Isles of Caputia

Region of the Isles of Caputia Région de las Islas de Caputia Región de Islas Caputia
Region of  Nouvelle Alexandrie
Flag Coat of arms
Motto	Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem (She seeks with the sword a quiet peace under liberty)
The Isles of Caputia
Geography
Status	Region
Capital	Gotfriedplatz
Largest city	Gotfriedplatz
Other cities	Port Karsten, Velez, Ulrichstadt, Melusina, Port Tablot
Demographics
Population (1748 AN)	35,490,005
Demonym	Islander
Ethnic groups	Kydrian Hammish Caputian
Languages	Common Tongue, Kydrian, Alexandrian, Praeta, Haifan
Religion	Melusinian Faith (majority)
Government
Governor	Heinrich von Staufen
• Party	Federal Humanist Party
Legislature	Congress of the Isles
Regional court	Seated at Velez
Federal representation	• Federal Assembly: 59 (as of 1748 AN)
Economy
GDP (1757 AN)	NAX€4.4 trillion (est.)
• Per capita	NAX€115,000 (est.)
HDI (1757 AN)	0.905 (Very High)
Currency	New Alexandrian écu (NAX€)
Main industries	Finance Fishing Shipping
History & Other
Established	1686 AN
Admitted to Federation	1687 AN
Preceded by	Region of the Isles, Commonwealth of Hamland
Abbreviation	ICA

The Isles of Caputia are a Region of Nouvelle Alexandrie, comprising an archipelago in the Captive Sea off western Keltia and organized into four states. The regional capital and largest city is Gotfriedplatz.

The archipelago has never had a single founding people. Under the Commonwealth of Hamland it formed the Region of the Isles, itself a merger of territories with separate histories and languages, and the Commonwealth's own account of the region describes it as bound by a shared dependence on the sea.

The Isles passed to New Alexandrian sovereignty in the seventeenth century, when the Caputian Resettlement Authority was chartered to resettle the Caputian diaspora dispersed by the White Plague, the epidemic that had destroyed the Keltian kingdom of Caputia. The archipelago was formally integrated as a Region the following year. As of 1758 AN the region holds the Shrine of the Seas at Gotfriedplatz, a principal sanctuary of the Melusinian Faith, and the Keltian Directorate of the ESB Group.

Etymology

The region takes the second half of its name from Caputia, the Keltian kingdom of which the archipelago was a constituent state before that kingdom's destruction by the White Plague, and from the Caputian diaspora resettled there under New Alexandrian authority. The kingdom had in turn taken its name from the ancient nation of Caput Popularis, a usage revived during the Hammish Civil War to set the rebel cause apart from the wartime authorities. The regional name postdates the islands themselves: under the Commonwealth of Hamland they formed the Region of the Isles, and before that they carried the separate names of the territories that composed them.

The Germanic placenames that dominate the modern map, among them Gotfriedplatz, Ulrichstadt, and Port Karsten, descend from Kydros, the Hammish name for the Germanic-settled islands, and belong to the same naming layer that runs through the old Hammish mainland in Schönland, Moörland, Hoenland, and Kirnland. Few of these names carry a recorded gloss of their own. Gotfriedplatz stands on Gotfried Insel, the principal island, and Ulrichstadt shares its name with the comital title of Johann Ulrich, first Count of Ulrichstadt.

Not every name on the map is Kydrian. Melusina, in the state of Salzstein, is named for the goddess Melusine and belongs to the Melusinian settlement of the islands, while the name of Salzstein itself has no Kydrian root. The Liberty Islands, formerly the Virgin Islands of Nova England, were renamed under the Commonwealth, their Hammish name Saorsa Eileean marking their integration into Hamland.

History

The history of the Isles is one of assembly. Four territories with separate origins were merged under the Commonwealth of Hamland into a single Region of the Isles, which passed intact into the Kingdom of Caputia as a state in its own right and, after that kingdom fell to the White Plague, to Nouvelle Alexandrie, where the Caputian diaspora was resettled across the archipelago.

