Prydanian News Section

Note from the Editor:
I have made the decision to allow for a unique format. I am allowing two of our editorial staff, Sölvi Buhl and Vegard Ketelsen, to present a duo-faceted debate in print form to explore the political situation in Callise.
It's my hope that this unique format will allow for the dynamic and fluid debate that dominates our offices to be conveyed to our readers.
-Gunhild Kvale
Editorial Board Chief

Sölvi Buhl
Callise is paralyzed. The United Front- an electoral coalition of left wing parties- won the 2022 elections but was denied a government. The entrenched interests in the Callisean state, fearful of the threat the UF presented, conspired to hold them out of power and deny the will of the majority of Callisean voters.
I need to make something clear- violence is never the answer. I watched as my own father worked within a regime- a left wing regime at that- that perpetrated violence against its own people. I find the notion of political violence abhorrent, but I am also at a loss as to what the United Front and their supporters are meant to do?
I believe in democracy. And I believe that when your side loses you need to accept that and work on winning back the trust of the electorate. But this is predicated on a level playing field. It's predicated on the belief that when the votes are counted the party that represents the will of the majority of the voting populace leads the country for as long as they can retain that electoral support. Instead what we saw in Callise was a rigged game- where the majority voice was shut out by machinations of a state apparatus looking to deny the people their say. When the very rules of the game are weighted against the will of the people, what are the people to do?

Vegard Ketelsen
You're right Sölvi, Callise is paralyzed. The problem is you're blaming phantoms. You're blaming "the entrenched power structures," who exactly? I can answer that. Cedric Battier, the President of the Callisean Republic, denied the United Front the Directorate. And I can tell you why he did it. It's because the United Front lacks the seats to command the Callisean Senate.
You talk about the rules of democracy, but let's consider that the United Front, despite their electoral gains, simply lack the votes necessary to secure these organs of power. Democracy is not simply mob rule. You're right, it's based on rules. And in those rules parties that do not reach the threshold to command power are denied power.
We held an election last year. At the end of that election the Free Democratic Party had won the most seats of any party, and Peace not Blood had won the popular vote. Neither had a majority though. We didn't award the government to the FLFP*'s 55 seats or FeB*'s 54 seats because of those benchmarks. Each had a chance to negotiate a working coalition, and in the end FeB was only able to control the government by working out a coalition with the Conservatives that afforded them a majority in the Alþingi.
So why are the United Front owed the Senate or the Directorate? As impressive as their electoral success was in the 2022 elections, they didn't win the seats necessary to form a government. "Close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, as my grandpabbi would say.
So I'm forced to conclude that what we're seeing is a radical left wing that's attempting to seize power that their electoral returns do not entitle them to.

SB
We're not talking about a left wing that's trying to defy the will of the people though. Look. If my party, the People's Party, demanded to form the government in the Alþingi with only 25 seats and no coalition support I'd agree, you don't get to do that. But the United Front won pluralities in the Callisean elections. Their 325 elected Deputies and 31 Senators may not be able to command a majority in either chamber, but they represent the largest bloc in both. No, the United Front should not be handed the keys to government on their own unless they are able to navigate the always tricky path of minority governments. But they absolutely should be key partners, if not leading partners, in any government that hopes to represent the will of the Callisean people.

VK
Maybe, but isn't that what the government formation process is about? Moving and negotiating to achieve workable majorities? If the United Front finds itself on the outside then I'm sorry, that's how democracy works. They won't be the first plurality party to be excluded by a coalition and they won't be the last. If the United Front truly believes they represent the will of the people they can take their lumps and head out one election cycle from now. And they can talk about how they were denied and if enough Calliseans believe they were they can increase their vote count and potentially win government that way. Remember, Cedric Battier denied the United Front the Directorate. He is himself democratically elected. You can't have democracy both ways, using it as a banner when it suits you but ignoring its processes and checks and balances when you don't get your way.

SB
I think the results speak for themselves. Nearly 70% of the electorate has voted in favour of a constitutional assembly. That tells me a solid majority of Calliseans are upset about the manoeuvring used to deny the United Front the Directorate.

VK
We need to be very careful about this though. You said Callise was paralyzed. Já it is. By the United Front. When United Front-governed provinces refuse to coordinate with the national government to put down insurrection then that's essentially treason. You have willingly begun the first steps towards civil war by doing that.
Does the Callisean United Front want that? Do the Callisean people? I've seen civil war first hand, Sölvi. So have you. I think you'd agree with me when I tell the Callisean United Front they absolutely do not want to go down that path.

SB
You're right, I'd join you in that. But if you want to use our own experiences as a reference point or use it as a warning, I'd point to the situation that led to civil war in 2002. A right wing dictatorship clung to power despite increasing calls for it to relinquish it. As the Anders/Toft regime tightened its grip to stave off the will of the people that anger was seized by the Syndicalists.
To me that's a cautionary tale, that when you deny the will of the people it manifests in destructive ways.
The United Front is not a radical dictatorship in waiting, but who knows what it could become if its support and its clear mandate is continuously ignored? The Syndicalist Party of Prydania used to believe in parliamentary democracy only to abandon that belief when it felt that was no longer viable. That doesn't have to be the United Front's fate.

VK
I don't find that convincing- "let us form the government or we'll become a dictatorship to prove our point." Again, democracy has rules. It's not about mob rule, and even if it was, they don't command a majority of the mob anyway.
All democratic systems have rules and checks and balances. By the rules of the Callisean system the United Front simply didn't win enough votes and seats to command the power of government. Hubert Bennet is nothing but an opportunist using this crisis to try and claim power and influence beyond what would be afforded his coalition by vote totals and seats.
Sölvi, I'm from outside Erkiengil, you're from Býkonsviði. Say KBÍK* played EÍK in the playoffs and EÍK won in seven games. Yet over the course of those seven games KBÍK scored more cumulative goals. You don't get to say "oh KBÍK socred the most goals over seven games, it doesn't matter that they lost the series. They should be the winners." Like politics sports has rules. You have to win the games, and if you don't you don't get to politic you way into a win. Your team may have scored more goals, but if they lose the series they lose the series.

