Waffel Plains
| Chartered Province of Waffel Plains | |||
| |||
| Motto: | |||
| |||
| Map versions | 16.6.6 - present | ||
| Capital | Paine City | ||
| Largest city | Ayreon's Bay, Luix-Satyria | ||
| Official language(s) | Natspeak | ||
| Official religion(s) | n/a | ||
| Demonym | Waffelian | ||
| - Adjective | Waffelian | ||
| Government | Corporatocracy | ||
| - {{{headofstatetitle}}} | {{{headofstate}}} | ||
| - Governor | Bernard Kayyk | ||
| - Legislature | Board of Coordinators | ||
| Establishment | Grunil 23, 1678 | ||
| - Ranked | {{{agerank}}} | ||
| Area | |||
| Population | 2,401,091 | ||
| Abbreviation | WAF/WP | ||
The Chartered Province of Waffel Plains is a Natopian demesne. It was explored and settled by the Golden Sunset Expedition. It is a "chartered province" as it is governed by the charter of the Saint Andre Trading Company and the colonial charter in the Caprine Code. It was elevated from colony to province when briefly joined to Mar Sara as part of New Natopia.
The Need for a Colony
The settlement of Waffel Plains was first suggested around the time when the island of Mar Sara was transferred to Natopia from Shireroth in exchange for Leng. Prior to Natopian control over Mar Sara, the small demesnes of the Two Martyrs was Natopia's only possession in the area. Following the transfer of Leng, the territorial policy of Natopia began to favor consolidation. After the Kalirion Fracture and Elwynn independence, soon Normark began to agitate for a transfer to Elwynnese sovereignty. Natopia's new preference for consolidation was, in large part, thanks to its reliance and support of the Raspur Pact which allowed Natopia to use allied bases and ports instead of maintaining a globe-spanning empire that stretched logistical support to the limit.
With resources freed up following Normark's transfer to Elwynn, the Natopian government chartered SATCo to survey and settle the nearest open land: the eastern shore of Cibola. The presence of Mar Sara and Two Martyrs made Cibola the next logical step for future territorial expansion and the unofficial position of Natopia's government has been to focus all future development on Cibola. The Golden Sunset Expedition formally embarked in early 1678 and settled the first towns of Waffel Plains in late 1678.
First Five Years
From 1678 to 1683 the colony grew considerably. Under the expert administration of Governor Bernard Kayyk and a team of SATCo coordinators, advisors, and engineers, the various industries of the colony flourished. Population increased as the agriculture, mining, and trade industries grew. Nearly all aspects of life in the colony were controlled, or monitored, by the Company.
Relations with Goetia
The close proximity of the Community of Goetia was an initial concern for the surveyors. Aside from a few brief skirmishes, relations between the colony and the demon-worshipers was eventually stabilized with a trade agreement. SATCo exports all manner of goods, food, and manufactured items to Goetia and imports raw marble and gold from the Gateway and Gladius groups via Gathering Place.
In interests of maintaining an economic hegemony over the anarchist biker demonists, SATCo has used Waffel Plains as a way to control the Goetic community. A major project between Goetia and SATCo, the Gateway Western Expressway has secured a degree of compliance from the Goetics for several years at minimum and grants access to the stone and marble quarries that Natopia needs.
There is a highway between Gathering Place, Navigators, and Luix-Satyria that is only accessible to Goetics. By agreement, all Natopian roads must go over or tunnel under the Goetic highway. The ownership of the highway and land is legally ambiguous with some lawyers in Paine City suggesting Natopia owns the land itself, and the Goetics own the highway sitting on top of the land, while the Community of Goetia suggests these highways are sovereign territory of Goetia. So far no serious disagreements have arisen.
In 1697, the highway connections to the former Goetic commune of Navigators CF were severed when the Cakari established a colony on Cibola. A fortified border was established around the enclave to ensure the treacherous Cakari remained in their territory. A small task force of the Natopian Navy was activated and assigned to Luix-Satyria to observe the Vanic colony and patrol the area with orders to shoot on sight any vessels that stray into Natopia's internationally recognized waters. Low-flying air patrols were established between Luix-Satyria and Ayreon's Bay, with supersonic flyovers skirting just inside Natopian airspace at the border at random times on random nights.