Pre-Hammish territories

The four territories had separate histories before the Commonwealth merged them. Taeland, one of the oldest of the Hammish possessions in the archipelago, had been the Nova English colony of Churchill. After its annexation it developed a distinct identity, and it competes as its own country in football despite never having been sovereign. The Iridian Islands were the remnant of Iridia and passed briefly under Ocian control before Hamland took the whole region; their principal settlement was Gotfriedplatz. Hamland took the Virgin Islands only after Nova England collapsed, renaming them the Liberty Islands, Hammish Saorsa Eileean. Port Tablot, the oldest Hammish territory in the archipelago, was founded as a military base astride the island and an adjacent peninsula, and grew into the Commonwealth's principal naval station in the region.

Region of the Isles

Under the Commonwealth the four territories formed a single region, administered from Ersoy in Taeland with Gotfriedplatz as its financial capital. Neither Ersoy nor the wider Taeland island lies within the modern region. The regional arms, which had been the personal arms of the Lord of the Isles, carried the anchor of the old kingdom with the Griffon of Iridia and the Fish of Tae; the region's emblems were the fish and the griffon.

The region's legislature was the House of the Sealords, seated at Ersoy, whose name preserves the pre-democratic oligarchy of Sea Lords from an era when much of Taeland's wealth came from piracy. In its later form it seated 201 members from the Iridian lands, Kydros, and the Liberty Islands, the chamber's own three constituencies, and legislated alongside the Lord of the Isles.

Taeland was the least settled of the four territories. Communist risings recurred from the civil war that followed its annexation, and each period of unrest was answered by a further grant of autonomy to the territory's own government.

Caputian statehood

The archipelago was never part of the State of Hamland proper; it stood as a peer region with its own legislature, and it carried that separateness into the Kingdom of Caputia, where it was a state in its own right, with its capital at Port Tablot and a recorded population of 5,100,950 at the census of 1657 AN. Caputian rule ended with the kingdom itself, destroyed by the White Plague.

Resettlement and admission to the Federation

The Caputian Resettlement Authority was chartered in 1686 AN to carry out the Captive Sea Expansion, the New Alexandrian settlement of the archipelago, and to resettle the Caputian diaspora scattered by the plague, with its headquarters at Gotfriedplatz. The archipelago entered New Alexandrian sovereignty the following year as a Region of the Federation of Alduria and the Wechua Nation, and the office of Regional Governor was established on admission.

Between 1686 AN and its dissolution in 1698 AN the Authority processed approximately 180,000 people through its registry and built the ports at Port Tablot, Port Karsten, and Velez. Its registry was directed by Matthias Brenneis, 1st Baron of Salzstein. The resettlement made the Caputian diaspora the largest single component of the island population.

Geography

The Isles of Caputia are an archipelago in the Captive Sea, off mainland western Keltia and apart from the Skerry Isles. The islands are organized into four states. Karsten Sound, spanned by the region's principal fixed link, separates the state of Gotfriedland from that of Karsten. The regional capital, Gotfriedplatz, stands on the west coast of Gotfried Insel, the principal island, where much of the built city lies below sea level.

Administrative divisions

The Isles of Caputia are divided into four states, each subdivided into municipalities named for their seat, which is usually the largest urban center. Gotfriedplatz is further subdivided into Wards.

Name of State	Capital	Population	Other cities
Gotfriedland and Karsten	Gotfriedplatz	15,870,000	Port Karsten, Seydlitz
Salzstein	Velez	10,180,000	Melusina
Ulrichstadt	Ulrichstadt	8,150,000
Tablot Island	Port Tablot	1,290,005

The four states together hold the region's 1748 AN federal-census population of 35,490,005.

The modern states do not correspond to the territories the region was assembled from. Three of the four carry Kydrian names, and between them hold the region's principal Kydrian cities; Salzstein, whose name alone has no Kydrian root, holds the Melusinian settlement of the islands.

Politics

The Isles of Caputia are one of the thirteen Regions of the Federation of Nouvelle Alexandrie, the top level of a territorial order that descends from Regions through States and Special Cities to municipalities. Under the shared-sovereignty federalism of the Proclamation of Punta Santiago, the region holds jurisdiction over its own territory alongside the federal government, and its residents are citizens of both the Federation and the region. Its government follows the common regional pattern set by the Regional and Local Government Organization Act, 1699: an elected Regional Governor at its head, a unicameral Congress of the Isles whose members sit as Deputies, and a regional court that exercises judicial authority within the region.

