Vatakan
| Free and Associative Maritime City of Vatakan | |||
| |||
| Top to bottom: Bauer Square, Vatakan Port, Kalisz Island | |||
| |||
| 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 | Veradia 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 The information below may be incomplete, outdated, or subject to change. |
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 Veradia 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 Veradia 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, Veradia 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.