SB
You could make the argument though that KBÍK was the better team despite losing. This isn't some crazy notion either. How often do losing teams go "we think we were the better team" despite a loss? It's not such a crazy notion. But you're right, sport is sport, and in that scenario I as the KBÍK fan would have to suck up the fact that they lose the seven game series despite their superior goal total. And I'd have to deal with it. It's sport. Those breaks happen. And look. I'm a huge hockey and football fan, so I don't want to denigrate sports. But they're not life and death.
If that playoff series happened I'd be pissed as a KBÍK fan, but I'd get over it. This isn't sports though, it's politics. People's lives and futures are on the line. We cannot be expected to shrug when the coalition that wins a plurality of seats and votes is excluded from government. A team that loses in a quirk of sport is tough luck. A party denied a role in the government of the nation that wants to have a role is a tragedy.

VK
So why can the United Front not wait until the next election to take their case to the people? And further, any claim that they might have at legitimately holding power is undermined by provinces they could openly advocating for civil war.

SB
But they're not. It's an extraordinary circumstance where the UF is doing what it can to hold the people who are responsible for denying the will of the people to account. They have indicated they won't coordinate with the national government but they haven't called for separation from the Callisean Republic or called for insurrection. What they've done is engaged in non-violent civic protest on a government scale.

VK
Non-violent protest is about people holding government to account. When a government does it, it's not protest. It's a breakdown of the systems of government. It IS insurrection.

SB
The Nationalist League has paramilitaries though, that's where I see the distinction. The provinces governed by UF parties have said they won't cooperate with the national government and their supporters have engaged in non-violent protest. It's the right wing Nationalist League that is pushing Callise towards violence.

VK
If they see Hubert Bennet as a left wing politician who failed to secure a majority needed to assume power, but is orchestrating a "revolution" to gain that power then they might as well see resistance as necessary.

SB
I thought you were condemning violence and chastising the UF for supposedly pushing Callise towards civil war? Now you're championing the NL for sending armed militants into the streets!

VK
No, I'm not. I'm taking the view that anyone, UF or NL, that is taking to the streets to engage in violence against either other citizens or the state, is a criminal and terrorist. That's what I'm saying. What I see, though, is the UF trying to steal power it could not win legitimately, advocating for a "revolution," and then crying victim when their provocations illicit a response. I know the leftists hate this term, but both sides are acting recklessly. I choose to condemn the UF and Herra Bennet because they simply fell short of electoral thresholds necessary to achieve the power they claim was denied to them.

SB
And I'm saying that no government of Callise can hope to represent the will of the people when it purposefully excludes the party that received the plurality of votes and seats. You can't deny the will of the people in a democratic system and then claim the system is operating as intended.

Gunhild Kvale
What began as a plan to publish duelling editorials evolved into this unique format. I'm proud of our editorial board having a diverse range of political opinions, and it's a point of pride that I'm able to oversee healthy discussion and debate on these issues. I'd like to thank both Sölvi and Vegard. They're both torchbearers for their political camps, and we as a news outlet and editorial board are stronger for having both of them on board. It's my hope that this spirited snipped of the debate around this issue will provide our readership with enough of a balanced viewpoint to make their own educated decisions.
Regardless, I speak for Sölvi, Vegard, and the rest of our staff in wishing for a peaceful resolution to the political situation in Callise.

---

*FLFP- Free Democratic Party of Prydania
*FeB- Peace not Blood
*KBÍK- Royal Býkonsviði Hockey Club
*EÍK- Erkiengil Hockey Club

I think I liked science so much because you couldn't lie your way through it.
Like many I spent part of my childhood in school under the Syndicalist regime and even as children we knew something was terribly wrong. The glorious future that we were being told was being built was a lie even a ten year old could see through if they just looked around.
Science though... you couldn't Syndify science. Nature, in its infinite arrogance, refused to confirm to Thomas Nielsen's stated reality.

So science became a keen interest of mine as a boy. And, like most children, I was fascinated by dragons and dinosaurs.
Dragons and dinosaurs.

And this is the story of Prydania's most famous dinosaur.


Discovery

Dr. Hjorleif Styrk of the University of Býkonsviði began receiving reports out of Austurland in 1859. A farmer named Styrmir Mjelde had paid a local physician named Dr. Karl Hauger in bits of fossilized bone in return for medical services.

Dr. Hauger was unsure what to make of the bones but this was in the midst of the so-called "bone wars" where scientists the world over were searching for new dinosaur skeletons to uncover. Dr. Hauger thus sketched the bone fragments and included a description to Dr. Styrk. Dr. Styrk, unable to definitively assign a known genius to the sketches, travelled to Haland and examined the fragments himself. They were enough to convince him to travel to Herra Mjelde's farm and obtain permission to dig where the farmer had found the fragments.

By the next year Dr. Styrk had discovered his greatest find. The complete discovery was named "frumvæng," or "primeval wing." It was purchased from Herra Mjelde for x6,000, or x708,3300 today (101,160 IBU) by the University of Býkonsviði.
That original skeleton, which Dr. Styrk named "Herman," is still in the university's possession and has been displayed at the National Museum since 1861.

The Bird Revolution

Early 19th century scientists who began to scientifically classify dinosaurs based on the fossil record had begun to believe that dinosaurs were the precursor to dragons. By the time the middle of the 19th century had arrived this view was being challenged. As scientists began to study the bone structures of dinosaurs and new species began to be found as the "bone wars" rolled on it was pointed out that the bones of most dinosaur species had more in common with modern day birds than they did with the reptilian skeletons of dragons. Yet in an era before DNA testing, when palaeontology was still in its infancy, these were but mere guesses.

The discovery of frumvæng changed all of that. Frumvæng was undoubtedly a dinosaur. It was a theropod, closely resembling a small raptor. Yet it also had pronounced avian features, more so than other specimen of dinosaur discovered so far. And more importantly, it had feathers.

