Pontesi

Pontesi, officially the Pontesian Dynastic Empire is an independent nation located in the north-western peninsular of Majatra. It is bordered to the west by Beiteynu and to the south by Barmenistan. Its people are diverse in background and religion, although most of the population are Christian or Jewish. The capital is Lerna, Xanduley. Lerna is also the country's center of political, commercial, industrial and cultural activities.

Geography
At 514,000 km Pontesi is the Terra's 49th largest country in land mass, whilst it is the world's 46th largest country in terms of population. It is comparable in population to country in the planet earth like Indonesia, and is similar in land size to Thailand; it is just over twice the size of the entire United Kingdom, and 1.4 times the size of Germany.

Pontesi is home to several distinct geographic regions, partly corresponding to the provincial groups. The north of the country is mountainous. The centre of the country is dominated by the predominantly flat Xanduley river valley.

The north and northwest have a temperate climate. In the south-east a Mediterranean climate prevails. In the west have a Savanna climate.

Ethnicity
The Pontesian Dynastic Empire people are diverse. The Pontesian, at the northern tip of Majatra, and across the staits from Artania, has considerable Majatran and Artanian populations. However, the largest group by far are the Pontesians, who are based around an ethnicity native to the area, but have also absorbed large populations of the Majatran and Artanian tribes who settled in what is now Pontesi. Other ethnic groups, most notably recent Seleyan immigrants form another group within Pontesi.


 * Pontesians: 55%
 * Majatrans: 22%
 * Artanians: 12%
 * Mixed: 5%
 * Other (largely Seleyan): 6%

A large proportion of the Artanians within Pontesi are the Duntrekkers, locally known as Makaaners. The Makaaners have retained their traditional Dundorfian way of life and culture, and thus are noticable outsiders within Pontesi, and the general Artanian community. A few Artanians and Majatrans are believed to have put themselves down as Pontesians in the 2161 census, very slightly complicating what is meant by the term Artanian.

Religion
Religion the Pontesian Dynastic Empire is diverse. However it is dominated by large Christian and Jewish communities. The country was almost wholly Christian until the revolution in 3102 in Beiteyenu which oversaw the deposition of the Monarchy. With this a large exodus of Royalist and anti-Socialist Jews fled the country and settled in Pontesi. Islam is predominant amongst Majatrans.


 * Christian: 47%
 * Jewish: 38%
 * Muslim: 7%
 * Buddhist/Hindu/Other: 5%
 * None/No Answer: 3%

Education
Education is compulsory in Pontesi, but home schooling is permitted. There is a public education system alongside private schools. A few famous private schools are St. Hewlett Academy, Fort Roger Military Academy, and the International School of Lerna.

Economy

 * See Economy of Pontesi

Pontesi is an emerging economy. The currency is the Pontesi (or PON) and its GDP is 2,724,295,839,999 PON with 30% government and 11% investment. Substantial industries include Arms Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical, and Raw Materials, while tourism contributes about 5% to Pontesi's GDP.

Pontesi uses the metric system but traditional units of measurement and imperial measure (feet, inches) are still much in use, particularly for agriculture and building materials.

Early History
The earliest detailed history of Pontesi begins around the year 400 B.E. when Jelbic tribes, with some Artanian influences, moved into the region. This period was characterized by small bands of hunter-gatherers living in small huts on the mountain ranges. There is little proof that these tribes ever worked as an united society or were ethnically or culturally homogeneous, and a large level of intermixing with Majatran and romance peoples from over the sea is suspected.

Surviving a number of incursions from Queranz Barmenia, Hosianism became the predominant religion of Pontesi in the late 11:th century, replacing shamanism and other indigenous belief systems. The missionaries who would for the Pontesian priesthood hailed from a vide range of Churches, but it is generally reorganized that the Terran Patraichal Church was the largest and most influential of the sects, despite close proximity to Selucia.

For most of it's history, what is now Pontesi was made up by several independent or semi-independent city-states or loose confederations or hegemonies of local tribes or tyrannies. The first man to claim the title “Emperor” (Jezkn) was Lvigh I of Lerna, who in 1472 A.E., united all of Xanduley, Abure, Ikegaru and Murdhild into one single Pontesi (Pnte) Realm (Kns). Murdhild was left for the Brmek Caliphate, which the new state was periodically on good terms with. Lvigh I also carried through the Pontesian Reformation. All Hosian Churches, no matter their allegiance, were confiscated by the crown and the Emperor declared the Supreme Patriarch in the Realm of Pontesi, with his archbishop ruling the ecclesiastic matters in his stead. Old temples, shrines and monuments were looted, a large part of the priesthood massacred and thousand civilians burned at the stake for failing to accomply. This marked the beginning of the Bishopal Church of Pontesi.

