom of speech and gun ownership rights while opposing the establishment of a welfare state, legalization of abortion and recreational drugs, and disestablishment of Christianity as the government religion. Nationwide, about 28% of voters support the Conservative Party.

Libertarian Party

After the Conservatives, the Libertarians have had a mandate to govern most often, having had four mandates and been in 11 coalition governments. They are frequently identified with the interior and the south. They are known as the Yellow Party. Like the Conservatives, the Libertarians favor minimal government control over the economy and maintaining a strong military. Where they are most different, however, is in their social policies; their support for lower restrictions on immigration has made them more popular over the past 20 years. Furthermore, they support most of the social policies that the Conservatives oppose, in addition to maintaining the lack of government control over marriage and broader freedom of expression. Approximately 41% of the electorate supports the Libertarian Party.

Progressive Party

The red Progressives are the least popular party in Lower Columbia, as the few times they have been in power have generally resulted in economic downturns. They have only had three mandates since organizing over 120 years ago, and they have been part of eight ruling coalitions. They are most popular in the eastern regions and Vancouver. Much of their unpopularity is due to their support for stronger government controls over the economy and other anti-business policies, which together have been attributed with many of the country's financial slumps and recessions. While their support for the continued recognition of Christianity as the federal government's religion and for most of the same social policies as the Libertarians has at times helped and hurt their popularity, their calls for stricter environmental regulations and reduced military spending have generated the most controversy. The Progressive Party enjoys the support of roughly 19% of voters nationwide.

Minor parties

The remaining 12% of voters are split between independents (who make up three percent of the electorate) and four parties that, collectively, have only rarely held more than 50 seats in Parliament. Those parties are: the Green Party, whose environmental radicalism is widely scorned; the Workers' Party, made up mostly of democratic socialists; the Republican Party, which demands an end to the monarchy; and the Columbia First Party, which is highly isolationistic and seeks to establish a state church with compulsory membership for all citizens. Those parties' colors are green, pink, orange and dark blue, respectively.

National ministries

The national government is also divided into several ministries or departments, each of which focuses on a particular aspect of governance. Their ministers, along with the Lords of Parliament, form the king's Cabinet, with which he meets frequently. The king appoints ministers after each general election from the members of Parliament; the positions therefore usually change hands after each election.

[Lower Columbia]

History part 1: Early history, 1560-1715

Pre-contact

The Pacific Northwest has been occupied by a diverse array of Indigenous American peoples for millennia, beginning with Paleo-Native Americans who explored and colonized the area roughly 15,000 years before Europeans arrived. With a history of human occupation spanning many millennia, and the incredible richness of Pacific Northwest fisheries (salmon, etc.), it is not surprising that the tribes who occupied the area historically were some of the most complex hunter-gatherer-fishers in history. They lived in large villages or towns, built plank houses and large canoes, and had sophisticated artistic and technological traditions. They were notable for being one of the few cultures to develop sedentary villages without practicing agriculture. In the former states of Gudland and in Southeast Alaska, for instance, maritime tribes like the Tlingit and Haida erected the large and elaborately carved totem poles that are iconic of Pacific Northwest artistic traditions.

(Text taken from Wikipedia, Pacific Northwest (this version))

European discovery and settlement

The settlement of Lower Columbia by Europeans began in 1560, with the arrival of the first settlers. Unlike other countries in the Americas, Lower Columbia never went through a colonial period; in other words, it was not settled as the result of any land grants by European monarchs, nor was it ever ruled by any outside government. Instead, the settlers who came to Lower Columbia did so without any government involvement or direction; indeed, many were forced to flee their homes in Europe due to persecution or legal trouble. Consequently, the settlement of Lower Columbia was haphazard and unorganized, especially in its first few decades.

Background

The origins of the first wave of settlement in Lower Columbia date back to the mid-16th century and the early years of the Counter-Reformation, when the Roman Catholic Church began condemning what it defined as Protestant heresies at the Council of Trent. These condemnations, in turn, resulted in persecution of Protestants across much of Western Europe, as the Catholic Church reasserted itself. Protestants in France and Scandinavia were subjected to especially severe persecution, and therefore were desperate to escape their homelands in search of religious freedom.

At the same time, the ongoing political battles between Catholics and Protstants in England resulted in English Catholics and Protestants alternately being persecuted, with many of those who managed to escape martyrdom choosing to flee. These English refugees followed the other persecuted Europeans in their exodus from Europe, though they rarely interacted with other groups of refugees. Even when they did, any theological differences between them rarely mattered; their common bond as refugees seeking a new homeland usually overcame any potential animosity between them.

Regardless of their national origin, these migrants all followed similar paths eastward, traveling by sea to the Ottoman Empire. While some of them were able to stay in Ottoman cities and make a new life for themselves, the majority were viewed with suspicion by the Muslim authorities and persecuted once again, forcing them to continue their journeys. Their fortunes did not improve when they reached India, which at that time was also dominated by Muslim emperors, and so they set sail once again. After rounding the Malay Peninsula and heading north, the migrants arrived in Okatabawashi and Japan, where isolationism had produced very xenophobic populations. Although the first European arrivals were allowed to stay and establish new businesses, their efforts to convert the locals eventually drew the ire of local officials, who forced them out.

