The Hitchiker's Guide to Njegošlja

So, since I want to write stuff, and I enjoy more writing this stuff than other stuff, I'll put here all the stuff regarding the cultural, political and sociological background of my nation I'll eventually produce, for everyone to read it and enjoy the apartheid climate themselves.

Index:

I. Belenosian History, Part One: The Birth of a People
II. Belenosian History, Part Two: The Dark Age of Civilization
III. Belenosian History, Part Three: The Opening of a Nation
IV. Belenosian History, Part Four: The Return of Civilization
V. On Kutan Views of Belenosian History
VI. Social disparities and oppression in Njegošlija
VII: Report on the organized opposition to the Dominion

The first recorded settlements in the area now occupied by the Njegošljan Metropolitan Provinces date back to over two millennia ago: small communities spawning from the needs of cultivation and protection. A number of innovations came to light in the following centuries: the addomestication of draft animals, the wheel, the first forms of writing, and the first embrional Kerbol cults. Especially the draft animals and thewheel proved instrumental in forging the Belenosian identity. By continously trading with each other, the small communities omogenised their culture, and adopted a language very similar to each other.

The driving force behind the first Belenosian nation were the raids carried by the desert tribes on those communities starting from 1600 years ago. Those nomadic people descended from the north in numbers, usually after the harvest, and pillaged whatever they found on their path. In the Belenosian national epic those incursions are described as rivalling in savagery with the Kortugan raids, but it's more realistic that the nomads acted as "taxmen", leaving enough to the Belenosians to carry on to the next year, although with some difficulty.

To defend from these raids, adiacent communities banded together, formed militias to fight back the invaders, and built a net of observation posts to watch on the peaceful villages. After three and a half centuries of clashes, with the fight being brought in the desertic homelands of the nomads, the Belenosians managed to completely assimilate the remaining tribes. The culture of the nomands is a mistery to us: the depiction given by the Belenosian epics is completely biased and can't be trusted, and we lack first hand documentation. Some scholars argue that they were a branch of the ancient inhabitant of the modern day ASTU: although plausible, no hard proof has been discovered yet.

The consequences of this period of the Belenosian history were mainly two: firstly, the large number of ancient towers, fortresses and stone huts that dot the countryside of Southern Njegošlja, and Secondly the creation of the "Famije", the name given to the clans in charge of the protection of each expanded community, that would lately bring so much devastation to the Belenosians.

After the definitive assimilation of the desert nomads, the Belenosians were in an envyable position: cultural unity, security and wellness were taken for granted by them. The King of The Belenosians, elected by the Famije, was a benevolent ruler that provided for the safety and wealth of his people. The Cult of Belenos emerged as the prevalent religion, to the point that the name used to indicate the cultists passed to identify the whole people. Artistic production was at its finest, well representing a civilization in its golden age. But still, the germs for the fall were already present.

When the Famije met 1040 years ago to elect a successor to the prematurely disappeared King, the choice fell on Pêo Tapesê, the son of the previous monarch. While is common belief that the Famije elected him on the basis of personal interest instead of the interst of the Belenosians, the fact caused little problems in the nation. Forty years later, though, at the death of Pêo Tapesê, his son figured out that what happened once would surely happen again, and so decided to not gather the Famije and simply take the power. The consequenses were immediate: the nation splitted in half, with each Famija siding either with new king and his descendency, or with the defender of the old order. What were once peaceful neighboring villages, were now enemies to death, willing to fight to the last for their ideals.

The War of Madness (La Guera de i Mati) carried on for 150 years. While the main battles were relatively few, what took the main toll on the belenosians was the complete destruction of their social structure: trade was stopped because of the war, the fields slowly filled with weeds, and diseases began to hit then population: every generation suffereed a plague, brought around by the warring armies. Whe the last Tapesê died with no heirs, the war had already stopped, simply because there wasn't enough people left to fight it. It has been calculated that the Belenosian population suffered a 60% decrease in numbers, by conservative esteems. The remaining people huddled together around the last remaining beacons of light in that dark world: the monasteries of the Belenos cult.

Autarchic communities spawned around them: with almost no long range contacts or commerce, it was imperative to produce all what was needed locally. This is the reason why now many Njegošljan cities have a monastery as their city centre, like Novi Kovač, were the Palasso Ducà is far later than the Monastery of the Holy Hill. The prolonged isolation of these communities caused the common Belenosian language to start diverging: the classic Belenosian is now surviving in the literal works from the Golden Age, although is experiencing a new revival in this last years, as a way to express their ethnicity by some intllectuals contrasting the Kutan dominion in Njegošlja. Today there are at least 12 different major versions of Belenosian, and 37 minor ones. While the speakers can't usually express themselves in more than one or two of those, there are no major issues of understanding between them, apart from the language spoke in Maina, the most bastardized version of the Belenosian.