Population Growth
Initial counts of the colony's population estimated that 2.4 million residents had settled in the colony during the first 2 years. According to the colony's charter issued by the Frenzy, the Board of Coordinators must not only prove population growth and sustainability, but also promote diversity among the colony's residents. As a result, immigration ratios have been implemented on Natopian demesnes and Raspur-allied nations to prevent a monoculture from developing in the colony. Of the total applicants for residency over each 30 day period, no more than 10% of total applicants can be admitted from the same sub-national unit.
Projections estimate that by 1683, the population of Waffel Plains will be about 9.6 million. The Board of Coordinators has always requested the Frenzy charter more cities or fast-track the colony to be merged into the Demesnes of Mar Sara-Asara to form a single regional Cibolan demesne that can handle its own affairs without permission from the Frenzy.
Production Zones
Under the colony's charter, the territory of the colony is divided into three Production Zones, each headquartered in a city with a Coordinator to govern the zone.
Zone 1
Production Zone #1 is located in the north, and headquartered in the colonial seat: Paine City. It manages agriculture, plans crops cycling, exports foodstuffs, and regulates food distribution to the rest of the colony.
Zone 2
Production Zone #2 is located in the middle, headquartered in Ayreon's Bay. It is primarily focused on constructing and managing the silver mines further inland. The port of Ayreon's Bay is one of the most secure ports on the eastern seaboard of Cibola due to the high volume of silver exported daily.
Zone 3
Production Zone #3 is located in the south and headquartered in the twin cities of Luix-Satyria. The governments of the two cities meet in joint council sessions each month and share several public utilities, a school district, public library system, and a combined tax base provides for other shared amenities. Luix is smaller and on the mainland. Satyria is larger and is on the island. Luix handles most of the direct affairs with the Goetics, shipping the raw gold and marble it receives in barges to Satyria. Luix also allows for a buffer between the Goetics and the outside world. Satyria has been built up to be a trade hub for the entire colony and serves as a distribution node between the colony, Two Martyrs, Mar Asara, and Cape Isabella.
Alexandrian Archaeology and Resettlement Program (AARP)
In 1684 AN, the Natopian Frenzy, formally ratified the colony's charter, six years after settlement began. The Imperial University of Alexandria in Triegon was selected to spearhead the excavation of the sites of Geneva and Edgardia. As per the Caprine Code, all relics found would be the property of the House of Carrillo Association. Once the ancient cities were sufficiently examined and preserved, the House of Carrillo Association would begin the process of vetting descendants of Alexandrians willing to resettle and rebuild the two cities.
By Tasneber 1684 AN, research teams from universities across Natopia began to arrive in Paine City. The city was not equipped to handle a large influx of academics, to support their long-term stay, process and preserve relics, or serve as a point of entry for eventual Alexandrians resettlers. The Board of Coordinators thus created Zone 0, inside Zone 1, which included Paine City, Geneva, and Edgardia, and appointed a new Coordinator with the authority to facilitate the advancement of the AARP.
Receiving immense financial and technical backing from Natopia as well as the Alexandrian diaspora in Alduria-Wechua and other Raspur Pact nations, the AARP went on to develop scalable archaeology and cultural program that expanded rapidly between 1687 AN to 1690 AN. This large archaeological project also allowed a rare opportunity for young archaeologists from the most prestigious educational institutions of the Raspur Pact to receive valuable field training.
In 1690 AN, the House of Carrillo Association announced that a team of Natopian and Alduro-Wechua archaeologists, historians, and scientists found a trove of documents, plans, and schematics that belonged to the then-Alexandrian government-owned Giess Transportation Company, which operated a system of transportation gates that connected to the planet of Giess during the time that Alexandria held territorial claims in both Micras and Giess. The find was deemed a "breakthrough" in the development of better transportation technology and "possibly offer a chance connect with other worlds", according to the release by the House of Carrillo Association. Since then, the Giess Transportation Company has been reconstituted as a part of the House of Carrillo Association, registered as a company in Natopia, Nouvelle Alexandrie, and Ransenar.