Now at the edge of the known world, the Europeans who had made it thus far had no choice but to sail across the open waters of the Pacific Ocean and hope to reach land before they ran out of supplies. Fortunately for them, however, their final ports of departure lay close to the North Pacific's great natural highway. With little effort, the refugees sailed into the Kuroshio Current, which eventually merged into the North Pacific Current, carrying their ships much faster than they could otherwise have gone. As such, they reached the shores of North America only a few weeks after setting sail from Asia.

From settlements to commonwealths

That first ship carrying settlers sailed into the Columbia River estuary in 1560, and its passengers landed at the present-day site of Astoria. Later settlers eventually spread upriver and along the coastline. Some of them eventually discovered the islands that now make up Kingston and Boyce, and they began settling those islands as well. The first city that these settlers founded was Astoria, when the first ship carrying them arrived in 1560. They increased the populations of native villages, but more commonly founded many settlements of their own, including the country's current largest city, Nyhaven (in 1580).

This wave of immigration continued for decades; as it continued, the need for regional governance became more and more apparent. Between 1648 and 1719, a series of early states styled as "Believers' Commonwealths" were organized along regional lines. In all, seven such commonwealths were established, from Willamette in the south to Fraser in the north. Their governments were councils of civic and ecclesiastical leaders with an elected governor as the chief executive. These commonwealths would become the basis for the states of Lower Columbia and the provinces of Gudland.

Birth of the monarchy

During the 1700s, Great Britain, France and Spain were all jockeying for power in North America, claiming different parts of the continent. The settlers of the Pacific Northwest, however, wanted nothing to do with any of these colonial powers, whom they viewed as their ancestors' oppressors. In 1712, the approximately 500,000 inhabitants of the commonwealths agreed that it was time to form a larger nation, a confederation. Although the commonwealths were already republics, the people of Pacifica, Willamette, and Rainier decided to establish a monarchy instead, motivated by a desire to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. Nevertheless, it was necessary to begin this monarchy by electing the founder of the first royal house. They chose a strong, seemingly natural-born leader, named Edward du Loup, to be their first king. Edward accepted, although he disliked the concept of wielding absolute power. The other commonwealths extant at the time, however, disdained the new monarchy and rejected Edward as their king.

Constitution and first elections

Soon after his coronation at Nyhaven, the new King Edward sought individuals across the region who were willing to assist him in the fledgling government. After two years, they convened in Nyhaven with the intent of drafting a complete constitution. Over the summer and autumn of 1714, they developed what is now the current form of Lower Columbian national government, with King Edward wielding limited, though still considerable, power and presiding over the upper house of the national Parliament. They also agreed that no existing city should be chosen as the new national capital, and selected a low-lying plain several miles west of Nyhaven as the site for the new capital of Kendall. For the first fifteen years of the city's construction, they agreed that Parliament and the king would rule from Nyhaven, and then move to Kendall.

The convention presented the populace with their final draft of the constitution on January 7, 1715. After a period of four weeks, during which the people could review the document, the constitution was ratified in a referendum held on February 4 by a nearly 4/5 majority, more than the required 3/4 vote. Once the constitution was ratified, the convention delegates and several volunteers worked to prepare the country for the upcoming first parliamentary elections. Candidates were given one month to declare their candidacy and about seven months to campaign within their respective districts. On September 30, 1715, those elections were held nationwide; the following day, the results were announced and the first national government was proclaimed. Since then, October 1 has been celebrated as Proclamation Day, the effective date of independence for Lower Columbia, and parliamentary elections have been held on the last Monday of September. With no easy way to counter the new nation's territorial claims, the European colonial powers formally recognized Lower Columbia's sovereignty within a few years of these elections, as did the remaining independent commonwealths.

[Lower Columbia]

History part 2: First dynasty, the House of du Loup: 1715-1799

First Purification

The first priority of many citizens of the new nation was reshaping its demographics according to their own preferences. By this time, most of the population was both Christian and conservative; the more liberal denizens were then ill-liked. Several people took it upon themselves to travel the nation recommending a rather revolutionary course of action: purify the land in the name of God and the King. To do that, they advocated expelling those who were considered "impure," which generally included indigenous people who rejected the Christian gospel, atheists, those practicing any sort of sexual immorality and persons espousing liberal beliefs. Their message did not fall on deaf ears; in fact, they garnered widespread support for the concept of "purification". Indeed, this proposal even gained interest among members of the new government, including King Edward himself. He went so far as to encourage Parliament to let the people decide whether or not to carry out what would become known as the First Purification.

In 1719, in a national referendum, an overwhelming majority of the population voted in favor of a ten-year program to expel liberals and other so-called "undesirables" from Lower Columbia. This was no blank slate for widespread terror and genocide, however; rather than engage in a liberal witch-hunt, the members of Parliament who drafted the referendum placed strict limits on who could be considered for expulsion from the country and when the use of force was permissible. The greatest use of force committed in the course of the First Purification campaign was the razing of the native settlement of Multnomah; it was widely agreed that the city had been irreparably tainted by all the evil done in it, so once all willing citizens had departed, the fledgling military and a number of volunteers destroyed the old settlement in the summer of 1722. Those former residents who were not expelled from the kingdom moved to the city of Portland, not far down the Willamette River from the former site of Multnomah. While little news of the Purification reached the outside world, reactions to it were rarely negative.