The scientists who first noticed the similarities between dinosaur skeletons and modern bird skeletons had proposed that perhaps these creatures were feathered rather than scaled. Nothing in the fossil record indicated this though. Until frumvæng. Its preserved skeleton showed wings spread, and distinct feather imprints in the fossilized stone. The link between dinosaur and modern day birds was established. Not by theory but by hard evidence. Unearthed by a farmer in Prydania's Haland Valley.


Bird Revolution to Today

These days any kid can tell you that the closest living relative to a tyrannosaurus is the common chicken. As someone who grew up with a chicken coop... man. That's kind of surreal.
Since Dr. Styrk dug Herman the Frumvæng out of the ground the wheel of scientific progress has continued to turn. The theory of evolution re-ordered how we understood the natural world and our place in it. The discovery of DNA and the development of genetic sequencing allowed us to map genetic material pulled from birds, as well as fossils of dinosaurs and dragons, to confirm what those mid-19th century scientists suspected and what the discovery of frumvæng seemed to indicate; that dinosaurs are the ancestors of birds. Not dragons.
Back in 1860, however, the discovery of frumvæng was the first step.

Since Herman's discovery twelve other frumvæng specimen have been discovered, all in the Haland Valley in Prydania.
Two reside in museums in Goyanes, one in a museum in Andrenne, one in Predice, one in Norsia, one in Arcanstotska, two in Saintonge, one in Sorovia, and one in Iraelia. Three, Herman included, are in museums in Prydania.

"Frumvæng is one of my favourite exhibits," Dr. Kedem Bareket of the International Union of Paleontological Sciences in Iraelia says.
"It's not as grand as some of the others. I dare say most school children won't name it as their favourite, but it represents a key milestone in the science of palaeontology and how we understand dinosaurs."

Perhaps most children- even Prydanian children- won't list frumvæng as their favourite dinosaur. Prydania as a country certainly did though.

King Robert VII was photographed with Herman in 1963, and remarked "what a bird. Small but consequential." The frumvæng became the official emblem of the Prydanian chapter of the IUoPS. And in 1973 a football playing frumvæng decked out in a Prydanian football shirt joined a football playing stag as joint mascots of the 1973 World Cup.

For me frumvæng was fascinating as a child. This in-between creature that represented evolution and change in motion. Part dinosaur and part bird. Something that didn't even come up to a fully grown man's knees, but which changed the world anyway.

For a child wishing for something more for his country in the grip of a dictatorship, frumvæng was something to be proud about. "A good Prydanian dinosaur" my mamma once said.
Surely one that knew how to great its raptor friends on New Year's as a first foot guest and enjoyed the hygge of a warm cup of coffee on a winter evening.

And now? Now as the seeds of recovery have begun to bloom? Now King Robert's words take on a whole new meaning. Frumvæng, like his home country, is small but consequential.

Áfram Prydansk, Áfram Frumvæng! And Áfram Herman!

Býkonsviði- Messianist churches, Thaunic and Shaddaist temples, and civic community centres have opened their doors this winter season as per usual to house and feed and warm the homeless.

The largest is hard to classify, perhaps one part civic centre and one part Laurenist church. It's the Royal residence of Absalonhöll, dominating Prince Harald's Way in the middle of Býkonsviði.

Syndicalist Years

The tradition of the homeless seeking shelter in Absalonhöll during the winter began during the Syndicalist era.

The Syndicalists seized every house of worship in the city shortly after taking power and nationalized them in line with the doctrine of militant state atheism. Most were used as storage facilities and some as museums dedicated to Picardism or the organized labour movement or industry.

This caused issues during their first winters. Houses of worship had long been used as shelters from the cold during the winter months. The Syndicalist government didn't account for this when they reappropriated these buildings, believing civic community centres would be sufficient. They were not.

Not only had the seizure of houses of worship handled the normal homeless population that would spill over from civic centres but the violence of the Syndicalist upheaval leading to seized property from "class enemies and class traitors," and destroyed property resulted in a spike of the overall transient population.

Absalonhöll was brutally looted and ransacked during the Syndicalist takeover before being boarded up. Plans to turn it into a museum of some sort were proposed, along with plans to make it a new Alþingi building, but the Syndicalist regime never saw any of those plans to fruition. Absalonhöll remained boarded up and abandoned. And that was how it came to be a refuge from the winter for the city's homeless.

Post Civil War

When the FRE finally reclaimed Absalonhöll at the end of the Civil War it was summer and therefore pretty depopulated.

That first winter, however, proved a problem. With many houses of worship still being renovated and reclaimed there was a need form sheltering. That was when King Tobias III allowed the homeless to shelter in the under-repaired Absalonhöll.

Most of the palace by then had been cleared out and was under renovation, but large parts of it were turned into a shelter, now complete with social workers to distribute food and drink, cots, blankets, and electricity and heat.

What was seen as a one year measure has become a re-occurring tradition.

Absalonhöll is in far better shape these days. Artwork spirited into hiding at home and abroad has been returned, with artisans replicating what was lost. Carpet has been relaid, tile cleaned and re-done, walls repainted, fixtures renovated.

Now a large portion of the southeast lower level has become a dedicated shelter. With its own kitchen, serving stations, communal areas, spaces for cots, and bathrooms. Every winter when the temperature dips below 5 degrees Absalonhöll's shelter opens. And doesn't close until the temperature climes above 5.

"It's me, it's Aly, and the kids," His Majesty said.
"Even with the Knights and administration and all of it, we have space to spare."

His Majesty gave that answer to me as he mingled with Absalonhöll's winter guests. It's been a regular feature around Christmastime. Much like he visited with the refugee camps outside of the capital at the end of the War that became the public housing towns of Frelsi and Friður, His Majesty doesn't appear put off.

This year he and Queen Alycia even brought Baldr and Hael to meet and play with children.

"I've spent too many winters of my life without heat and electricity," the King told me.
"So I do what I can now that I've been blessed."

