Ikara

Flag of Ikara
Flag of Ikara
Flag of Ikara

Ikara is a country located in southeastern Lanteen. It borders Tilia to the north and Kota to the west. About half of its territory is on various islands in Etalameri, south of the Lanteen mainland. Its capital is Southbar, a large city on the eastern coast.

Government

The Administrative Charter of Ikara, in effect since 505, assigns each executive office a specified mandate and creates a legislature made up of appointed members of all executive offices. Any change to the mandate of an office requires a direct vote by all Ikaran citizens.

Notable executive offices

History

Colonial period

Ikara was a colony of Arkand until 278, administered by the Overseas Directorate. Ikaran citizens were not allowed to join Arkandic syndicates, and were not allowed to return to Ikara or join the Overseas Directorate if they became citizens of Arkand.

Arkandic governance was mostly focused on the Etalameri Pass, a sea route through the southern islands. The Etalameri pass is one of the two routes connecting the Laumeri and Kylmeri, and Arkand was able to charge transit fees to ships sailing through it. The Maritime Union employed local privateers, known as Corsairs, to guide ships through the rocky pass and protect from piracy.

The colonial period ended with the Corsair Uprising.

Federation period

Early state-building in Ikara was characterized by an intense push towards gaining internal and international legitimacy. The revolution was largely led by Corsairs, who were often seen as mavericks and pirates by mainland residents. The new government in Southbar also had to prove that they could be relied on to keep trade safely flowing through the Etalameri Pass.

Many executive offices were established. Their headquarters were spread across Ikara to make the federal government locally visible. This was supported by the construction of an expansive phosgraph network, the first of many similar public works projects. See below for a list of Ikaran executive offices.

In 286, the Coast Guard offered amnesty to former pirate crews willing to serve Ikara. Many former Corsairs joined as Etalameri guides. Others banded together as the Bloodsails.

By late 289, trade through Etalameri was restored to pre-Uprising levels.

Harmonization period

Ikaran executive offices operated with a high degree of autonomy. A series of issues came to light in the first half of the 400s that highlighted the drawbacks of a geographically distributed federal government.

These included duplicate government programs, safety issues in the Technical Service, nepotism in promotions and procurement, and inter-office competition. Many of these issues were publicized by rival offices.

To combat this, the Federal Office passed a series of edicts intended to centralize and modernizes the executive offices. The first of these, in 450, relocated all executive offices to Southbar, leading to mass turnover in the lower ranks. Recruitment for the relocated offices emphasized the Harmonization Plan as a second Ikaran revolution. The relocation angered citizens across Ikara, especially former employees of relatively powerful offices. The Federal Office was unsympathetic, and deployed the Ikaran Park Service as an internal peacekeeping force.

Later edicts continued to centralize Federal Office power, reducing other executive offices to subordinate agencies. After the Crane Affair, all procurement and budgeting was put under the jurisdiction of the Federal Office. The Starlight Phosgraph Union was also banned in 497 in favor of direct federal administration of the network. This led junior government employees without access to federal bulletins to create informal communication networks.

Civil Revolt

By 501, these networks had formalized into the Coalition of Civil Officers. In 502.10, government phosgraph operators broadcast Coalition demands for a repeal of the harmonization edicts. The Federal Office declared the broadcasts as seditious, and ordered Park Service divisions to capture phosgraph towers. Most rangers, including those who had not previously been sympathetic to the Revolt, refused.

Commander Silva, acting director of the Park Service, issued a blanket order that IPS rangers were to ignore Federal commands to act outside their duties. He then resigned, leaving his command to a junior officer in Coalition leadership.

Silva took with him a number of IPS divisions, and marched on Southbar along with a delegation of Coalition representatives. After a twenty-six hour standoff in heavy rain, the Federal Office agreed to vacate its complex if all officers were allowed to leave freely. Most of them fled internationally.

The Coalition formed a provisional federal government, who immediately repealed the harmonization edicts and began to plan a new structure of government for Ikara. In the interim, a Reconciliation Commission was established to identify and prosecute misconduct by former members of the Federal Office and other high-ranking civil officers. In 505, the provisional government enacted the Administrative Charter, defining the modern Ikaran state.