Lvigh's heirs would turn their eyes on the rich Yeudi kingdom of Beiteynu at the Realm's western border. By June 1493, self-styled “crusaders” reached Yishalem and proceeded to burn the city to the ground. Yeudi population in the area were routinely massacred and large parts of the nation annexed. For most part of the 16th Century, Pontesi would dominate most of Beiteynu and continue to mistreat it's native citizens. Yeudi were treated as second glass people and never given Pontesian citizenship, thus making them effectively stateless. They were forced into the far west of the nation and guarded by a large brick wall and a system of military barracks.

However, in 1701 A.E., an enormous earthquake hit the city of Fruskila destroying many Pontesian settlements and killing hundreds of thousands of Pntek colonists. Widespread rumours of this being a punishment from God for the mistreatment of his people, resulted the entirety of Beiteynu to be cursed by the Church, and most Pontesian settlers made a quick return back east. This inevitably resulted in almost no existent governance of Beiteynu and the decline of Pontesian controll of the area.

In 1966, the local tribes rebeled against the Pntek oppressor. With the government no longer see the profit from control over Beitenyu, the Empire chose to renounce all claims on the territory and withdraw the few armies left. The Empire itself came to an end in 1987, when the reign of Emperor Grzkai IV “the kinslayer”, known for having ordered the execution of his own mother and adoptive brother, was deposed my the Imperial army. He would later be publicly executed at the central square of Lerna.

The Realm of Pontesi
What followed was the Realm of Pontesi, a shaky hybrid government, somethimes described as a “republican dictatorship” or “bureaucratic despotism”. The country was ruled by ideologues venturing far into the political schools of neoliberalism and nationalism. During these days, the Pntek Fascist (Staté) movement was born, though it was initially split between members who wanted to restore the Empire and those who preferred the Realm to remain a technocratic state.

Eventually, the Realm would transfrorm into the First Pontesian Commonwealth, a monarchistic state under the influence of the Axis and the International Monarchist League. In 2256, as chaos broke out in Beiteynu, the former Commonwealth government used grounds of ethnic nationalism, claiming Jelbic-speaking individuals in Beiteynu to be in danger because of religious nationalist movements such as the Yeudi People's Front.

The Commonwealth government held an emergency meeting and authorised intervention in Beiteynu. The army crossed the border into Tadraki and Endlid through the Abure-Tadraki, welcomed by the Pntek minority in the area, but committing atrocities towards those of other “blood”. Within weeks, the Commonwealth Government had control of the Tadraki/Endlid region from the severely weakened Beiteynu government.



The conflict came to an end after the Pontesian Military Forces withdrew from the area due to heavy losses, taking with them almost the entire Pntek minority, considering them property of the state though they were not even citizens of Pontesi.

The Dynastic Empire
In 2461, after having secured the support of the Democratic Party that dominated Pontesian politics during the era, a rich bourgeois family known as the Belknaps took power by force and Alexander Belknap crowned himself emperor of Pontesi. Many thought that the return of an Emperor meant the return of stability and security, but for many liberals who had supported the return of the Empire, those hopes would turn to dust. The Belknaps made themselves rich by subcontracting the operation of the entire police force to the Heimdall Global Security Company, in which the family owned the majority of shares.

Under the pretext of protecting the natives from slavery, the Belknap Dynasty would colonize Gaduridos under the auspices of the Imperial East Terra Company. The natives were stripped of their democratic rights and had to work for their masters commercial enterprise, the fruit of their labour being sent away to fed the Pontesian war machine and to finance several other colonialist projects.

The People's Democratic Republic
In the mid 32:th century A.E. it had became apparent that a large share of the population was disillusioned with the leadership of the Belknap family and the monarch's constant involvement in political affairs. Those demanding reform organized themselves into the Alliance of Democratic Forces, and organized (illegal) demonstrations, strikes and road blocks, with thousands of dead and wounded as a result

After decades of turmoil and the country being close to a state of bankruptcy, the police and the military turned their backs on their masters. The forces of law watched as the masses stormed the Imperial Palace in Lerna, killing a number of (but not everyone) Belknap fmaily members, and declaring the Pontesi Dynastic Empire replaced by the People's Democratic Republic of Pontesi.

The Pontesi Hegemony
The party responsible for the dissolution of the Pontesian Dynastic Empire, the Alliance of Democratic Forces, collapsed during the year 3186. The Pontesi people were left in an anarchic state, without government and order to protect their interests. Unable to secure re-establishment of the once great Empire, the Pontesi people turned to the Medrisite-Associated Revisionist Council, a political group established 200 years during the vaining years of the Empire's glory. Hitherto, the M.A.R.C. itself fell into anonymity, as it had lost direction during the crisis of 3001 where a civil struggle occurred in the M.A.R.C. home province of Xanduley. However, R.M. Mederagaar, direct descent of found Medris Mederagaar, took command following the collapse of the People's Democratic Republic. Ousting the remnants of the Alliance of Democratic Forces, R.M. Mederagaar declared a new era of Pontesi dominance led by the familiar banner of the ancient Empire, but with a new focus and name.

Advent of the Selucian Crusaders
The Mederagaars established themselves as Director Generals of the country, and ruled the country as their family enterprise. Among other things, they established the Medrengaard Experimental City and Habitation Occupation Zone, a place for societal engineering where people were to live and be exposed to societal experiments in exchange for a number of benefits.