Haland- Björnulf Natvig is a second year engineering student at the University of Haland. And he’s got a radical idea; he wants to start a University of Haland Goyanean football.

Goyanean Football in Prydania

The game of Goyanean football, also called ristjárn (gridiron) has traditionally not had much of a following in Prydania. Even rugby, which regularly ranks below hockey, association football, and basketball, has traditionally been more popular.
That, however, has changed since the end of the Civil War.

The end of the War meant an end to the Syndicalist-helmed monopoly on television and broadcasting. The 2002 ban on non-government stations was repealed, along with the 1991 regulations against foreign media which led to the expansion of television stations across the country. Prydanian language stations of Andrennian state broadcaster ARK, Santonian state broadcaster STV, and of course Goyanean state broadcaster GRK were licensed and approved. And those stations needed content.

The Andrennians and Goyaneans share a hockey league, and so Gothis hockey is jointly broadcast in Prydania through GRK Prydansk and ARK Prydansk. GRK Prydansk filled the parts of the schedule taken up by ARK Prydansk by airing Goyanean pro and college football. The DGF and NHFB games on GRK Prydansk were hosted by Eydis Muri, Skjaldulf Bratt, Robin Lutsy, and Skard Kolberg, Prydanian refugees-turned sports journalists in Goyanes. And they garnered a surprisingly stable viewership.

“Goyanean football isn’t some unknown, it’s been around for over a hundred years,” Dr. Bjalki Wigen, a professor of media studies at the University of Býkonsviði.
“But it’s never really had traction here. Prydanians had association football and rugby to fill that niche. But it’s gotten popular post-Civil War.”

Dr. Wigen attributes it to Goyanes’ alliance with the FRE and it being the country with the second highest number of Prydanian refugees from the War.

“When you have family in Goyanes telling you about this, and then see it on Prydanian tv you’re more inclined to give it a try. And many FRE soldiers and pilots and sailors co-mingled with Goyanean counterparts, heard about it, and got interested. Indeed, Goyanean soldiers teaching FRE soldiers the ins-and-outs of the game for friendly scrimmages were common during the War.

Prydanian College Goyanean Football

And now this brings us to Herra Natvig and his attempt to start a University of Haland Goyanean football team. It shouldn’t be a shock that this has happened at Haland of all places. The Auburn Coast school recently entered into a partnership with the Goyanean university Nyhett Tech. The partnership creates a NT campus within the University of Haland, and is meant to boost the school’s own engineering program to take advantage of the manufacturing and tech sectors the government and foreign investors are investing in, in Haland Valley.

Part of this has been a number of Prydanian students studying at NT and Goyaneans coming over to Haland. And they're bringing their love of Goyanean football.

Björnulf Natvig is Prydanian, a native of Stormurhomr, but he's made friends with some Goyanean exchange students and has been instrumental in spearheading the efforts. He's recognized by the University of Haland as the head of the Goyanean Football Students Association, a club for playing, watching, and discussing the sport.

“We've bought gear and we run scrimmages,” Herra Natvig explains.
“We've also played games, against clubs from elsewhere in Prydania.”

Indeed such clubs are becoming more common. Both on university campuses and among private groups.

“We're playing the cadets from the Royal Military Academy in a week, to ‘cap off’ the season,” Natvig, a wide receiver, said.

So far competition has been informal. The University of Býkonsviði has a club along the same lines as Haland’s, as does the Royal Military Academy. And they've played themselves and private clubs from all over in a sort of ad-hoc schedule.

But Herra Natvig wants to make it official.
“We want to get our teams sanctioned by our schools,” he says.
“And we want it to fall under the ISÞH.”

The ISÞH (National Association of University Athletics) is the governing body of inter-university sporting competition in Prydania.

“We’re watching it,” ISÞH Vice President Skard Ritland said.
“It's not as simple as saying ‘ok you're sanctioned.’ There are steps to go through and we’re evaluating if they're ready to begin that process.”

University of Haland Athletics Dirextor Hildir Holmlund has said that the Goyanean football exhibitions have proven there's an interest, but says there needs to be some sustainable growth.

“Sanctioning means the school deems it official. And that means the AD’s office supports it. Runs it. And if we’re going to allocate funds we need to make sure this is something we have a player and fanbase for beyond just the current class of students.”

Herra Natvig, however, is confident in that.
“If you look at the ratings for Goyanean Football on GRK Prydansk they haven't gone down. They've risen. I’m not saying it's ever going to overtake hockey or even association football, but it's been five years since GRK Prydansk put it on and it's growing.”

Still, he says he understands the Athletic Department and ISÞH’s position.

“I don't care if I never get to play for an official University of Haland Elves football team,” he says.
“I just want to be able to say I made it possible for there to be one, however long that takes.”

For the immediate future, though, Herra Natvig says he's just got two priorities; his schoolwork and beating the Royal Military Acaemdy on the gridiron. The game will be played on the grounds of the University of Haland at Vortgyn’s Landing Field, on 16 January 2023.

OOC Note: Posted with the approval of @Goyanes

Býkonsviði- Just over five years after the fall of Syndicalism has seen the Prydanian economy rebounding, passing some key milestones.

A Paper Revolution

There is a story from the war between Baldr III and Vladimir II. The story goes that Vladimir, who was in Korova when the Alþingi stripped him of the Prydanian crown and ended the Maksutov dynasty in this country, ordered General Alexander Tauricheski to seize Stormurholmr and "prepare the island to join Korova." When Vladimir had finished raising an army to face Baldr III upon his arrival from Saintonge he stopped in Stormurholmr and declared himself Tyrant, and the island his personal possession.
Tauricheski, fearful of what Vladimir would do if he found the island still mostly Prydanian, is said to have built hastily constructed Korovan style towns populated by his men dressed as Korovan peasants to give the impression that the island was being Korovanized. Since then a Tauricheski Village has meant a fake facade of a thing. Something meant to impressive or important or strong that has nothing behind it.
So with that in mind "Tauricheski industrialization" is the best term to use to describe the economic policy of the Syndicalist Republic.