Zone 0 Development
Charlotte Roux was appointed Coordinator for Zone 0 and delegated administrative powers in order to develop Paine City into an academic and research city capable of handling the large number of Alexandrian relics that were expected. Her first order was to establish the University of Cibola which would work as the local counterpart to the Imperial University of Alexandria in Triegon. She hoped that, with imperial support, the university would become the premier institute of Cibolan studies, history, and culture.
Her second order was to expedite the construction of residential blocks, anticipating the influx of long-term researchers, students, support staff, and the service industry that would follow to support them. Although Paine City was founded as a planned community by SATCo, the original urban planning program was not suitable any longer. Roux called in city planners from Borders City, another planned city that was also largely built around a single industry, and commissioned a master city plan to develop Paine City into a world-class academic research destination city. Aside from the roughly-founded colonial center, the rest of the city and the new University of Cibola would be entirely planned together and intertwined.
The Board of Coordinators also decided that Paine City's status as colonial capital may be reconsidered due to the large scale nature of the AARP project and the eventual goal of integrating Waffel Plaines into Two Martyrs and Mar Sara. with this blessing, Charlotte Roux began to set up the perfect academic city, without concern for governmental infrastructure needs, even going so far as to suggest that the centerpiece of the new university campus be an actual Mar Saran ivory tower.
She also ordered several large-scale infrastructure projects to begin including paved roads connecting Paine City, Edgardia, and Geneva; expanding the Paine City airport, and expanding the cargo port east of Paint City on the River des Char estuary. Construction on the first Zone 0 projects would be scheduled to begin in early 1685 AN.
Demesne Incorporation
The timeline for Waffel Plains to be fully integrated into the Bovic Empire as a demesne was expedited by desires for greater autonomy in Two Martyrs, which sought to be a demesne without any territorial dependencies. This left the status of Mar Sara in question. As the colony was proceeding as expected, with greater and greater numbers of settlers, students, researchers, contractors, and other service people coming to Paine City to help with the AARP, it was decided that Waffel Plains and Mar Sara would become a new demesne named New Natopia. Since Mar Sara was under the Chancellor's Minister of Security, and the Colony was under SATCo control, both regions would be administered by the Office of the Chancellor (as majority stake-holder of SATCo).
The original timeline called for Waffel Plains to become a demesne, or part of one, ten years after it was settled in 1678. The Caprine Code required various Imperial agencies to provide reports on Waffel Plains' development and to ensure good governance while in the hands of SATCo. Those reports are as follows:
- Chancellor's Ministry of Security (Population Demographics): Population growth stable, inward migration predominantly from densely populated regions (New Alexandrians 17%, Ziegelanders 17%, Neemians 16%, Neridians 16%, Universals 12%, and Klaasiyans 17%) Immigration ratios maintained diversity of population from 4 Natopian Demesnes to prevent a majority-monoculture from dominating the new area.
- Emperor's Court of the Verdant Garden (Viability): Position of Waffel Plains potentially vulnerable near Vanic Arcadia. Recommend increased NDF presence and fortifications, bases, ports, air fields; promote long term settlement of the continent; secure an Area of Defensibility around the Jasonian Ocean to such a degree that Vanic-occupied territories within the area are rendered non-threatening.
- Chancellor's Ministry of Information (Ecology): Reports show acceptable levels of impact on the environment in the colony.
- Overall Report: Viability dependent on long-term commitment to the area and establishing Cibola-Tapfer as a permanent new axis of Natopia control to complement the existing Arboria-Neridia-Tapfer axis.
