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DispatchFactbookOverview

by The Federated Segments of Scolopendra. . 62 reads.

Segment Executive: Reformed Principality of Berserker


The flag of the Reformed
Principality of Berserker
General Information

Head of State: Prince-Regnant Iosif Zolkin, Marshal of Berserker
Head of Government: Prime Minister Stanimir Johannes Samo Slavik
Government Type: Constitutional Federal Monarchy
Segment Executive Motto: "Ad Astra Per Aspera"
Segment Executive Animal: Welsh Corgi data dog (Canis lupus familiaris [GMO])

The Segment Executive now known as the Reformed Principality of Berserker is the successor state to the previously independent Jingoistic Hegemony of Berserker. It consists of three Federally-recognized Segments--Titanian Berserker, Ring Berserker, and Peripheral Berserker--and together form a hierarchy of constitutional monarchies built on an intentionally neo-feudal structure designed to increase the survivability of individual regions. In operation this acts to constitutionally demarcate continuity of government and the centrifugal forces of multiple sub-monarchs are reigned in through strong centralized command structures. Government and power are therefore not decentralized so much as they have redundant fail-safes.

History in Brief

The historic pre-Break Principality of Berserker formed in a series of revolutions and alliances in the wake of the formation of Mediterranean Scolopendra on Earth-That-Was. Mostly centered in Eastern Europe with Central Eurasian enclaves, the Principality effectively served as the union of several enlightened despots and similar warlords in the relative anarchy of the region in the twenty-third century. Coming from wildly different cultures and all surrounded by hostile and occasionally aggressive opponents, the Principality built itself around a federal feudalism to administer and protect its territory. If Suunto provided the resources, Scolopendra the technology, and Karmabaijan the finances of the proto-Triumvirate, Berserker provided both the battle-hardened forces and the social impetus to proactively change the world for the better. Scolopendran extraction campaigns tended to support Berserker defensive interests and Berserker itself both held the line and spoiled against attacks towards its Triumvirate partners.

After the Break, what remained of Berserker on Titan was primarily the elite of its intelligentsia and military classes. With the 'noble' lines completely extinguished, Berserker experimented with re-establishing monarchies but lacked sufficient heterogeneity and distance to make it worthwhile. It therefore evolved into a constitutional monarchy built around a figurehead; the figurehead then became an elected president. In the early period of Titanian Triumvirate policy the Berserkers were a strong voice for international interventionism, contributing to Triumvirate defense and science. That they eventually titled their government "the Jingoistic Hegemony" is indicative of their collective recognition and sense of humor about this situation. When the Titanian Awakening occurred they, like the Karmabaijani, were greatly affected; also like the Karmabaijani, they simply took it in stride--while the Karmabaijani simply subsumed any Awakening-related violence into their usual level of freedom-related strive, the Berserkers found it a fascinating opportunity for inquiry. Their election of Maica'telcontar, a Noldorin immigrant from a Menelmacari splinter territory, as President is also indicative of this.

However, the Berserkers began to turn inwards after the destruction of Liberty in the Triumvirate-Ardan War. Growing increasingly institutionally paranoid, they invested greatly in continuity of government and society and expansion, broadly forsaking Titan for the Ring and the Ring for the Periphery. This actually paid off in the Semi-Break when the central government completely disappeared. Unlike Karmabaijan and Suunto, which required Scolopendran assistance in reestablishing government, the Berserkers quickly got to re-establishing their own government once the Scolopendran military had established order. Using the stability of the Scolopendran federal government for cover, and recognizing that they were once again a series of far-flung territories, the Berserker constitutional conventions re-established the former Principality through a series of elections and appointments. The rapidity of this conversion owes a great deal to the vast number of white papers and studies the Jingoistic Hegemony performed under Maica'telcontar to prepare for every imaginable contingency.

General Structure

As a federal monarchy, the Reformed Principality is a series of stacked constitutional monarchies. The largest, forming the federal government of the Segment Executive, is the Reformed Principality itself. It is lead by the Prince-Regnant, who acts as the supreme executive authority and whose power constitutionally derives from the people of Berserker. As such, the monarch and the state are not one and the same; the monarch and the royal line are agents of the public that have been established as a 'hereditary' ruling class, trained in birth in national leadership, until such a time as the population sees the line no longer fit to rule. The actual government is invested in a Parliament whose power derives from the people via the monarch by powers generally reserved except in case of general emergency. Thus, like most constitutional monarchies, the Reformed Principality operates as a democracy most of the time.