The Syndicalist Republic was shaped by a cadre of radical syndicalists who believed that the industrial working class was a class apart. That like a different nation or ethnicity they had different culture, values, and interests compared to that of their fellow countrymen.
So when they found themselves in command of a country that was mostly rural, and mostly religious to some degree or another, they insisted radical steps had to be taken to transform society.

I am not here to cover the list of human rights abuses that this entailed. We all know them.
What I want to talk about is the end goal, or at least the desired end goal. They imagined a transformed Prydania with an expanded industrial base, a country of factory workers and miners and ship builders. A massive industrialization project.

And in the end it was a Tauricheski. A fake. A facade of false rising production numbers dutifully spilled out by the Syndicalist-controlled press. Factories run by party sycophants and "expanded industry" that amounted to little more that slave labour camps primarily made up of farmers "drafted" at gunpoint.

Syndicalist industrial production stagnated under heavy state control and agricultural production plummeted to numbers so low for a country known as being a breadbasket that it can only be explained as gross mismanagement and corruption.

So why am I talking about this now? It's because five years and seven months after the surrender of the Syndicalist Republic Prydanian industry, infrastructure, and já industrial infrastructure is reaching levels Syndicalists could only dream about in their propaganda. In less then six years constitutional monarchy and democracy has accomplished more in the field of industrial growth than fifteen years of state socialism.

Economic Benchmarks Met
It was reported on 2 January that Prydania's GDP per capita had risen to 19,023 IBU, up from 15,619 IBU two years ago, and a massive improvement over 9,164 IBU in 2019, over 100% rise in just four years.
In terms of nominal GDP Prydania sits at 716,305,000,000, up from 299,885,000,000 two years ago and 62,721,000,000 in 2019.

This growth is itself promising, but it's significant because these numbers represent the tail end of the second Social Commonwealth fascist era, when years of economic stagnation and decline began to bottom out in the lead-up to the Syndicalist coup.

Or to put it simply? Prydania's economic levels have reached a point prior to the country being plunged into social upheaval and civil war.

Industrial Expansion

While the Social Commonwealth fascists avoided the economic pits of Syndicalism their heavy handed approach and arrested cultural development, along with international isolation, led to a steady economic decline. Prydanian industry which had modernized and continued to modernize through the late 50s, 60s, 70s, and early 80s, began to stagnate. It was this stagnated industrial base that the Syndicalists attempted to build their Tauricheski Economy off of.

The end of the war has brought renewed investment and modernization. Much has been written about the transformation of the Hadden Valley into a growing centre of the tech and engineering industries thanks to a mixture of domestic and foreign investment.

Elsewhere too Prydanian industry continues to grow and modernize. Auburn Channel Petroleum, co-owned by the Prydanian, Norsian, and Santonian governments, has played a key role in revitalizing the ports of the the Auburn Channel.
Midland and Freya Motors, Prydania's leading domestic automobile companies, have been hard at work building factory complexes aimed at hybrid and electric vehicle production. Other companies that once called Prydania home but had to flee as a result of the War have returned sine 2017, growing Prydanian branches and facilities. All the while foreign companies open their own branches in Prydania along with domestic firms either restarting after a decade and a half of Syndicalist management or being freshly founded.

Government investment, foreign and domestic, along with private investment, has likewise modernized the industrial centres of cities like Hadden, Keris, Eiderwig, Krummedike, Alaterva, and Býkonsviði. All the while the mining sector has continued to diversify and grow.

Meanwhile water, heat, telecom lines, and electricity have returned en masse. And the Santonian-aided nuclear power investments will be fully on-line by the mid 2030s, which will allow for 70-75% of Prydania's power to be green.

Consumer Confidence

Aiding the growth has been a number of policies that have helped spur on consumer confidence.
The systems set up at the end of the war to find long-time Syndicalist labour camp prisoners work and to help rehabilitate them have morphed into an office dedicated to aiding out of work personal in securing unemployment benefits and finding employment. Additionally the revised tax code passed just before the holidays in 2021 has already begun to pay dividends. Taxes on the middle class have lowered as both pensions and the government's compensation plan for those disposed by the Syndicalist regime have been strengthened. In short, people have more, and the economic output exists for them to buy more.

There is an understanding that goes beyond that though. Dr. Lúðvík Erheorot, Minister for Economic Growth, responded to the latest rounds of economic figures by championing the coalition government's social market "ordered liberalist" approach, which he was the architect of.

"People trust this government because we don't just preserve the market, we ensure it remains free. Not just from socialist intrusions but from the abuses of the other side. A free market is only truly free when government steps in to ensure the consumer and the employee get fair shakes."

Dr. Erheorot was referring to the social market policies of the coalition that reward and encourage innovation and fairer pricing and employment practices while stepping in to punish "predatory" practices such as corporate collusion and the formation of trusts.

Public Housing and Infrastructure Expanding

When the Civil War was over thousands upon thousands were without homes thanks to Syndicalist property seizures and the ravages of war. And this formed one of the post-War government's immediate priorities. So much so that King Tobias put forward partial funding for it from his then-recently received familial wealth.

The public housing construction boom that followed happened alongside the rebuilding of the nation's cities. This proved to be advantageous as city planners and architects were able to integrate new public housing into plans for rebuilt roads, parks, and rail stops.

It was also a chance for Prydanian architects to really get to work on experimenting with the most efficient, comfortable, and accessible housing schemes.

Sigfast Hyttel, a Prydanian architect, started Lifðvel. The architectural firm was created with the goal of getting a contract to design public housing. They ended up partnering with the government as its lead design firm.

"I felt like I, and my colleagues, had a lot to offer after the War," he said.
"Housing needed to be affordable for the government to build, maintain, and for people to live in. They should be functional but also pleasant and open places for people to live. I was conscripted to work for the Syndicalist government. They didn't want dreary necessarily, but they always ended up at that because everyone was too scared to step out of line. But I had freedom here to design something I'm very proud of."

The result was what Herra Hyett calls "modular open housing."

"The challenge is price, so things are modular. Pre-fabricated to a degree," he explained.