Government officials

The Regional Governor is elected at large by the voters of the region and serves a five-year term under the Regional and Local Government Organization Act, which repealed the Local Government Act, 1694 and its six-year term. The office was established on the region's admission to the Federation.

As of 1758 AN the Regional Governor is Heinrich von Staufen of the Federal Humanist Party, who won the 1749 gubernatorial election with 72 percent of the vote.

Among the region's earlier governors was Gerhardt Eugen Seydlitz, who held the office from 1708 AN to 1713 AN and was created first Duke of Gotfriedplatz in 1718 AN. Seydlitz had been Prime Minister of Caputia from 1665 AN to 1668 AN and Premier of Nouvelle Alexandrie from 1698 AN to 1703 AN before taking the governorship. He died on 13.XI.1740 AN.

Later holders of the office include Christian Hartmann of the Federal Humanist Party, governor from 1729 AN to 1734 AN, who lost re-election to Lewis Armand du Plessis of the Federal Consensus Party. Du Plessis held the governorship from 1734 AN to 1739 AN, years in which his party also held the federal government, and was succeeded by Caroline Bouvier of the Federal Humanist Party, elected in 1739 AN and returned in 1744 AN with 80 percent of the vote, who died in office shortly before the election of 1749 AN.

Governance

The regional legislature is the Congress of the Isles, a unicameral body whose members sit as Deputies. Elected at large, regional legislatures serve five-year terms under the Regional and Local Government Organization Act, 1699, which raised the term from the three years first set by the Local Government Act, 1694.

The Regional and Local Government Organization Act gives regional legislatures the power to charter Special City governments and to create municipalities, burghs, and other localities, provided that local boundaries are set in consultation with residents and approved by simple majority in plebiscite or referendum. The same Act grants the legislature power to review legislation adopted by its localities and to declare it invalid where it conflicts with law, and to dissolve localities it has created on the same referendum condition.

Below the regional level, the Local Government Act instituted Civic Assemblies and Youth Assemblies in every city, town, and burgh, deliberative bodies that meet monthly to discuss community affairs, to adopt resolutions, and to receive petitions for redress of grievances. The Civic Assemblies are open to residents of at least six months' standing aged twenty-one or over, the Youth Assemblies to those aged fifteen to twenty.

Law

Judicial authority within the region rests with its regional court, one of the regional courts that form the middle tier of the federal judiciary, between the local and municipal courts below and the High Court of Justice of Nouvelle Alexandrie at Cárdenas above. A Regional Court was first created for the region by the Local Government Act, 1694, and the Regional and Local Government Organization Act, 1699 that replaced that Act placed the court's establishment with the regional legislature. Its judges are appointed by the King on the recommendation of the Regional Governor and the resident practitioners of the legal profession, and must be members of the Bar who have practiced for seven consecutive years before their appointment.

The regional court is the primary appellate body for cases arising in the local and municipal courts of the Isles, and holds original jurisdiction over serious criminal offenses and civil disputes of significant value, within the civil-law system that Nouvelle Alexandrie inherited from its Aldurian, Wechua, and Alexandrian traditions. The court sits at Velez, where in 1733 AN Marisol Buccho brought the divorce suit that arose from the Buccho Affair. Among the region's principal legal institutions is the Caputian Jurisprudence Alliance, a partnership of more than one hundred and fifty lawyers with offices at Gotfriedplatz, Velez, and Port Tablot.

Economy

Finance is the mainstay of the island economy, centered on Gotfriedplatz and resting on a banking tradition older than the Federation. Fishing is pursued throughout the archipelago, and the region's position on the Captive Sea has long carried a shipping trade. The common currency of the Federation, the New Alexandrian écu, circulates in the region as it does across Nouvelle Alexandrie, and the Keltian Directorate of the ESB Group, a major concern of the region, has its offices at Seydlitz.