In the case of a general emergency, however, either as declared by Parliament or constitutionally mandated in certain situations (such as invasion or for six months following an attack) the reserve powers of the monarch activate, granting them effective rule by diktat similar to the Roman tradition of the tyrant. This is supported by the monarch's everyday role as commander-in-chief of the Berserker military; as such, under a state of emergency, the Reformed Principality shifts modes from a democracy to a stratocracy. Because of this role, the monarch must be a serving or former military officer (in the recently founded tradition, the latter is preferred) with a mandated minimum required officer school evaluation score history. This requirement itself establishes first that the line of succession is by mandate of the ruling monarch amongst the pool of qualified candidates; that in the absence of a mandate, the monarchy transfers by primogeniture to the eldest qualified descendant; and that in the absence of a qualified descendent, the monarchy transfers to the senior qualified officer, to be confirmed by popular vote within six months. These requirements in turn encourage the burgeoning traditions of a large royal family to provide a more likely set of qualified candidates within the line and the constant rotation of non-peer military officers, both to give them broader experience within the realm and to prevent the establishment of cabals.

Upon achieving the throne, the monarch automatically attains the rank of Marshal and the position of Commanding Officer, Berserker Operations (COBERSOPS, pronounced either "cee oh bers-ops" or "cobers-ops").

The subordinate monarchies within the federal monarchic structure are arranged similarly, albeit with smaller realms of military authority:

All of the above nobles are held in check by respective parliaments: March Senates, State Congresses, County Assemblies, and Barony Councils. These parliaments are fully civilian and are sized according to the civilian needs in any given location; County Assemblies and Barony Councils tend to be small affairs while State Congresses can be quite sizable. March Senates are usually somewhere in the middle in size and have relatively limited power due to the 'at risk' status of Marches and thus priority on stratocracy; March Senates act to prevent military overreach more than effect government.

Foreign Relations

Unlike most other Segments Executive, the Reformed Principality actually does perform some of its own foreign relations, albeit almost solely in the Periphery and usually on the comital or margraval level. As such, it is standard for the International Relations Section to assign Diplomatic Officers to liaise with Margraves and March-Counts as part of their ministries. It has been noted that Berserker nobles make a convenient 'semi-official' resource for international diplomacy where Federal authority may be counterproductive.

Territory

Like most other Segments Executive, the Reformed Principality of Berserker is extremely diverse in terms of its territory. It approaches al-'Arroda Halish in its complexity due to its emphasis on the Periphery.

Titanian Berserker

Titanian Berserker has been 'suffering' net emigration ever since shortly after the destruction of Liberty. While Liberty was rebuilt as Neo-Liberty and is fully inhabited as a gesture of defiance, in general the decentralization of Berserker has lead to previous urban construction going underutilized. To prevent urban decay, decommissioned city sectors and Caves of Steel complexes have been repurposed as nature preserves or large-scale biome experiments. Other than mild squatting or trespassing by fans of the 'natural reclamation' aesthetic, these projects have been mostly successful in preventing crime due to depopulation. Specific 'decay' sectors remain as an ongoing experiment in the durability of Titanian construction methods; these locations are popular for urban explorers and the dark economy, though both are moderated somewhat by the instrumented nature of these sectors.

Outside of the repurposed, depopulated areas, Titanian Berserker is as alive and vibrant as it ever was, albeit geographically more separate and less prone to vertical construction. Only the centers of the largest megatropolises retain milespires and similar structures; overall, Berserker cities tend to be flatter, broader, and more dotted than usual.

Ring Berserker

Berserker territories on the Ring are effectively prototypes for Berserker colonies in the Periphery. With practically unlimited land area to work with, Berserker cities tend to be collections of spread-out communities connected by infrastructure links through either nearly pristine wilderness or agricultural areas. In-fill is limited by noble oversight and 'defense' concerns even within secure States.