These structures, called "skákhúsnæði" or "chess housing" because of their chess board like design, are found all over Prydania now. The five story structures curve slightly, allowing for spacious public plazas that lead to sidewalks and streets, and which help preserve pedestrian and green spaces.

"Each unit," Herra Hyett explains, "is basically a square made up of a series of smaller squares, with open and bright windows and stacked in a way to maximize space. In fact the sub-modules that make up each unit are stacked in such a way that the second sub-module gets an extra meter of space they wouldn't have otherwise. And the second sub-module is always the kitchen. We need a spacious kitchen. What's a Prydanian home without hygge?" he says with a smile.

"The government was very supportive but there will always be limitations with public housing. We designed something to maximize value. For the resident and the community."

The modular "chess housing" buildings in the cities were able to be integrated into rebuilt infrastructure but Sigfast Hyttel and Lifðvel's biggest challenge came with the towns Friður and Frelsi. The two towns, notable for being Prydania's newest municipalities, lie just outside of Býkonsviði, on the sights of what used to be two massive refugee camps.

To deal with the displaced people it was decided that the land they camped on would be the sights of new towns. Almost entirely made up of public housing.

"This was a challenge," Herra Hyett said.
"City planners and urban engineers joined us, and so did the Santonians."

The Santonians he refers to are teams from Saintonge's own public housing authority who came to Prydania to lend expertise along with an aid package that was earmarked for public housing assistance.

"Together we made two planned communities," Stigfast said.
"Housing, food, entertainment, with easy access to Býkonsviði, either by car or with the expanded train lines the Goyaneans built. It's beautiful. I'm proud of what we did. As a kid who built towers with Spilvel I always dreamt of being able to be an architect. But I got to do that and so much more."

Revolution Through Innovation

The economic benchmarks reached are of course reason enough to celebrate. And while the Coalition government is bound to take a victory lap it's something to celebrate for every Prydanian regardless of politics.

What I find bemusing, though, is that for all the talk the Syndicalists did about expanding the country's industrial base it was all just empty, a Tauricheski bluff. Was that by design? Or was the Syndicalist Party just incapable of actual growth within even their chosen field because political orthodoxy just arrests innovation that is necessary for economic growth?

In 2017 a coalition decried as "fascist" and "imperialist" by the Syndicalist regime, of "backwards" landowners and sveitalubbi* wrestled control of this country back from the self-described "regime of the industrial working man."

In 2018 and 2021 the liberated Prydania elected governments that each, in their own way, were dependent on farmer, rural, and small town support. And since then those governments have done more to house the homeless and expand industry then the Syndicalists ever managed. Because ultimately innovation is necessary for advancement. And innovation is only possible in a free society.

---

*sveitalubbi- a redneck, a hick, derogatory name for a rural person

Býkonsviði- The Victims of Syndicalism Memorial was opened in Knights' Park in western Býkonsviði. The memorial was planned to open in September 2022 to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the founding of the Syndicalist Republic and the start of the Civil War, the political debate around the memorial's construction delayed the sign-off on the project. Leading the opposition to the construction was People's Party City Counsellor Svæin Leirdal. The memorial's construction was approved by the city council-leading Free Democrats, as well as the Conservative and Peace not Blood members. Only the People's Party voiced any opposition, but it proved to be a roadblock as they remain the Free Democrats' coalition partners in the capital. In the end, however, the plans and funding for the memorial were approved and on today, the March Equinox, it was officially opened.



There are other memorials dedicated to victims of the Syndicalist regime across Prydania as every community has their own to commemorate the local fallen. Even Býkonsviði has a few, most notably a statue downtown commemorating the victims of the Advent Executions of 2015.

The current Memorial to the Victims of Syndicalism, however, will memorialize all victims of that regime across the country, in the national capital.

"Býkonsviði has always been the heart of the Prydanian realm," Lord Mayor Kjotvi Kolberg said at the memorial's unveiling.
"And so it's proper and just that the names of all who were lost are forever engraved here, close to the halls of power. So leaders and politicians are never far from this reminder, and so all who lost their lives are memorialized in the capital of their homeland."

King Tobias III was also in attendance with Queen Alycia, Princes Baldr and Hael, and Princess Hanna.

"I hope this isn't just for Prydanians," His Majesty said.
"I hope others from around the world see this, remember what happened here, and work to make sure it doesn't happen in their homeland. I hope that the dead whose names are here look down and see their country at peace, and I hope they look down and see that the world was moved to be better."

A Technically Incomplete Memorial

Speaking of His Majesty, he's the reason the memorial is technically incomplete. It lacks two names, King Anders III and Prime Minister Stefan Toft. The two Social Commonwealth leaders were excluded from the memorial per His Majesty's request.

The request was part of a broader debate on whether or not the wall should include Social Commonwealth politicians and soldiers who were killed by the Syndicalist regime. With some insisting that their death was justified while others claimed that the Social Commonwealth regime's crimes deserved to be confronted in a court of law, not by a Syndicalist firing squad. Debate also rose up around the families of Social Commonwealth members and whether or not they should have been included on any formal ban of Social Commonwealth "victims."
The King's request to keep his uncle King Anders III and Prime Minister Toft off of the list seemed to be a suitable compromise. The leaders of the Social Commonwealth regime would be without memorial, and the rest would be included as a matter of historical perspective.

End of Winter

While the early debate meant the memorial would not be completed in time for September 2022 it did allow it to open on the first day of Spring, a day that seemed rather symbolic. King Tobias III and Queen Alycia lay wreaths of daisies along with Lord Mayor Kolberg to celebrate the oncoming spring.

"The sun's going to be out longer," Herra Kolberg said.
"So our beautiful memorial will see more light for a while."

Býkonsviði- When the Prydanian Civil War ended the newly reconstituted Royal Prydanian Air Force (KPFH) had a less than ideal roster of jet fighters. Only 8 Hitma Harriers remained in the country, five from the FRE and three remaining planes from the Syndicalist Republic Air Force. The rest of the fighter roster was made up of Rynevynn Radisson S-124 Valnads and Viiste LOK(JG) 120 Wyverns, from the 70s and 80s.