After reaching the minimum, the Belenosian Civilization slowly but steadily began a recovery process. Driven at first by the force that was the Cult of Belenos, and then by secular powers, the cities began to expand their influence, sometime as aristocracy ruled entities, sometime as republican city-states, alone of in confederation, creating a varied and etherogeneous mosaic of different political realities. After over 150 years of dark, the Belenosians rised again, this time to face the external world.

The wind of civilization, originating from the giant libraries of the monasteries, the palaces of powers and the newly instituted trading fairs was flowing around the Belenosian lands, bringing back to life what once was a great nation. But the new life it enjoyed was just a pale imitation of the Golden Age.

The puzzle of counties, confederation and city-states that filled the land was slowly rebuilding the social tissue and commercial network of the Golden Age: long forgotten roads were reopened and restored, lost cities resettled, and a new wealth was originating from the new mercantile class. This new age of prosperity was, however, nowhere near what the Belenosian nation experienced: distrust among the city-states, cultural depression, greed were some of the things that tainted this new era. The national identity was degraded so much that, despite what the intellectual circles thought, a newly unified nation was impossible to say the least.

The new merchant elite was indifferent to the matter: profits were the only thing they were after. Almost every trade opportunity was seized by a certain corporation, that secured it for their members. Even the dangerous cross-desert trips to the Algor cities were capitalized by a risible number of mercantile corporations  The rising number of entrprises and competition in Ineja brought some young enterprainers, unable to enter the commerce at home, to seek for new markets in the only place they could be found: over the sea. Stories of a group of islands in the south, the Ile du Meridiunne, were well known from the old times, but were nowadays largely considered a mith. having to choose between taking their chances and face death or abandoning their edonistic lifestyles, the youg kerbs joined their remaining moneys, armed a two mast vessel, the "Bigatin", and set sail to the south. After an epic travel, the party arrived in Calmar, in the Orosean Empire. Returning home with the hold full of Orosean  goods, the Bigatin brought back more than just richness for her owners: she had opened the Belenosian lands to the rest of the world. Sadly, the new trade opportunities come with serious drawbacks.

The Orosean and Ilarvenian Empires were rising colonial powers. It was only just natural that they started thinking about taking on the divided Belenosians and assimilate them, but the increasing presence of imperial traders in the islands of Lampiun and Lumminaia gave their intentions away. What followed can be easily considered as the last show of an united national identity by the Belenosians. Almost all the city-states united in a single front to resist the aggression, the Alèansa Belenusian, and face the with this show of force. The two Empires decided that the whole affair was not worth a war, and carried on in their trades in their two islands, well aware of not bothering the Belenosian power anymore. But the Alèansa Belenusian was a giant with clay feet: although it formally existed for over 100 years, in reality it dissolved as soon the imperialist menace disappered. What could have been the start of a new powerful nation was lost, and the degradation of the Belenosian society accelrated in the next 100 years, until another foreigner, this time moved by peaceful intentions, arrived: Nikola Njegoš.

In 185 BNR Dragan I, the newly crowned King of Gabrili, was fascinated with foreign lands. He was known for reading again and again tales of travels and explorations, for inviting visiting foreign delegates at his table, and for being an avid collector of exotic objects. It was because of this passion that he came to know the name of Nikola Njegoš.

Son of a fisherman, Njegoš was at the time a famed ship captain, that made his name as a Ensjorehningirikan pirates hunter. When the King met him, he was swift to offer himself as a crown sponsored explorer to the southern ocean. Dragan I, happily accepting, issued himself with ten ships, six hundred and forty-six able bodied kerbs, a chest of gold and a letter, giving him the right to speak and act in his name. Setting the bows to the south, Njegoš' fleet passed through the Straits and entered the Deassic Ocean, their target clear: the Belenosian lands.

The ships finally set their anchors near the island of Gallinara, an inhabited patch of land out the western Belenosian coast. Njegoš, aware of the Orosean and Ilvarenian contacts, decided to act peacefully from the start, and created a good relation with the Belenosian city-states during his travels. The island of Gallinara became a trading post, hub for the large galleons that set sail back and forth from Gabrili. A merchant by necessity, but an adventurer and explorer by trade, Njegoš carried on what his King wanted the most out of him: travelling and collecting impressions on that unknown land, its people and its culture. His diearies gives us a grim picture of the once florid nation.