First territorial expansion campaigns

The campaign was concluded in 1729 - just in time for the national government to move to Kendall. The remainder of King Edward's rule was uneventful. He was, however, widely mourned following his death in 1736. His son was then crowned in the new National Cathedral, making him King John I. John sought to improve Lower Columbia's infrastructure, ordering the construction of many postal roads and improving port facilities in Nyhaven, Astoria and Aberdeen. Unfortunately, John I, who came to the throne at an advanced age, died before he could realize all of his "grand plan" for the kingdom. His efforts, however, proved highly valuable during the reign of his son, David I, which began in 1748. The main focus of David's reign was territorial expansion: until that time, Lower Columbia's territory only covered little more than the Columbia River valley from the start of the Gorge westward and the Willamette River Valley. He twice led campaigns to extend the borders of the country, first up the Snake River (1751-57) and subsequently along the Pacific coast and into the interior as far as the crest of the Cascade Range, as far as the present-day Californian border (1762-68). Unfortunately, at the conclusion of the Pacific Coast Campaign, the king, who led the military forces in person, suffered from a wound which proved fatal.

Michael the Terrible and the constitutional crisis of 1799

David I's successor, King Nicholas, was quite content to maintain the status quo during his 25 years in power. His main achievement was granting citizenship to all indigenous peoples of the kingdom; until his reign, only descendants of Old World settlers could be citizens. His son Michael I, however, is much more widely remembered, though not as fondly. Following his accession in 1793, little was seen of him. He rarely ventured outside the royal palace in Kendall, while delegating many of his royal responsibilities to his staff. Furthermore, he strongarmed the weak Parliament of 1795 into passing laws that placed much of the country's economy under his control. Those laws are infamous for creating Lower Columbia's first economic crisis with their rise in taxes and government control over banking and transportation. The people became alarmed when news of this crisis was first publicized, in the summer of 1798. However, when people began criticizing Michael I's actions, he issued a decree criminalizing lèse majesté. This decree only infuriated the public more; they then saw the king as a tyrant. Some radicals called for a revolt, but most people simply wanted to replace the ruling government peacefully. They overwhelmingly voted against incumbents in the next parliamentary election, held the next year. That Parliament exiled Michael I, elected a native Salemite named Brandon Bodker to replace him as king, and repealed his laws and decrees, all in the same year. The new Parliament also drafted a charter of rights to prevent future abuses of power similar to Michael I's; this charter was ratified as an amendment to the constitution known as Article IX.

[Lower Columbia]

History part 3: Second dynasty, the House of Bodker: 1799-1881

This map illustrates how Lower Columbia's kings expanded their real over time.

More territorial expansion and first contact with the United States

Like David I before him, King Brandon I focused on expanding Lower Columbia's borders, this time pushing eastwards to the Continental Divide in the 1800s and southwards to the edge of the deserts of the Great Basin in the 1810s. The new land, rich in resources, helped the economy recover some of the energy it had lost under King Michael I. Brandon I would later sign the first treaty establishing real borders for the kingdom when he sent his Minister of Foreign Relations to take part in the negotiations that produced the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819. Brandon is best remembered, however, for opening Lower Columbia to foreign nations; previous kings starting with Edward had adopted an isolationist policy in order to safeguard the country in its early years, but King Brandon I judged this to no longer be necessary. His first diplomatic and trade missions to other Pacific nations were conducted in the early 1800s, before the start of his military campaigns.

After his death in 1835, his son John was crowned. King John II presided over a second progressivization period, much like that which Michael I had encouraged. John, however, sought to stop or at least slow the process; unfortunately, Parliament often disregarded his admonitions. After the nation's economy underwent its worst panic ever, though, citizens recognized what he had been warning about and voted for a moderate coalition government in the 1847 elections. Within two years, the economy was well on its way to unprecedented levels of prosperity. Sadly, King John II did not live to see those prosperous times; he met an untimely death in 1848, after a mere 13 years on the throne.

Columbia War: Michael I's legacy undone

While John II did much to improve Lower Columbia's fiscal condition, he did so at the expense of the country's safety. After Michael I was exiled in 1799, he established the rival kingdom of Upper Columbia outside his former realm's sphere of influence and plotted his revenge. He and his successors built a new power base in the mountains and waited for their opportunity to strike back at Lower Columbia. With the old realm's forces cut to sizes not seen in decades due to John II's austerity measures, King William of Upper Columbia knew that the time had come for retribution. Within a few years after David II took his father John's place in Kendall, Upper Columbia was ready to mount a full-scale invasion. That invasion began in earnest in 1852, when King William sent his troops pouring over the border into Nicholasia, beginning what soon came to be known as the Columbia War.

News of the Upper Columbian invasion took David II and his government by surprise. The young king had been content to keep pursuing his father's policies of minimizing Lower Columbia's government expenditures; indeed, by the time that news of the invasion reached Kendall, he and Parliament had succeeded in shrinking the government bureaucracy to its smallest size since the House of Bodker came to the throne. However, the new war required rebuilding some of that bureaucracy, as well as many millions of crowns' worth of new spending to build up the military. To aid in winning the public's support for this abrupt change in policy, King David II enlisted the help of the kingdom's best-loved artists and orators to create a pro-war propaganda campaign, the likes of which would not be seen again in Lower Columbian history for nearly half a century. This battle for the hearts of his subjects won David II the support he needed to turn the tide of the war in Lower Columbia's favor.