Steps have been taken since to strengthen the KPFH's capabilities to defend Prydania from the air, with the government purchasing Santonian/Predician CC-18 Falcons from Alenia Aeronautica and Andrennian MNR 184 Drakon D from Rynevynn-Viiste. Additionally the KPFH made the decision to continue using the Harrier as a ground attack air craft, having determined it was still more than capable of holding its own in a modern battlefield. Hitma has been manufacturing new Harriers since the end of the War, buying surplus parts from Goyanes and Andrennian-made Harriers to supplement.

While these actions have shored up Prydania's air defence for the time being the fact remains that the Falcon, Drakon, and Harrier, as reliable as they are, are from the previous generation's class of fighters. The same report that recommended the KPFH continue to use the Harrier noted that this was a temporary ten-year solution and that plans on developing or purchasing a replacement should be formulated.

The Nordic Technical Group

All of this has occurred against the backdrop of Hitma H/F, Prydania's leading military defence and arms manufacturer, joining the Nordic Technical Group (NTG). The NTG was formed as a coalition of Goyanean and Andrennian aerospace manufacturers looking to pool resources and efforts in the field of military aircraft. Hitma H/F, having been reconstituted following the end of the Civil War, came on board to apply their own conceptual design work to the existing NTG efforts to continue developing the next generation of military aircraft.

The first results of this Andrennian, Goyanean, and Prydanian collaboration have been rolled out, as the NTG MNR 260 Dviin entered service first in Andrenne at the end of February and now, a month later, in Prydania. This marks the first 5th generation fighter in the KPFH, and the beginning of the efforts to make it not just a capable fighting force, but a modern one.

The 260 Dviin

The Dviin, much like the Falcon and Drakon, is a multi-role fighter, meaning its roles include air to air combat, air support, aerial bombing, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and suppression of air defenses. Unlike the the Falcon and Drakon, however, the Dviin incorporates 5th generation stealth, networking, and command, control, and communications technologies.
Though only a few Dviins have arrived so far more are on order and the goal is to transition to them over the next ten-fifteen years.

"The Harrier, God bless her, served our country well," Air Marshal Ulvkil Jakhelln stated.
"But the world she was designed for is fading. She's still an effective ground attack aircraft and will be for a few years yet, but the future is is in advanced multirole fighters that have command centre and stealth capabilities. The Falcon and Drakon will slowly but surly take over duties from the Harrier, and they in turn will be supplanted by the Dviin and other collaborations that come out of NTG."

In many ways the Dviin is the first step towards what Air Marshal Jakhelln calls "smart modernization." This reflects the government's desire to rebuild the KPFH and modernize it in a fiscally responsible way.

"We need to understand Prydania's defence capabilities," the Air Marhsal said, "and how they integrate best with our allies. We plan on being very prudent in how we go about ensuring Prydania fills these roles in a modern way. The Dviin is the start of that."

---

OOC Note: Aircraft design from TheGrumpyKestrel

Býkonsviði- The National Board of Trade Unions (Þjóðernstjórn Stéttarfélög, ÞSSF) has called for "normalcy" in the wake of the political turmoil that has engulfed Callise and led to the establishment of a socialist-aligned regime.

The new Callisean government's decision to seize foreign assets- a move it describes as temporary- has cast doubt on trade relations. This was made murkier when Prime Minister Svane formally raised the mobilization level and invited PGU allied states Goyanes and Andrenne to station forces in Prydanian territory citing what it called "provocation" on the part of the new Callisean government.

"The Callisean government's seizure of foreign assets- including Prydanian assets- in an attempt to hold Prydanian industry and politics hostage is not conducive to our mutual economic well being," ÞSSF Secretary-General Isgerd Eike said.

"While we may not share political ideals on how to best advocate for the working class we are working people who believe that these disagreements are only skin deep."

Fröken Eike went on to call on the Callisean government to play its role in attempting to thaw relations.

"Economic movement, commerce, doesn't benefit only one group. Money and goods don't just flow one way. Scores of working class people in both Callise and Prydania earn their livings and owe their livelihoods to the economic relationship between our countries. I am- we are- asking for sanity and normalcy to prevail and for the new Callisean government to consider the broader impact of its economic decisions. Not in terms of a geopolitical power balance but in terms of how these decisions affect the working men and women in our countries, and indeed, across Craviter and beyond."

This is not the first time the ÞSSF has made itself known politically. Though banned from endorsing any party or candidate members of the dock workers' union in Haland threatened to strike and refuse to unload ships carrying Rayvostokan goods if the government did not vote in favour of an embargo against Rayvostoka.

When asked if similar discussions were being heard from member unions over Callise Fröken Eike downplayed the threat of industrial action.

"The Rayvostoka case and this case, they're apples and oranges," the Secretary-General explained.
"There's a wide political spectrum within our member unions and our organization and I think the important thing is we all want the Callisean government to play its part in easing tensions. It's a government that claims to listen to working class people. Well, that is who we are."

Minister of Foreign Affairs Sören Högh was asked about the stand-off with Callise and indicated that there are plans to resolve outstanding differences.

"We did the proper thing and granted the socialist government in Callise recognition when we were satisfied they commanded the will of a majority of the Callisean people. Everything since then has been the Kingdom of Prydania acting defensively. Obviously we wish things had been different. But they're not. We are though, encouraged by the prospect of arriving at a diplomatic settlement and we are hopeful an economic settlement will be part of that."

The Minister, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, also called for calm as crowds protesting outside of the Callisean embassy grew, with one protester seen burning a Syndicalist flag.

"The ÞSSF believes that we can all get back to a state of normalcy," Fröken Eike insisted.
"We're happy to hear the government attempting to find a diplomatic solution."

