Vatakan

Free and Associative Maritime City of Vatakan
Top to bottom: Bauer Square, Vatakan Port, Kalisz Island
Flag Coat of Arms
Motto: "The City Must Survive" (Vat. "Miasto Musi Przetrwać")
Anthem: In the Name of the Free City
Map versions
Official language(s)	Common Tongue, Vatkavish
Demonym	Vatakanian
- Adjective	Vatakanian
Government	Associative corporatist city-state
Premiere	Witold Karków
Legislature	Vatakan Board of Associates
Chairman	Jacob Rainier
Establishment	1680 AN
Area
Population	1,917,647 (1680 AN)
Currency	Zaikir
Abbreviation	VAT
Time zone(s)
Patron
Animal
Drink	Darmowa Wódka

This article or section is a work in progress. The information below may be incomplete, outdated, or subject to change.

Witold Karków, current Premiere of Vatakan

The Stużkicław fountain show in front of the Sosnowiec building

The Vatakan International Financial Centre, hub for trade deals and also a tourist attraction

The Biskupiec, one of the tallest buildings on Micras

The Krzysztof University, which is the premiere university in Vatakan

The Szampion sports complex on the outskirts of the city

The city of Vatakan (Vat. Watakan), officially the Free and Associative Maritime City of Vatakan (Vat. Wolne i Stowarzyszone Nadmorskie Miasto Watakan), is an independent city-state formally under the control of the Ciric Confederacy, but is de facto independent. Founded in mid-to-late 1680 AN, Vatakan was created by the Andromeda Tech Corporation, which bought the land from a group of frontierists representing the Vatkavish (Vat. Watkawski) people native to the Paroka region of the confederacy in order to create a trading port. The city was quickly built upon by the incoming corporatists, who saw the city as an immense money-making opportunity, and brought a swift increase in quality of life to the citizens of the city. In mid 1680, however, the city was formally placed under jurisdiction of the confederacy due to an agreement between Premiere Witold Karków of Vatakan and the Speaker Avingar Holstadt, which was an attempt to dissuade foreign states from taking the land that Vatakan had quietly grown on for the past year.

History

Vatkavish Settlement

The history of the city of Vatakan begins with its settlement in late 1679 AN to early 1680 AN by the Vatkavish people, who are an ethnic group in the region of Paroka in the Ciric Confederacy. The region is mainly known for its population of frontierists, and as such have ventured forth into various unclaimed regions of the world to create small hamlets and camps from which the confederacy draws some of its agricultural products. Vatakan was originally to be another of those small hamlets, with it being settled in a rather agriculture-friendly climate and excellent agrarian topography. Much of the peninsula (which was named the Klocław Peninsula by the Vatakanians) is flat, and the area receives warm rains frequently, which allowed the growth of the early Vatakan village into a town which was known prominently among the other villages settled by the Vatkavish, which promoted the city in the eyes of entrepreneurs and investors. The town became very quickly known for its agricultural products, which were transported by the Andromeda Tech Corporation back to the confederacy. This provided the town's first interactions with the corporation with which it would eventually become incredibly closely linked.

Andromeda Purchase

In early 1680 AN, the Andromeda Tech Corporation, which had had contact with the town through it providing much of the town's shipping needs as well as its early tentative expansions into the town, with the corporation providing much of the town's service based needs, due to the town having a primarily resource and export based economy at the time. The corporation gradually grew into a deeper integration with the town, eventually purchasing a secondary headquarters building in the town, despite it being, at the time, outside of any nation's sovereign territory and vulnerable to aggressive expansion. Around IV.1680 AN, the town underwent a massive governmental shift to accomodate its rapid growth, transitioning from its village-council based governmental system (in which the town was governed by an ealdorman elected to serve for life and advised by a village council) to an associative corporatist system. The Andromeda Corporation was instrumental in this shift, with the organisation assisting with much of the administrative tasks associated with this change, organising the town's first elections for the position of Premiere, who would become the chief executive power in the town. Following the election, in which Witold Karków was elected Vatakanian Premiere, the town became even more closely integrated with the Andromeda Corporation, owing to Karków's position as an executive in the company.

It was around this time that the idea of the Andromeda Corporation buying all of the land of Vatakan wholesale was first proposed. After the Vatakan Board of Associates initially vetoed the purchase, Witold Karków insisted that the idea at least be put to a vote amongst the citizens of Vatakan. After a reluctant governmental pause, the option was put to a democratic vote amongst city citizens. In the end, the results of the vote were 82.1% for and 17.9% against, with a voter discrepancy vs. overall population of 0.4%. It was clear at this point that the citizens were overall happy with the decision, and, against the wishes of the Board of Associates, the entire land of the city (and some of the land beyond the immediate city limits that were owned by the city government) was bought by the corporation at a value of 101.9 billion Zaikir. Though the company promised to allow the city to continue to operate with its current system of government, the Andromeda Corporation did institute a law that all members of government must be an employee of the corporation, as the land was now a company asset and had to be governed directly by the company. However, as this decision had removed forty-one out of the fifty-seat Board of Associates, as well as the Board Chairman, the city was forced to call an emergency vote. This restructured the government of the city quite a bit, with the Darmowe Watakan party becoming a majority, as well as the new chairman, Jacob Rainier, being a member of the Darmowe Vatakan party. This election also forced the Ruch na Rzecz Dobrobytu party, which was the conservative party that had held a majority previously and instigated the veto against the corporation's purchase. Following this purchase, the city received a massive infusion of money from both the purchase itself as well as being run by the vast reserves associated with the Andromeda Corporation. This allowed extremely rapid growth, which pushed the city to the limits of the peninsula. Instead of increasing its residential districts inland, the city chose to build artificial residential islands on the opposite side of the peninsula from the Vatakan ports, notably choosing to create them in the shape of palm trees in a bid to increase tourism. The city also very quickly became the main port of confederate shipping, despite the city technically being outside the bounds of confederate territory at the time, with most goods shipped out of the confederacy that were destined anywhere other than Caradia being shipped first to Vatakan, and then moving on to its final destination.