The Belenosian culture had deteriorated to a point where the shadow of a new Dark Age was expanding every passing day. Political infighting was borderline civil war, even in what were once the most peaceful city-states and confederations, and the people suffered accordingly for it. In the six years he spent travelling and documenting the Belenosian costumes and people, Njegoš came to profoundly admire that land, and to elect it as his new home. When open conflict finally broke out between a number of neighboring counties, he decided that he couldn't let another devastating civil war happen. The island of Gallinara was now housing a large Gabrilian community, protected by a quite sizeable militia. Mustering them, and reinforcing them with whatever able kerb he could reach, he marched on every Belenosian city, deposing the inept rulers and reestabilishing the status quo. It's testifying the state of degradation of inter-citiies relations the fact that nothing resembling the Alèansa Belenusian rised to counter him.

When Dragan I heard of this expedition, not only he approved it, but sent a sizeable part of the Gabrilian army to assist Njegoš, and offered his protection to the Belenosian people. A large part of them accepted, and the remaining warlords were quickly taken over by the superiorly equipped and trained Gabrilian. A newly unified Belenosian nation was born, with the Gabrilian King as his ruler, and the corrupted merchant elite removed and substututed with a professional Gabrilian administrative class. In few years, the Belenosian lands were fully integrated into the Gabrilian political system, And Nikola Njegoš was nominated the first General Governor of the new province. His merits in finally pacifying the region were so large that the province was named after him.

Since then, Njegošlija has reached a level of peacefulness and prosperity never heard of, to a point that the Kutan Emperor, in his benevolence, decided to accord self governance to the population. And so today, we stand still, strong in our force, knowing that what we earned, we fought for it, and that no one will take it from us without fighting. May Njegošlija prosper for another 1000 years!

Lecture of Professor Zoran Kesić, University of Novi Kovač, on the day of Self-governance Awarding.

It's no mistery that, for the last hundred years, the major scholars of Belenosian History have been, without exclusion, of Kutan origin. The officially accepted view on the Belenosian people is that, after the end of the Golden Age, they entered a costant decline, marked by corruption, self indulgence and edonism. While there might be a grain of thruth in the assumption that the rise of the merchant elites had a detrimental effect on the whole Belenosian cultural background, the historical proofs point out that what is presented as a decadent society was actually a very lively and advanced one, if a slightly unconventional one. The fact that those proofs are being sistematically ignored in ther official documents (on example over all, Zoran Kesić's Belenosian History) is a direct consequence of the cherrypicking of sources. Ancient Belenosian documentation arrived to us mainly in form of epic poetry, and while this is not an issue while regarding the Golden Age period, while those epics speak about the Renaissance they are, according ro Kutan academics, "biased towards an irrealistic and apologetic view of their contemporaries, whwn not palese modern falses, and therefore unreliable and pretentious". This view is clearly geared towards presenting the world with an image that benefits the Kutan Dominion and denigrates the Belenosian culture.

If we consider the whole array of sources at our disposal, as proper and serious historians should do, we obtain a very different picture: after the start of recovery, the Belenosians found that a social asset based on a number of city-states that freely join in confederations was less prone to corruption towards personal power gains than the elective monarchy. A ragionated and quite condivisible choice, and not, as the Kutan storiography wants to make us believe, one that was dictated by distrust and corruption.
The merchant class that emerged, while possessing some traits inherently associated with extreme wealth, weren't the edonists depicted in modern works: on the contrary, we have plenty of examples of mecenatism, with a general attitude towards their fellow citizens that can be seen as a fine example of charity.
The dissolution of the Aleansa Belenusian is considered as the start of the final dissolution of the Belenosian cultural identity. In reality, there are proofs that the whole alliance was still in place at the time of the Kutan arrival, albeit in a standby mode: a series of treaties and pacts ensured that the whole organization could be reactivated in short notice, should a second invasion have taken place.

Then there is the whole series of lies regarding the Father of the Nation, the Savior, the National Hero: Nikola Njegoš. Depicted as a gallant hero of past times, Njegoš was actually nothing more than a petty criminal and adventurer: embarked to escape the law, he ended obtaining a privateer license to hunt pirates, while he himself running attacks under false flag against commercial vessels, sometimes flying the Kutan standard. After accumulating a fortune with his double game, he was eventually contacted by envoys of King Dragan I, giving him a simple message: either he set sail to the south, in charge of a small expedition to conquer a new kingdom for the monarch, or he was to make short fall followed by a sudden stop. Choosing the first option, probably not out of nationalist pride, he arrived in the Belenosian lands, and put his money and his mind at work, corrupting second line government officials, buyng the favours of entire Famije, creating fractures and divisions by spreading lies. He then proceeded to swiftly eliminate the opposition and resistance, by using the qualitative superiority of his forces and the divisions between his enemies. His belenosion allies, if they had tought of being part of the new order, should have been pretty disappointed when Njegoš had them all killed. Having fulfilled his duties, he obtained pardon for his past crimes, and conducted a peaceful life for the rest of his days, oppressing the newly created province.