The M.A.R.C:s nationalistic and ultra-neoliberal policies were not well received by everyone, and Pontesi didn't recover form it's status as one of the poorest nations on the continent. Once again, popular unrest was on the rise, as many did not see the justice in letting the Mederagaard dynasty rule over the country as if their lives were parts of their enterprise. The country would be monumentally change by the advent of Lord Alamar Xarfaxis and his Crimson Crusade, seeking refugee in Pontesi, risking severe punishment for treason after having sent Selucian submarines to aid the Unholy Emperor Medivh Evil of Davostan against an ATR-aligned liberal uprising, without consulting the Senate.

Xarfaxis believed that most Pontesians were actually Selucians, who had been forced to adopt a Jelbic culture by Lvigh I's conquering armies. However, a programme of social justice, such as promises of free healthcare, safety at work and free medicine was probably what led many non-Selucians to chose the Crusade over the neoliberal policies of the M.A.R.C. and their neoliberal policies.

After rashly implementing a broad range of reforms, and declaring the Pontesian nation oficcilaly abolished and replaced by the Union of Imperial Crusader Kingdoms, a group of Pntek nationalists loyal to the M.A.R.C. broke into the old parliament building in Lerna (the capital had been moved to the city of Dawnstar, called Oxminister in Pntek tongue) and declared the Hegemony restored. The government of the Union responded by sending an infantry regiment, reinforced with light tanks, to shell at the thousand years old parliament building. It was these actions that sparkled the first Pontesian Civil War.

Ratified Treaties

 * The Law of the Sea, June 2164
 * TOA (Terran Olympic Association), July 2183
 * Mordusian Neutrality Act, October 2471
 * The Terran FIFA World Cup, August 2704
 * International Committee of the Red Cross, August 2704
 * International Chess Association (ICA), 2706
 * The International Monarchist League, October 2713
 * Keymon Neutrality Agreement, October 2713
 * Global Emancipation Treaty, October 2713
 * Declaration of the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons, June 2780
 * Declaration of the Rights of Disabled Persons, June 2780
 * Majatran Free Trade Agreement, April 2817
 * Pontesi-Rildanor Fellowship Treaty, January 2863
 * Keymon-Pontesi Cooperation and Free Trade Agreement, January 2863
 * Northern Area Treaty Organization, March 2863
 * Imperial East Terra Company Charter, March 2863
 * Greater Hulstria Free Trade Agreement, March 2863
 * Convention on the Humane Treatment of Prisoners of War, March 2863
 * Saridan Neutrality Agreement, February 2863
 * Recognition of the Republic of New Englia, February 2863
 * The Unkassa Accord, July 2875
 * International Free Trade Agreement, July 2875
 * League of Anti-Slavery Nations, July 2875
 * Recognition of the Commonwealth of Yishelem and Beiteynu, September 2895

Notable Party List

 * One Nation Conservative Party
 * Democrat Party
 * Fight For Your Right To Party
 * Majatran National Resistance Committees
 * Cynical Bastardry Party
 * Friedrich Hayek Party
 * Phalanx Party
 * T.H.E.M.
 * Pontesi People's Party
 * Green Socialist Party
 * Labour Party of Pontesi
 * Liberal Party of Pontesi
 * Medrisite-Associated Revisionist Council
 * Pontesi Socialistic National Unity Party

August Parliament of the Cedar Throne
The August Parliament of the Cedar Throne consist of 200 seats. Each bill require 1/2 vote of total vote and 2/3 vote in order to amendment the constitution. The member of parliament is selected by voting from each Regions.

Military of Pontesi
The Empire army consisted of 3 main forces of Army, Navy, and Air Force with more than 715,000 troops in service according to Rildanor Accord of International Conflict Regulation. The chain of command is from the Empress, Grand Vizier-General, Secretary of State for Defence, and at last Coast Guard, Army, Air Force, and Navy Commander. The army main purpose is to fight the enemy of the state. the Commonwealth also possesses Nuclear, Biological and Chemical weapon in order to protect themselves from their enemy.

Coast Guard Commander: Admiral Phillip Caine

Army Commander: General Ronald Johnson

Navy Commander: Admiral Aran Harris

Air Force Commander: General Reynard Stuart

Police Chief Commander: Police Commissioner Norton Alrick

National Security Council of the Pontesi Hegemony (NSCPH)
National Security Council of Cedar Tree consisted of 10 Members:

This council have full executive power to order any military, police, or government official in case of state of emergency or in order to protect peace and security in Pontesi. This council can temporary declared law active or inactive without passing the parliament discussion.
 * 1) Lord High Protector (Head of Council by position)
 * 2) Lord Commander
 * 3) Minister for Defence
 * 4) Minister for Internal Affair
 * 5) Coast Guard Commander
 * 6) Army Commander
 * 7) Navy Commander
 * 8) Air Force Commander
 * 9) Police Chief Commander
 * 10) Head of Intelligence Agency