By the summer of 1854, the kingdom fnally had enough soldiers to start mounting a formidable opposition to Upper Columbia's previously unopposed armies. The three years that followed saw the two kingdoms' fortunes reverse on the battlefield, with Lower Columbia reclaiming all of the territory it had lost since 1852. In addition, news of the war had turned foreign powers against Upper Columbia, resulting in that kingdom losing access to many of the essential resources it needed to continue its war effort. Finally, in 1857, David II knew it was time to take the war to the enemy. Much as his namesake had done a century earlier, he led the Lower Columbian military in person over the border into Upper Columbia, by the banks of the Columbia River, thus beginning the invasion of Upper Columbia. After another five years, in 1862, Upper Columbia was no more, its territory absorbed into Lower Columbia. Although the kingdom now contained the entire course of the Columbia River, its name remained the same.

A new royal crisis

In 1873, David II's son Brandon II came to the throne. He was a highly reclusive king, and many feared he would be similar to Michael I. However, this turned out not to be the case; like his father and grandfather, King Brandon II favored the free-market capitalism that had made Lower Columbia wealthy. He also began a major beautification program in Kendall, widening major streets, constructing new civic buildings, and landscaping the Royal Promenade. Eight years later, however, everyone was at a loss to explain King Brandon II's sudden disappearance. Rumors abounded as to his whereabouts; many claimed that the unmarried king had gone to South America to find a wife, although this was pure speculation. Nevertheless, Brandon II never returned to Lower Columbia. With no better option, after a few months Parliament voted to replace him with King Tristan, thus beginning the third and current royal dynasty.

[Lower Columbia]

History part 4: Third dynasty, the House of Hart: 1881-present

Annexation of Gudland and the Puget Sound War

Tristan was somewhat more fanatical than his predecessors; this, coupled with his desire to bring "greater glory" to the nation, led him to invade and conquer the previously-ignored Federal Republic of Gudland between 1884 and 1888. Around the same time, and for similar reasons, King Tristan married his son, the future King Michael II, to Princess Elena of the Principality of Saint Catherine, paving the way for Lower Columbia's personal union with that state. One province of Gudland, that of Mainland, was untouched by the war raging in continental Gudland, and retained its independence even after the Gudlander government surrendered in 1887. However, Mainland's independence did not go unchallenged for very long; by the spring of 1889, Lower Columbia was ready to invade the former province. With parliamentary support for an invasion secured, King Tristan signed a declaration of war on May 2 of that year, and the Puget Sound War began.

Preparations for the invasion went smoothly, and by the end of May, the Royal Lower Columbian Navy had imposed a blockade on Mainland. Several weeks later, the invasion force left Lower Columbia and headed for the planned landing site near Port Hope. However, a hidden Mainlander naval force ambushed the Lower Columbian ships, leading to a protracted, pitched battle, in which much of the blockade and invasion flotillas were destroyed. The remaining ships were forced to retreat, having lost the battle.

Soon after this disastrous turn of events, King Tristan and Mainland Governor Michael Yannis agreed to a ceasefire, which gave both sides time to meet peacefully and negotiate a formal end to the war. In the resulting Treaty of Port Ruppert, which was signed on July 26, Lower Columbia officially recognized Mainland as an independent country, while Mainland recognized the Lower Columbian annexation of continental Gudland. Both sides agreed to a policy of non-interference in the other country's domestic and foreign affairs, allowing for a lasting, if uneasy, peace.

There were many progressives in the former Gudlander provinces, some descendants of those who had been expelled during the First Purification over a century and a half earlier. Many of them joined the nascent Progressive Party and gained seats in Parliament, leading to a series of unpopular reforms nationwide. As such, a second purification campaign was needed and implemented in the new territories, beginning in 1892. However, this second campaign was less radical than the first, and no cities were destroyed in the process.

Michael the Great: the people's hero

King Tristan's successor, Michael II, was crowned in 1901 and is, by far, the most famous and beloved king in Lower Columbia's history. In fact, Michael II is the only Lower Columbian monarch to be posthumously called "the Great." For much of his reign, he led a major campaign to improve the nation's cultural facilities and bolster a sense of a national culture and identity. He often spoke of Lower Columbia as a chosen nation, situated in the Pacific Northwest by God for a special purpose. In pursuit of this purpose, he expanded international relations, both within and beyond North America. He also made the first international arms purchases, beginning trade relations with several major arms dealers. Furthermore, in the early 1910s he used some of those weapons to expand into the Great Plains which belonged to Alberta.

King Michael the Great is also partly responsible for healing the mutual animosity between Lower Columbia and Kingston in the mid-1920s, earning him the nickname "the Great Reconciler". After the Puget Sound War, the people of both countries remained hostile toward each other; Kingstonaise thought of Lower Columbians as intolerant and uncultured, while Lower Columbians considered the Kingstonaise meddlesome apostates. The prairie campaign only added to these feelings, although Lower Columbia honored the terms of the Treaty of Port Ruppert and did not conduct another mass banishment program in the conquered region. This was partly due to Michael II's desire not to further anger Kingston and Boyce and partly to the lower number of liberals residing in the plains territories, making any potential purification more costly than beneficial in the government's eyes.