The oppression and mistreatement of the belenosian majority, while carefully hidden and downgraded by the Kutan Dominion, is still a fact today, but discussing it is not the scope of this work. Hoping to have brought some light on the facts regarding Belenosian history conception, we end with a question: is this the way just ruler treat their subjects?

On Kutan views of Belenosian History, by Pêo Fugassê, published in Njapontor, MRP, in 176.

As is widely known, the current social asset in the Dominion of Njegošlija is peculiar to say the least. Being a Constitutional Monarchy by asset as the Kutan Kingdom is, Njegošlijan Parliament is constituted by 80 constituency seats, 15 provincial seats and 5 King's own seats. The voting rolls have education, property and income requisites. The roll A, wich votes for the contituency seats, is for citizens satisfying high standards in those regards, and is composed by 95% of ethnic Kutan, while roll B, electing the provincial seats, has lower qualification standards, and 80% of its members are Belenosian. The remaining 5 seats are awarded directly by the Kutan Emperor to citizens appointed as his observers in the parliament, and are almost exclusively awarded to ethnic Kutan citizens. This creates a situation where the 30% of the Njegošlijan population has control over the 85% of the Parliament, in fact creating a minority rule.

While challenged on this issue, the Njegošlijan government has always pointed out that nowhere in the Constitution is stated that Kutan population has privileges over the Belanosian majority, and that income based voting rights are widely accepted worldwide, and are a necessity to keep a nation in good working order.

Though, the means by which this income requirements are enforced are largely questionable: for example, in case of state sponsored land selling, prices are artificially inflated in the months preceding the selling, and then the difference is refunded to the Kutan aquirers with tax exemptions, dubious agricultural project refunding, and similar means.

The army is another highly segregated environment: while auxiliar corps are open to Belenosian citizens, combat corps are composed by Kutan only units. In this case too is nowhere stated that the army is closed to the Belenosians, but this is in fact enforced by the simple fact that enlistement requests by Belenosian citizens are rejected on a number of different reasons, being medical issues, comportamental concerns, or even bacause the army doesn't need any more men at that moment. A very strange statement, since a third of the Njegošlijan army is composed by foreign mercenaries.

Since the Great Mutiny of 147, the anti-governmental rebels have taken a stealth approach: civil disobedience, boycott and propaganda spreading had been the major weapons of the opposition, although on a small scale and with a nearly unexistant base in the population. In the last decade, however, there has been a resurgency of old ideals and the dissent groups have resurfaced, taking a more decise stand against the current establishment. While a number of different organizations have come to light, only two pose a significant threat to the current status quo:

Belenosian People's Liberation Front:
Station in the Metropolitan Provinces, this organization is known for its stance in favour of socialist ideals. Its base of consent is to be found mainly in the lower class citizen Belenosians. The actions taken by the members are an upscaling of previous strategies: strikes, civil disobedience, lobbying and similar actions are increasing yearly since the BPLF creation. While it's a generally pacific group, in the last perios the number of violent actions to be probably reconduced to them has seen a worrying increase: mainly robberies, arsons and ina couple of occasions murders. It's believed that the organization has a small amount of supplies hidden in safehouses, comprising smuggled weapons and explosives, but to date we haven't been able to track their sources down.

Alèansa Belenusian:
As its historical counterpart, the AB is an highly conservative group, whose known objectives are the destitution of the Kutan elite and its substitution with Belenosians. While not clearly stated, it's pretty clear that the general status quo will remain unchenged in case they'll gain power today: the income based voting rights will srely applease the rich supporters of the old days. Based in the Northern Desert, the AB is known for mounting up raids and attacks on military and governmental installation, and occasionally on private farms and factories, owned by Kutan citizens. Those attacks are steadily increasing in the last period, and it's likely that we are on the verge of a full fledged guerrilla. Weapons and supplies are been supplied from foreign sources, funded by expatriated Belenosians and external sympathizers. The military has already mounted up long range patrols in the desert to found the insurgent bases, but after every attack they simply disappear, leaving no clue on their whereabouts. Operations to stop weapon shipments have met moderate success, but the sheer amount of different shipment is too much to stop altogether.