Finance

Gotfriedplatz has been the financial center of the archipelago since the Hammish period, when gold mined from the hills around the city underwrote the growth of a banking industry there and carried it into the principal share index of the Commonwealth. Tablot Gold, seated in the city, grew into the largest gold exporter of Hamland, and the mines were reckoned a national asset and garrisoned as one. The city remains the region's commercial capital and is among the most populous in the Federation.

The Keltian Directorate of the ESB Group is seated in the region, its continental headquarters having been redomiciled to the ESB residency at Seydlitz by a decision of the Board of Directors taken at Astérapolis on 14.IV.1735 AN.

Fishing

Fishing is among the mainstays of the island economy, as it has been since the Hammish period, when the Region of the Isles was known for its fisheries alongside its gold. The Federation is one of the leading fishing producers of Micras, with the sixth largest fishing fleet, and its national catch of sardines, cod, mackerel, tuna, mussels, and cephalopods is drawn in significant part from the archipelago; the industry is counted as particularly important to the regional economies of the Isles of Caputia and the Islas de la Libertad. Gotfriedplatz began as a port and fishing community, and its mussel production is known well beyond the region. Fishing in the region is conducted under the sustainable-catch and aquaculture standards adopted across the Federation from 1700 AN.

Transport

The Isles of Caputia Belt Bridge, officially the Elizabeth I Bridge, is the principal fixed link in the region. Two parallel bridges cross Karsten Sound over a total length of 12.7 kilometers, carrying road traffic and a regional data cable between Valheld in Gotfriedland and Schenenwalt in Karsten; a bascule span 515 meters long and 185 meters high gives 38 meters of clearance to shipping.

The crossing was first proposed in a memorandum of 1710 AN between the Congress of the Isles and Governor Seydlitz, but was not funded until 1729 AN, under the National Infrastructure Plan of President Marissa Santini. Construction ran from III.1730 AN to VI.1734 AN, and the bridge opened to traffic on 1.VIII.1734 AN with King Sinchi Roca presiding. The Schenenwalt-Valheld and Prestkost-Dreigen ferries it replaced continue to operate at much reduced traffic, and an artificial reef was established at the bascule piers.

The ports at Port Tablot, Port Karsten, and Velez were built by the Caputian Resettlement Authority during the resettlement.

The same National Infrastructure Plan funded the Isles of Caputia Railway, a standard-gauge main line of double and electrified track laid from Gotfriedplatz through Ulrichstadt and Velez to Seydlitz, with a depot at Velez, at a cost of NAX€1.5 billion.

Demographics

The Isles of Caputia have no majority people. At the federal census of 1748 AN the region recorded a population of 35,490,005, the sixth largest among the Regions of the Federation, drawn from three principal communities: the Kydrians of the old Iridian islands, whose language and placenames dominate the map; the Hammish, concentrated in the older territory of Port Tablot; and the Caputian diaspora resettled from 1686 AN, which forms the largest single component. Each of the four states carries a different share of these populations, and the region returns fifty-nine Deputies to the Federal Assembly, the sixth largest regional delegation in the Federation.

Ethnic groups

The Kydrians take their name and their Germanic speech from the old Iridian islands at the heart of the region, and the Hammish are most numerous in Port Tablot, the most ethnically Hammish part of the region under the Commonwealth. The Caputian diaspora, resettled from 1686 AN and the largest single community of the islands, belongs to a people that the federal census of 1718 AN counted at more than sixty-three million across Nouvelle Alexandrie, the second largest of the Federation's peoples after the Alexandrians.

Language

Kydrian is the Germanic language of the islands and the source of the region's dominant toponymy. It is related to the other Germanic tongues of Micras but developed separately in the archipelago.

The Common Tongue is used throughout the region for administration and commerce. Alexandrian, Praeta, and Haifan are also spoken, the last two chiefly in diaspora communities.