Convinced that it was the kingdom's duty to show brotherhood to its neighbors, Michael II set up a meeting with his counterpart in Kingston, at which the two heads of state were able to overcome their differences and reopen formal relations between their nations. Following this meeting, he helped organize the Pacific Exposition, held in Vancouver in 1926 to celebrate the cultures of the two nations. As a result of this exhibition, Lower Columbians and Kingstonaise began to see each other in a more positive light, and from then on, mutual trust gradually built between them until the present day.

While these events had already made Michael II extraordinarily popular, there was more to come. When the Japanese attacked the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor in 1941, the king recognized that, as a nation on the Pacific Rim, Lower Columbia was in danger of being the next target of the rapidly expanding empire. He realized that a Japanese invasion of Lower Columbia would open the door for them to directly attack the US and Canadian mainland. With the approval of Parliament, the king signed an agreement with the United States in early 1942, pledging supplies and medical personnel to aid the Allied war effort. Throughout the rest of the war, his inspiring radio broadcasts kept the people's spirits high and ensured their continued support for the war effort. Finally, shortly before his death in 1949, Michael II abolished the progressive national income tax rates that Parliament had created during the reign of King John, cementing his reputation as Lower Columbia's greatest king. Since then, the federal income tax rate has been 20% for all income levels above 150% of the poverty line, with no tax on lower income levels.

Contemporary era

Bolstered by the recognition his father earned for his contributions to the Allied war effort, Michael II's son, Michael III, pledged to strengthen Lower Columbia's armed forces to allow the kingdom to lend more substantial support to the United States, Canada, and Kingston in future conflicts. As part of these promises, he signed several defense agreements with the United States as a response to the Cold War, energizing the domestic defense industry and bringing its military technology up to date. However, the king decided against seeking nuclear weapons from the United States, choosing instead to participate in the early warning programs shared among the North American powers. He did, however, approve the construction of Lower Columbia's first nuclear power plants, beginning the country's move away from coal power. Besides this, Michael III focused on humanitarian and philanthropic efforts, continuing the tradition of royally-funded public housing that Michael II had begun late in his reign. By the time of his death in 1960, Michael III had already dramatically expanded the stock of public housing in Pacifica's major cities, as well as in Portland and Vancouver. In addition, his expansion of the domestic defense industry transformed Spokane, once a relatively small state capital, into the heart of Lower Columbia's military-industrial complex.

In light of the condition of non-renewable resources, Michael III's successors have made moves toward minimizing or eliminating Lower Columbia's consumption of those goods. While the nation had long taken advantage of its immense capacity for hydroelectric power, King David III was not satisfied with the status quo. In 1982, near the end of his reign, he authorized the switch to completely clean energy sources for the nation, focusing on safer, thorium-based versions of conventional nuclear power plants, and funding research into geothermal and fusion energy production. David also approved the construction of the kingdom's first wind farms, in the early 1970s. Besides energy policy, King David III worked to expand Lower Columbia's influence on global markets, paving the way for many Lower Columbian corporations to expand into developing markets. In addition, it was during David III's reign that Lower Columbia captured the world's attention by hosting the Summer Olympics, in Nyhaven.

More recently, the current king, Zachary, signed a law requiring the country's extensive automotive industry to replace all internal-combustion engines in its vehicles with electric or fuel-cell engines over the course of 20 years. This move is expected to be completed in 2027. Like his father and grandfather before him, Zachary has also built public housing in the kingdom's major cities and donated to charities and the more philanthropy-oriented churches. In addition, Zachary used some of the immense royal fortune to finance the construction of Lower Columbia's tallest building, which was consequently named after him. King Zachary has also expanded Lower Columbia's presence on the world stage. While King Michael III was more isolationist in nature, Zachary has ordered the Minister of Foreign Relations to reach out to many foreign countries, and he has even signed the country onto new and preexisting alliances, most recently TITO.

[Lower Columbia]

Economy

Lower Columbia has a capitalist economy based mainly on services, which make up 69.4% of the gross domestic product. Industry makes up most of the rest of GDP, led by manufacturing. Its GDP was just under US$2.4 trillion in 2011, placing it among the top AIN member nations. The largest sector of the economy by net income is manufacturing, with vehicle manufacturing earning more than any other business group, followed by arms manufacturing. Automobiles are Lower Columbia's biggest export; vehicles produced by Buechner Ltd. are sold in every AIN member state, as well as in several non-member nations. Lower Columbia also manufactures most of its military hardware, and its shipyards are major employers for the Vancouver, Astoria and Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan areas. Nyhaven is the kingdom's financial capital, where most of the country's banks keep their headquarters. Agriculture dominates the country's eastern regions, although it makes up less than 1% of the GDP. Before the reign of King Michael II, Lower Columbia was dependent on imported food, and food prices were very high; that monarch's expansion of the kingdom into the prairies finally made the country self-sufficient in food supplies.