In 1685, the colony of Waffel Plains was added to Mar Sara, which was in a demesne union with Whales. Waffel Plains was thus given demesne status a few years earlier that originally intended. In 1690, Mar Sara was separated from Waffel Plains, thus leaving the original colony as a full-status demesne on its own. As the province is administered by SATCo and SATCo is controlled by the Imperial government, it remains a colony in some regards. However, with demesne status, the residents of Waffel Plains are fully represented in the Frenzy and are full and equal citizens of the Bovic Empire without any legal distinction hindering them as residents of a colony.
Zaddi's Bay Occupation Zone
In early 1698, during the Xiangnán Plot, the Natopian Defense Force was mobilized to begin establishing a Vanic Containment Zone around the city, known as Operation Sidethorn. When the Jingdaoese refugees were exposed as Çakari crisis actors and mysteriously disappeared, the military project was redirected towards establishing an occupied zone on the unclaimed eastern coastline of Cibola. A temporary military base was established and named in honor of the ancient Zatriarchate of Matbaa that once occupied this region.
The zone would be patrolled by the NDF until it could be incorporated into Waffel Plains, or a new demesne, or potentially traded to friendly allied nations. The former Goetic territory may or may not be offered to that state, pending a thorough inspection by NDF Intelligence and then a Vanic exorcism conducted by the Dozan Bovic Church.
Settlement by Natopian nationals would not be allowed until the final purpose of the area was determined. A task force consisting of two Ziegeland-class tactical aircraft carriers, and support vessels was created to patrol the estuary leading to Zaddi's Bay Military Base. An airfield, spaceport, command bunker, barracks, and hospital are planned to support elements of the army and air force to make Zaddi's Bay an integral component in the Natopian ring of control around the Jasonian Sea.
Demonic Investigation
In 1699, a team of Bovic scholars were sent from Doza to the former site of the Navigators CF. The site had a long and troubling history, beginning with the Goetics expelling John Babbit (aka Johan Johansson), after it was discovered he was a Vanic saboteur from Humlebaek Island when it was under Vanic-control. Babbit introduced Vanic concepts into demon-worship by grooming the young men and women of the Navigators into doing his depraved bidding. Since then, members of the group have occasionally been revealed to be Vanic sympathizers. After the death of Kizzy Drakland caused many lesser demons to return to the underworld, a Tapferite demon, T'son the Undying, began to be worshiped by the Navigators. During the Second International Master Demonist Contest, Zalin Sky, the titleholder from Navigators was revealed to be an Old Guard practitioner of demonism and branded as a Vanic, leading to the Sky Riots and eventual collapse of the social order of Goetia. After the sudden appearance and disappearance of a mysterious Jingdaoese town, it was concluded by the Natopian Defense Force that the area was a "Supernatural or Technological Peculiarity." An exhaustive investigation of the site was conducted using satellite imagery, ground recon, exploratory drilling for underground bases, supersonic listening posts, forest clear-cutting, and finally aerial microwave bombardment. These tests only resulted in a large surplus of flash-cooked venison, squirrel, bear, and raccoon meat that was sold to several for-profit prison systems. As the military could not confirm or deny the existence of the phantom town, the church was called in to, at the very least, cleanse the area of its past history.
The team consisted of three priests appointed by three bosarchs of Athlon. Rev. Persefoni Kokkinos, appointed by the Bosarch of Hergon; Dr. Tatiana Andreas, appointed by the Bosarch of Eupragia; and Rev. Lazaros Spiros, appointed by the Bosarch of Port Pragma. Rev. Kokkinos, as a Tagmatarch (Major) of the Holy Order of the Armored Goats, was tasked with providing security for the team and its entourage. Dr. Andreas is a specialist in Vanic-Bovic relations, having written numerous treatises analyzing the Church's repudiation of the Concordat of Old Henningsvær in 1665 and how it marked a turning point in establishing the current, post-Vanic era of Micras. Rev. Spiros, having access to the lost magical tomes of Port Pragma, was a specialist in demonology.
- 3.V.1699, the team met in Luix-Satyria to begin preparations for the journey to the abandoned Goetic town.
- 4.V.1699, the team is helicoptered in to the empty town and a base camp is established.