Major cities

• Gotfriedplatz (Gotfriedland and Karsten), the regional capital and largest city: 243,723 inhabitants at the count of 1710 AN, estimated at some 3,600,000 as of 1758 AN; founded about 1510 AN as the principal settlement of the Iridian Islands.
• Port Karsten (Gotfriedland and Karsten), the second city of the region and seat of Port Karsten University: estimated at some 2,100,000; founded about 1620 AN, its harbor rebuilt by the Caputian Resettlement Authority during the resettlement.
• Velez (Salzstein), the state capital and seat of the regional court: estimated at some 1,150,000; built as a resettlement port from about 1688 AN.
• Ulrichstadt (Ulrichstadt), the state capital: estimated at some 980,000; founded about 1590 AN, and later attached to the comital title held by Johann Ulrich.
• Seydlitz (Gotfriedland and Karsten), seat of the Keltian Directorate of the ESB Group: estimated at some 540,000; founded about 1719 AN and named for the first Duke of Gotfriedplatz.
• Melusina (Salzstein): estimated at some 430,000; settled from about 1691 AN by Melusinian colonists and named for the goddess Melusine.
• Port Tablot (Tablot Island), the state capital and oldest Hammish foundation in the archipelago: estimated at some 720,000; established about 1470 AN as a military base.

Religion

The Melusinian Faith is the principal religion of the Isles of Caputia, whose people are drawn largely from the Caputian diaspora, and the region holds one of the faith's great shrines. At the regional capital of Gotfriedplatz stands the Shrine of the Seas, a major Melusinian sanctuary and a place of pilgrimage for the faithful of Nouvelle Alexandrie and beyond. The Melusinian character of the islands is marked in their settlement as well, among them the city of Melusina in Salzstein, named for the goddess.

The faith venerated in the Isles descends, as across the wider Caputian diaspora, from the historical Church of Caputia, and its adherents worship the goddess Melusine, the Cow of the Sea, the sister and counterpart of Bous in the Bovic tradition. Its living institutions are led from the neighboring Region of New Caputia, where the Matriarch of New Zalae resides at the city of St. Melusine.

Education

Education in the Isles follows the federal pattern, under which the federal government sets national standards while the regional government administers schooling; instruction is compulsory from the age of five, and the whole is overseen by the federal Department of Education, Sports, and Culture.

The region has two universities, both of them centers of maritime study befitting an island economy. Port Karsten University, the older, was founded in 1698 AN by the Department together with the Congress of the Isles; its faculties include one of Maritime Sciences, and it was the pre-eminent university of the Isles until the founding of its rival. The University of the Isles was established at Gotfriedplatz in 1733 AN, with auxiliary campuses at Ulrichstadt and Velez, and grew into the largest university in the region.

Culture

The region carries a set of traditional emblems inherited from the Commonwealth period, among them roasted bream, Islander gin, and the oak, together with the old regional motto Reget Nos in Maribus and the anthem Ode to the Seas. Its civil motto, Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, rendered "she seeks with the sword a quiet peace under liberty," is retained from its Caputian statehood. The architecture of Gotfriedplatz derives from the Genevan style of Alduria, a Caputian-era inheritance layered over the Kydrian character of the city's name.

Association football has a long history in the islands, from the Hammish-era clubs of Kydros to the modern Port Karsten Kings of the FNAF Ligue 1; Taeland, though it was never a sovereign state, competes as a country of its own in the sport.

The Melusinian Faith shapes much of the region's public culture. The Shrine of the Seas at Gotfriedplatz is one of the faith's chief sanctuaries and a place of pilgrimage, drawing the faithful of the wider Caputian diaspora to the regional capital, and the calendar of Melusinian feasts, chief among them the Day of Melusine and the high season of Herdtide, is kept across the islands. At Gotfriedplatz the Memorial Gardens, endowed by the House of Brenneis, preserve the remembrance of the White Plague and the diaspora it scattered.

See also

• Caputian diaspora
• Isles of Caputia (Southern Territories) Admission Act, 1758
• Isles of Caputia Belt Bridge
• New Caputia
• Region of the Isles
• Regional Governor of the Isles of Caputia

References

Political divisions of Caputia
States: Anglia & Israat | Bridgemoor | Haifa | Hamland | Isles of Caputia | Monovia | Morovian-Patrovia | Northpass | San Luis | San Pedro | Wakefield Royal District: Zalae Dependencies: Elizabeth Isle | Santa Melusina