The kingdom boasts the lowest unemployment rate in AIN, with only 3.8% of the population currently unemployed. It also has the highest median household income, which was ₡21,825 (US$46,925) in Q4 2011. 9.6% of all households live in poverty. Individual income taxes in Lower Columbia are fixed at 20% for income levels of 150% of the national poverty line and greater (with no tax on dividend income), while corporations pay a 25% income tax rate. These tax rates are among the lowest in the developed world, although sales taxes tend to be higher than in other industrialized nations to compensate. The country had a labor force of 31.7 million people in the fourth quarter of 2013, of which 83.7% had jobs in the service sector. Labor unions are unpopular in Lower Columbia due to the prevailing pro-free-market economic views of the populace; only 7% of all workers are unionized.

Transportation


Major international airports in Lower Columbia

Most Lower Columbians travel by automobile in their everyday lives. In 2011 there were 627 automobiles per thousand residents. The kingdom has two major international airlines, ColumbiAir and Theta Airways. While automobile manufacturers, rail carriers and airlines are privately owned, most of the country's transportation infrastructure is owned and maintained by the government, and mass transit is built and operated by municipal or regional transit authorities. An extensive network of highways (officially called ricsways, from Swedish riksväg "highway") connects all major cities to one another and to many smaller towns in between. Commuter rail is popular in some major cities but not others, depending on the amount of railroad trackage present in each city. In comparison, rapid transit (both subways/elevated rail and light rail) is heavily used in most major cities, though rarely to the point of overcrowding. Ferries are also a significant mode of transportation in coastal cities. 28.8% of all work trips make use of mass transit, including buses, a figure intermediate between those of the United States and Europe.

Energy

Renewable and nuclear forms of energy dominate the Lower Columbian energy market, with a slight majority of electricity currently being produced by thorium-based nuclear power stations. There are many hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River and its tributaries, providing power mainly to cities in the western and central parts of the country. Another major renewable energy source is geothermal energy; there are geothermal power station on almost all of the volcanoes in the country. Lower Columbia has an active program of research into fusion power, led by researchers at Pacifica State University's main campus at Astoria. All future automobiles in the kingdom will soon be required to run on either electric or fuel-cell power, due to a program to phase out internal-combustion engines begun by King Zachary three years ago. Still, there remain a few power stations running on fossil fuels, although they are all scheduled to be replaced by either wind farms or geothermal plants within the next 20 years.

[Lower Columbia]

Demographics

According to the 2010 census, the population of Lower Columbia is 51,147,573. The kingdom is highly diverse, with many recognized ancestry groups making up significant portions of the population. Most Lower Columbians are of European descent; English, French and Swedish Columbians are the country's three largest ancestry groups. The largest minority group in Lower Columbia is the East Asian group, with about half of those with East Asian ancestry coming originally from Japan. There are an estimated 358,000 Lower Columbians of indigenous ancestry, of whom about 215,000 have exclusively indigenous ancestry.

Language

English is the most common home language in Lower Columbia, having emerged as the lingua franca of the region by the late 17th century. An estimated 51% of Lower Columbians speak English at home, mostly as a first language. In addition, English is widely spoken as a second language within the nation, with an estimated 38% of the people knowing English as a second language. Meanwhile, the large French and Swedish populations in the kingdom have largely retained their native languages, making French and Swedish the second and third most common first languages in the country, being spoken at home by 18% and 15% of Lower Columbians, respectively. Other commonly-spoken languages at home include Japanese, Arabic, Greek, Italian and Farsi.

Religion

The status of religion in Lower Columbia is complex. According to the kingdom's constitution, the federal government is officially Christian (though the constitution also prohibits the government from selecting a state church or denomination); all public servants at the federal level are required to submit statements of faith to the Ministry of Religion prior to taking office. The general population, however, is guaranteed freedom of religion, with only those religious groups which the government recognizes as cults banned from the country. Lower Columbians take their religious practice more seriously than people of most other nations do; a 2012 study found that religion was very important to 71.9% of Lower Columbians. In particular, religious Lower Columbians place a strong emphasis on following a moral lifestyle and helping make their communities better places. This second focus has resulted in Lower Columbians donating more to, and volunteering more often for, charity work and community service than their counterparts in many other developed countries. The kingdom's history of settlement by Christian refugees is reflected today in Christianity being practiced by seven out of every eight Lower Columbians. The extremely low population of non-religious residents in Lower Columbia is remarkable for such a wealthy, developed nation; only 4% of participants in one study reported being agnostics, atheists or simply having no religion.

Education

There is no public education in the normal sense of the term below the collegiate level in Lower Columbia; most primary and secondary schools are officially charter schools, receiving funding from local governments, but with no mandated curriculum or frequent oversight. In effect, each primary and secondary school is administratively independent and run almost exclusively by its own principal and board of directors. Parochial schools are permitted to receive governmental funds if they operate under a charter. School attendance in Lower Columbia is not mandated by the government, but even most entry-level jobs in the country require either a high school diploma or regularly-submitted proof of progress toward earning such a diploma. Approximately 19% of Lower Columbian children attend a private school of some sort, while 6% are completely homeschooled.

Aside from private colleges and universities, most institutes of higher learning are government-run. There are many community and trade colleges in the kingdom, which are run by either state or municipal governments. Every state maintains its own system of universities, typically with multiple campuses. There is also one university system, Royal University, which is run by the federal government and receives a large endowment from the royal family. Among Lower Columbians at least 25 years of age, 87% have earned a high school diploma, 62% have attended some college, 33% have earned a bachelor's degree and 12% have earned a graduate degree. Lower Columbia's basic literacy rate is about 99%.