The Ring maintains a steady population, partially due to it being a waystation for Titanian depopulation and Peripheral return. This steady stream of migration makes Berserker's Ring cities the cosmopolitan centers of the Reformed Principality's culture rather than the old cities of Titan.

Peripheral Berserker

Peripheral Berserker is broadly unlike the Periphery holdings of the other Segments Executive. Unlike al-'Arroda Halish, which tends towards a high-low distribution of major billion-plus colony worlds surrounded by countless tiny isolated communities or Corporate Suunto and Hegemonic Karmabaijan which both tend towards small, low-population colonies, Peripheral Berserker tends towards mid-sized colonies with millions of inhabitants. The structure of the Berserker government tends to resolve planets into Counties, dotted with hundreds of Baronies of moderate population density following the Ring territories' urban model. In the Marches, these planets are heavily fortified beyond what would be expected from their raw population numbers through the use of networked drone defenses. Exceptions do of course exist, such as planets-as-cities Baronies, but predictive analysis suggests that these exceptions will tend to evolve into the rule.

Culture

The post-Liberty stereotype of the paranoid Berserker is unfair though grounded in the reality that the average Berserker is most assuredly safety-conscious. Having borne the brunt of--indeed, effectively the only--civilian losses in the Triumvirate-Ardan War, the constant state of threat or near-threat the Triumvirate has since existed under has induced in the Berserker population a siege mentality naturally reflected and reinforced by the structure of the Reformed Principality. As such, while they are culturally gregarious and quick to smile, they tend to be slow to trust.

Berserker media exemplifies this with its emphasis on genres where trust and security are uncertain: certain forms of police procedurals, spy dramas, political intrigue dramas, and similar. The lighter side of things is usually depicted in drama-comedies centering around debonair swashbucklers or other 'serial style' heroes with themes often more serious than in other Segments Executive. Pure comedies tend to be madcap and even then reference darker themes. The 'innocent comedy' is effectively extinct in Berserker, but this is not to say that they are not a comedic people; dark and irreverent humor is one of their standard coping mechanisms towards an apparently hostile universe.

In a hostile universe, friendships are rare and therefore eternal. Loyalty is a highly valued social trait in Berserker, and treason or other abuses of trust are almost unspeakably anathema.

Berserkers tend to believe in the theory of 'the exemplary individual' and as such straddle the individualist-collectivist dichotomy. Most people, in the Berserker mindset, are everyday humdrum folk effectively destined to be born, live, and die due to a combination of environmental, social, and personal conditions. A few people, however, due to circumstances not completely controllable are absolutely exemplary and therefore a cut above. The establishment of a popular nobility is itself an attempt to generate a class of exemplars by emphasizing controllable environmental and social variables, but this is done with the cultural knowledge that exemplars can appear from nowhere as positive black swans. As such, most Berserkers are expected to be relatively conformist 'regular folk' but everyone is also encouraged to find sources of personal excellence. "Anyone could be exemplary, but not everyone can be" is a koan-like proverb that has evolved in the post-Liberty period. "The best anyone can do is their best" is another.

This collectivist attitude towards individual achievement--that individuals are not intrinsically better so much as accidentally so--makes Berserkers open to genetic and cybernetic augmentation, even when compared to the liberal attitudes expressed towards such by the rest of Scolopendra. "Eugenics" is not a dirty word, albeit one limited to socialized and universal genetic therapies and treatments among the general population and selective input into the nobility. The Berserker tendency towards science views intelligent beings as complex, emergent machines that can and should be improved to be made as effective as possible: "a rising tide lifts all boats, but only if the tide actually rises" is a related saying.

Likewise, Berserkers are comfortable with high technology and use it to augment their daily lives in almost every way possible. Berserkers were responsible for the invention of the first Triumvirate faster-than-light system and the Funnel-type drone systems still used in Scolopendran and Triumvirate arsenals today; this sort of cutting-edge networked technology exemplifies Berserker responses to problems. This does cause them to occasionally ignore more conventional, convenient, or pragmatic solutions but they take this in stride, even when reminded of the fact. Of all the broad cultures of the Segments Executive, the Berserkers are probably the most attracted to 'shiny' high-tech gizmos; indeed, "shiny" and "highspeed" are a standard part of the Berserker lexicon, used in all registers.

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