- 6.V.1699, Tagmatarch Kokkinos leads a small contingent of Armored Goats throughout the encampment. All structures are checked and verified as empty. Kokkinos returns to base camp and reports: "The Goetic town appears as it was according to satellite imagery in 1696. Evidence of violence coincides with international reports of the collapse of Goetia. Recommend full team may investigate with armed escorts."
- 8.V.1699, Dr. Andreas and Rev. Spiros begin their investigations into the town. In the first few days, Dr. Andreas uncovers evidence that many members of the Navigators were Old Guard demonists and hiding their practices from the rest of Goetia. As a scholar on Vanic forms of control, she notes: "It is almost irrefutable, the contagion of Vanicism, once unleashed upon these devil-worshippers, proved too corrupting to ignore and they returned to their hideous Old Ways, likely encouraged by the perverse words of secretive Vanic followers of John Babbit and his acolytes."
- 10.V.1699, Dr Andreas returns to the base camp, claiming she has seen enough and that the Sky Riots which decimated this town, although harrowing, were likely the best outcome to purge this Vanic remnant from the world. She sent a formal letter of concern to the new government of Goetia suggesting that all former members of the Navigators be imprisoned or sent away for psychiatric and spiritual evaluation. She ended her investigation by calling her Bosarch in Eupragia for special dispensation for an area-of-effect blessing to dispel lingering spirits, "No evidence of supernatural effect, this was simply a case of evil people goading gullible people into doing evil too, and the less-evil people killed them for it."
- 14.V.1699, Rev. Spiros discovers altars in several homes dedicated to an unnamed deity, drenched in blood and marked with the same prayer: "we do this in his unknown name".
- 16.V.1699, Spiros calls in Kokkinos' guards to investigate a hidden room in one of the houses he is investigating. They discover a cache of defiled torsos with words carved into the flesh. Nearby, heads are arranged into a T-shape, and in the corner is a pile of arm and leg bones with the flesh seemingly torn off. Spiros collapses and the guards take him back to camp.
- 17.V.1699, Spiros spends the day at the basecamp in a near catatonic state, Revs. Andreas and Kokkinos pray over him for 24 hours straight by reading the Tetrabiblios to calm his mind and soul. He awakens when he hears the Revelation of The Undying Demon.
- 25.V.1699, Several more homes are investigated and revealed to have similar caches of torsos and devoured limbs. The three priests agree that the Navigators, and whoever else settled here, were not corrupted by Vanicism, but instead fell into abject depravity under the control of T'son, the Undying Demon. Dr. Andreas sends an addendum to her letter to Goetia, insisting that any Navigators be separated from society immediately, or else the foul cycle of T'son's bloodlust would continue.
- 26.V.1699, Kokkinos wrote her report to the NDF and formally objected to any future plans for this area to be administered by any non Bous-fearing organization. She sent a letter directly to the Pentheros suggesting that this area be governed by Athlon to guard against lingering demonic threats.
- 27.V.1699, Ten days since his exposure to the horrors of the T'son victims, Rev. Lazaros Spiros felt called to eternity in Dairyland and ended his own mortal suffering on this world by emptying his veins into the defiled soil.
- 28.V.1699, At the insistence of Revs. Andreas and Kokkinos, the bosarchs of Port Pragma, Eupragia, and Hergon arrive to perform a post-mortem canonization of Rev. Spiros so that his soul may become a guardian spirit against T'son's influences on Cibolan soil. The bosarchs pour melted butter into the blood-stained soil and pray: "O Bous! We ask that this blood and butter be melted and spread all along this scorched land, as if it were a golden pat of butter on toasted bread instead. Let the bloodbutter of your beloved calf Lazaros be used to cleanse this area of the Undying Demon. We redouble our eternal effort to hunt and chase T'son, the unknown face of all that is evil among us. We pray this to you, Acow."
- 30.V.1699, The Pentheros approves the canonization of Saint Lazaros, decrees that a cathedral be built atop his spilled blood, and declares a holy war against the devil-worshipping Goetics for inviting T'son into their homes.