Health

Lower Columbia has a life expectancy of 78.2 years at birth, a figure between those of the United States and Western Europe. The nation's infant mortality rate of 4.97 per thousand live births is similarly intermediate within the developed world. At 8.1 per 1,000 women, the adolescent pregnancy rate is among the lowest in the entire developed world, and is little more than a tenth of the adolescent pregnancy rate in the US; this extraordinarily low rate is commonly attributed to the higher rate of religious service attendance and the higher prevalence of religious education compared to most Western nations. Unlike its neighbors, Lower Columbia has kept abortion illegal nationwide.

Universal health care is a highly contentious topic in Lower Columbia. Currently, health care is not universal in the country, nor is it mandated. The political minority in Parliament has tried for decades to change the status quo, but to no avail. However, health care costs are typically lower than they are elsewhere, and most Lower Columbians have signed up for health insurance of their own free will. Employer-sponsored health insurance is freely available and frequently utilized by employed Lower Columbians.

Crime and law enforcement

Most day-to-day law enforcement in Lower Columbia is carried out by local and state police departments, with the Royal Marshalls having a more specialized role. The kingdom's judicial system is built on common law, both at the federal level and in every state. Most criminal cases are tried before state courts, while federal courts mainly handle appeals from the state courts, in addition to certain crimes and challenges to the constitutionality of state or federal laws.

Lower Columbia has one of the lowest crime rates in North America, a fact commonly attributed to the high funding which all police departments receive. Indeed, in some urban areas, the police can appear to be omnipresent due to the sheer number of police officers on patrol at any given time. Violent crime rates are especially low; nationwide, there were 0.86 murders per 100,000 people in 2012. This low rate has been steadily declining over the past 40 years.

With so few crimes committed in the kingdom, Lower Columbia has a low incarceration rate and a small prison population; fewer than 51,000 people, or 0.1% of the general population, were incarcerated at the start of 2010. Almost none of those incarcerated are juveniles, as there is hardly any youth-related crime in the country. This small prison population would likely be higher, though not by much, if the death penalty were illegal in the nation. Currently, the death penalty is a sentencing option for several federal and military crimes, in addition to certain high crimes in each state.

[Lower Columbia]

Military

Seal of the Royal Lower Columbian Armed Forces

Upon turning 18, all Lower Columbians must sign up for the country's selective service program. Once they have finished the highest level of education they intend to achieve, they are required to serve for a minimum of three years. As a result of this program, the Royal Military is composed of 2.5% of the national population at any given time, though many soldiers do not make a career of the military, and only 25% of all troops are on active duty during peacetime. A draft may also be instituted in wartime, typically involving longer service terms than normal, in order to bolster the nation's troop strength.

Army

There are a total of 595,000 personnel in the Royal Army, half of whom are combat soldiers. The standard weapons for an infantryman are the M-16A2 rifle and the IMI SP-21 Barak pistol, with some units carrying 9mm Glocks instead. Soldiers are organized into the following hierarchy of organizational divisions, starting with the smallest:
Team (3-4 soldiers)
Squad (2-3 teams or 9-12 soldiers)
Platoon (4 squads or 40-50 soldiers)
Company (4 platoons or 150-200 soldiers)
Battalion (4-7 companies or 800-1,100 soldiers)
Brigade (3-5 battalions or 3-5,000 soldiers)
Division (3-5 brigades or about 15,000 soldiers)

There are currently 40 divisions, ten of which are armored. The divisions are, likewise, generally organized into major commands based on the needs of the Army. A total of four divisions (two infantry, one armored, and one cavalry) are dedicated to the training of new soldiers in both basic combat skills and advanced, specialized training; they are all part of the Army's Training Command, which is informally referred to as TRACOM. The Army's other major commands are generally geographic in nature, aside from such specialized commands as the Materiel Command, which generally serve support roles for the rest of the Army.

The mainstay tanks of the armored divisions are the Duvall Military Hardware-made Beast MBT, Merkava Mk.4, Krigrum Ltd.-built Arca. IV Nakíl and the Behemoth III SHBT. Two hundred fifty self-propelled howitzers provide artillery coverage. Logistics is provided via the army's HMMWV contingent, as well as its MK48 Logistics Vehicle Systems.

Navy

The Royal Navy is composed of one Surface Battle Group, four Carrier Battle Groups and five Amphibious Ready Groups. The first two of these kinds of groups are composed of the following similar complements:
1 flagship, either a battleship (SBG) or aircraft carrier (CBG)
2 cruisers
4 destroyers
4 frigates
3 submarines
2 support ships

Amphibious Ready Groups have the following composition:
1 assault carrier, Hornet-class
1 Intruder-class LC
1 LHD, Wasp-class
1 LPD, San Antonio-class or Keller Marine Architecture-built Ungforth-class
2 LSDs, Whidbey Island-class or Keller-built Valley-class
1 support ship

Troops are deployed from these ships via a combination of LCACs, Landing Craft Utilities, and Mechanized Landing Craft, depending on the capacity of each class of ship. Furthermore, a combination of M113A3 APCs and Eqvist Heavy Industries-built Viking landing craft may be loaded onto some of these landers.