Confederate Sovereignty

Following the massive growth of the city of Vatakan, the city came under a period of stability which was brought on by the aforementioned rapid growth as well as the average income spike that occurred around this time (at the time, the average income per capita in Vatakan was Ƶ67,000). It was this stabililty that indirectly contributed to the eventual transfer of city sovereignty from itself being under the sovereignty of no formal state other than itself into the formal hands of the Ciric Confederacy as a dependency. Already, the confederacy had been heavily involved in the growth of the city with the city serving being an extremely important port for confederate shipping as well as the city receiving many of the economic benefits of the confederacy, including the network of companies and corporations based in the confederacy as well as technological advancements, such as allowing the city to power its relatively massive population with a series of underground fusion reactors. In a bid to preserve the city's sovereignty, Premiere Witold Karków offered to transfer the city's sovereignty to the confederacy, which would prevent foreign states from claiming the land and forcing the city out. In mid 1680, this deal was accepted by confederate Speaker Avingar Holstadt.

After the transfer of sovereignty, the city continued to grow, continuing its work as a port city as well as a burgeoning tourist economy, with Premiere Karków using the city's wealth to construct a number of fanciful structures to promote tourism and develop a national identity, such as the famous Stużkicław Fountains near the city's centre at Bauer Square (named for Andromeda CEO Jacob Bauer), as well as the supertall skyscraper of the Vatakan International Financial Centre in the Przańsk District, which is the centre of the Bank of the Free City of Vatakan and intended as a mixed-use building, and has offices, museums, hotel rooms, and shopping centres. Additionally, the city constructed the Biskupiec, which is both the official homes of the Premiere of Vatakan and the meeting place for the Vatakan Board of Associates. The city also began building underground farming centres under many non-residential buildings in order to aid in self-sustenance, so that the city is capable of surviving without the assistance of the confederate shipping lanes.

Economy

The economy of Vatakan is dominated by a service sector, catering primarily in luxury services and tourism, as well as the city's excellent positioning as a port town, due to its location on the coast of Apollonia. The Andromeda Tech Corporation absorbed much of the city's financial processes when it purchased the land, which was both a blessing and a hindrance to the economy of the city. The most obvious benefit of the exchange was the prevention of foreign megacorporations from placing a hand in the city, and as such the city had little to fear from invasive foreign corporations. The Andromeda Tech Corporation has also placed much emphasis on maintaining the city's prosperity because of its position as a strong economic and strategic asset, and as such has poured money into the city to continue the city's growth and economic development. However, there is a present, if small, resentment for the activities of the corporation in the city; though the company presently has a friendly attitude toward the development of local companies and entrepreneurism, it has been known to be territorial in regards to its financial assets and services, and always has the possibility of the company's leadership changing to be more money-focused rather than worker-focused.

Tourism

The city of Vatakan's tourism industry is highly developed, and is one of the prominent cities in Apollonia for attracting tourists. The city is mainly visited for its architecture and reputation as a luxury retreat, with its high-tech and futuristic facilities stemming from its wealth being one of the main contributing factors to this reputation. The city has several areas of fanciful, futuristic development, such as the aforementioned Vatakan International Financial Centre and the Stużkicław Fountains, which put on a fountain show every weekend in front of the Sosnowiec building, where the Andromeda Tech Corporation's city headquarters is. The city also provides many amenities to provide for the tourists, such as transport services offering private helicopters or verakium hovercraft for similar prices that are offered for standard cars and trucks in other places, as well as having a thriving adventure sports environment. The city is also famous for its interest in cultural preservation, using its connections to the disparate Vatkavish villages and nomadic settlements in the Apollonian green to import artefacts found, and enshrining them in museums, the largest of which is the multi-floor museum that makes up the lower, public floors of the Biskupiec.

Natural Resources

The city of Vatakan supplants its shipping and tourism industries with its industry of offshore mining, which began shortly after the Andromeda Tech Corporation moved to the peninsula and made a discovery of rich quanitities of many different precious materials below the surface of the inlet on the west coast of the peninsula, including oil, titanium, gold, vanadium, palladium, terbium, and large pockets of hydrogen. Portions of the crude oil are regularly shipped to Caradia through the city's shipping network, though the rest of it is up for international sale. Many of the metals are used in foundries located on the mining platforms that transform the metals (excluding gold) into the valuable alloys utilised in large amounts by the Ciric Confederacy, including ferris fortis and verakium, while the hydrogen has been used in the cores used to power fusion reactors. While these resources certainly add to the wealth of the city, even from the city's inception plans have been put forth (mainly by Premiere Witold Karków) to enhance the city's tourism sector so that when the natural resources inevitably run out, the city will continue to make money and serve as a powerful, wealthy trade centre.