All these ships are crewed by approximately 463,000 sailors, marines, and officers.

Air Force

The Royal Air Force maintains 2,000 fighters in ten different classes, though about 300 of those planes are based on aircraft carriers. There are also 900 bombers in eight classes, with a smaller fraction of those based at sea. Over 900 helicopters are available for combat in a variety of tasks, and 150 heavy transports can take ground troops to almost any warzone on Earth, given enough refueling stops. The Air Force is also responsible for Lower Columbia's space program and long-range missile stockpile. The 66,000 pilots and crewmen of these planes are complemented by three times as many ground personnel, for a total of 264,000 airmen in the RLCAF.

[Lower Columbia]

National symbols

Flag

The national flag of the Federal Kingdom of Lower Columbia is green with a blue Nordic cross outlined in yellow, with a white fleur-de-lis in the canton.

Symbolism

The charges and colors of the Lower Columbian flag are symbolic in a number of different ways. The green field represents the landscape of western Lower Columbia, with the blue cross standing for the Columbia River and its tributaries. The cross also represents the Christian majority of the country, as well as the many Scandinavians who settled in Lower Columbia. The fleur-de-lis represents both the historical French settlers (another of the mainstream ethnic groups in the kingdom) and the King of Lower Columbia.

Design



The above diagram summarizes the relative widths of the elements of the flag. The proportions of the fleur-de-lis are 7:6, which reduces to 4⅔:4 when adjusted to fit with the proportions of the rest of the flag (as in the diagram).

Coat of arms

The coat of arms of Lower Columbia is the heraldic insignia of the King and Federal Kingdom of Lower Columbia. The King uses these arms in his official duties as monarch, while his government uses the lesser version of the arms (depicted below) in its activities administering the kingdom in the King's name.

Lesser arms, crowned escutcheon only

Blazon

The arms are legally blazoned as follows:

Vert, to chief three fleurs-de-lis, placed one above two; to base, a lion Or, crowned with an open crown and bearing a cross fleury Or; for a crest, the royal crown proper; mantling gules, Or and ermine, upon which the royal crown proper; for supporters, dexter an angel proper, sinister an eagle of John the Evangelist sable. Motto 'Omnia in modo, fide excepta' below the shield.

History

Soon after the first Parliament was elected and had convened in Nyhaven, King Edward proposed a coat of arms for Lower Columbia that would serve as an appropriate symbol of the new country. On a green field symbolic of the country's abundant natural resources, he placed three silver fleurs-de-lis to represent both the three founding states of the kingdom (Pacifica, Willamette and Rainier), as well as the persons of the Holy Trinity. Beneath them, he added a crowned lion to represent the king, with a cross in the lion's outstretched paw to symbolize the king's role as Defender of the Faith.

The members of parliament enthusiastically approved of Edward's design, which they complemented with an angel and an eagle (the latter representing John the Evangelist) as supporters, as well as the newly-chosen national motto below the shield. The coat of arms remained in this form until 1769, when Parliament augmented it with an ermine mantling and two instances of the royal crown, which had been crafted the previous year for the coronation of King Nicholas. Since then, the arms have remained unchanged.

Anthem

"Jerusalem" is the national anthem of Lower Columbia. Originally a poem by English poet William Blake and set to music by Sir Hubert Parry, it was adapted for use as the Lower Columbian anthem in the early 1920s by Haakon Pedersen, replacing the references to England with words appropriate for Lower Columbia.

Origins

Blake wrote "Jerusalem", commonly known by its first line, "And did those feet in ancient time", in the early 1800s as part of the preface to his epic Milton a Poem. Its first use as a song dates to 1916, when it was set to music for the British patriotic Fight for Right campaign. King Michael II of Lower Columbia heard the song during a visit to London in 1925 and was immediately taken with it. After returning to Kendall, he asked Pedersen, who was then Poet Laureate of Lower Columbia, to adapt the lyrics for use as the kingdom's new national anthem.

Pedersen's modified lyrics were presented to Parliament on May 13, 1929, after several years of public promotion by the Royal Office. Initial parliamentary resistance to replacing the existing national anthem, "God Bless Holy Columbia", was overcome after a deal was reached to keep the old song as a royal anthem, and the bill cleared the Council of States on May 17.

Lyrics and meaning

Text

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk on Columbia's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On C'lumbia's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among Columbia's amber fields?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In C'lumbia's green & pleasant Land.

Analysis

The original, England-specific version of the lyrics refer to an apocryphal story of a visit by Jesus to England during his lost years, as well as to the Book of Revelation's references to a new Jerusalem. However, since the aforementioned story is unrelated to Lower Columbia, the anthem has been reinterpreted as questioning the Mormon belief that Jesus visited the Americas after his ascent into heaven, while also recalling and reaffirming the historical desire to make Lower Columbia an earthly extension of God's heavenly kingdom.

Performances

The anthem is performed at the beginning of all major sporting events, orchestral concerts and conventions in the kingdom, as well as all public gatherings on Monarchy Day (22 August) and Proclamation Day (1 October).

Animal

The mountain lion is the national animal of Lower Columbia. In addition to representing the King, the specific choice of the mountain lion (Puma concolor) reflects that species' prevalence in Lower Columbia, where it is an apex predator.