Krummedike- The Western Conference Finals between the Krummedike Griffinar and Erkiengill ÍF was something to be celebrated. In just the second year since expansion a Conference Finals was being contested by two new teams. Erkiengill ÍF upset Konunglegur Býkonsviði to avenge last season's round one exit while Krummedike, the defending Hamar Cup Champions, bested the Keris Drekar.

The champs had not stayed pat, making a few key roster changes as part of their bid to repeat as champions. The most newsworthy addition was that of Kolfinnur Grundt. And it was at his expense that this sad story unfolded.

Kolfinnur Grundt's Story

Kolfinnur Grundt served as a soldier in the Syndicalist People's Militia. He eventually rose to the rank of Captain and was involved in what came to be known as the Red House Atrocities where his unit used a house just outside of Hjallerup to rape girls.
The actions of the unit, later exposed by a Santonian diplomatic official, resulted in the unit being arrested by the Syndicalist Republican Army.

Grundt would vanish two years later, and was presumed dead, only to surface in Saintonge as a Santonian citizen having fled to the country during the chaos of the Harrying of Hadden.

While Herra Grundt was too high a rank to be covered by the King's mass pardon of Syndicalist supporters during the War having him extradited to stand trial was next to impossible given Santonian policy is to not extradite their citizens. This caused a stir in Prydania, and in Saintonge as well as to why a war criminal was allowed to find refuge and later citizenry in their country.

The noise eventually brought forth two Prydanian families, one still in Prydania and another in Saintonge, who told the story of how Herra Grundt had risked his life to defy the Syndicalist government and save their lives. It was the stories of the Bake and Modt families that let to Prime Minister Svane making the controversial decision to recommend Kolfinnur Grundt for a pardon. The decision was not without its detractors, but the pardon was signed by the King. This cleared his legal slate from the War clean. And made returning to Prydania viable.

Grundt Adds a Foundational Presence

Herra Gurndt thanked the city of Krummedike and the Griffinar for a warm welcome and got to work. For a Griffinar team that had won the Hamar Cup expectations were high but multiple players credit Kolfinnur for his role as a steady hand in the locker room.

"He's been someone who always talks us down when the pressure gets a bit too much," said Krummedike defenceman Folkbjörn Aarseth.

Another Krummedike blueliner Hjálmtýr Örbekk, also of Santonian citizenship, concurred.
"Kol is always working hard, and it keeps everyone focused."

Indeed, Grundt has never been a superstar player. Yet he gained a reputation as a solid role player who consistently produced during his tenure in the Santonian league and that has continued in Krummedike. It's the consistent if not flashy production and locker room intangibles that have given the Griffinar an offensive boost a season after they won the Hamar Cup on the back of strong defensive and goaltending play.

By the time the playoffs rolled around the story about Krummedike was that they might be unstoppable now that they'd boosted their production in the offensive stage of the game. It seemed prudent to ask that after eliminating Keris in a sweep in round one! If only the past had stayed the past.

Politics and Passions Run Ugly

The Western Conference Finals against Erkiengill ÍF were never going to be easy. Erkiengill ÍF has proven to be a truculent team, gritty with enough explosive speed to take advantage of anyone who thought playing grinding hockey against them was the way forward.

Game five last night saw both teams jostling for a series lead, with both teams owning two games a piece.
Midway through the third period, with the score 2-1 Erkiengill, Erkiengill winger Runolf Ueland jostled with Krummedike netminder Stækar Aagaard after Aagaard made a save. Grundt went in to separate the two and defend his goalie, and that's when things got rough. Ueland and Grundt seemed to trade trash talk before Ueland hit Grundt with a punch prompting referees to separate the two and keep the two sides from devolving into a brawl. Ueland was penalized a five minute major for fighting as well as a two minute penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. Krummedike tied the game on the power play off of a Grundt assist to an Aarseth goal.

It wasn't until later that the full drains of the scrum emerged. When Grundt went to separate Ueland from Aagaard Ueland called him "a Syndie criminal" before sucker punching him and forcing referees to play peace keeper.

Reactions

Runolf Ueland didn't seem apologetic after the game, which ended with a Krummedike victory in overtime.

"I said what I said, and I don't want to talk about it" he said to media when questioned after the game before getting up and leaving the press conference early.

Erkiengill Coach Sjur Egner was more cordial.
"He shouldn't have said it. Passions run high, but he shouldn't have said it. We're gonna talk about a way forward."

Kolfinnur Grundt received a showering of support from teammates and the city of Krummedike though. The story of what Ueland had said had circulated on sports sites and on social media before the end of the game, and the Krummedike fans responded with loud "KOOOLLFFIIINNNNUUURRR" chants any time he touched the puck.

For a city that has a complicated history with the labour movement and Syndicalist Party Kolfinnur is someone the fans relate to, even if he himself is from Býkonsviði.

And while all of his teammates and coaches took to the media after the game to defend him, it was goaltender Stækar Aagaard's statement that seemed to catch everyone's attention.

"Kolfinnur isn't just my teammate. He's my friend," the goalie said.
"He's been nothing but one of the kindest people I know, and I'm not going to let anyone disparage him."

It's notable because Stækar Aagaard is a native of Hadden, and lost family to the Syndicalists during the Harrying of Hadden.
For him to speak up for a former Syndicalist Militiaman was powerful.

"I don't know what he's thinking," Aagaard added.
"But we're all here for him."

Unlikely Support

Herra Grundt also received support from an unlikely source.

"I'm a former Syndie too," Eiderwig Assistant Captain Gunnar Stahl remarked.
"I'm not proud of it, but I was. A lot of people were but forgiveness is a virtue and people should recognize that. If you want to go after Kolfinnur Grundt you gotta come after me too."

It's a powerful statement from the captain of the Prydanian national team, and someone who regularly ranks among the most popular athletes in Prydania.

And with Herra Stahl's team up 3-0 on Midland it's not inconceivable these two will meet for the Hamar Cup.

And with any luck this ugliness will be in the rear view mirror.

OOC Note: Big thanks to @Kyle who created these characters and suggested this idea to me

Býkonsviði- As the ÍDP Hamar Cup Playoffs roll on and as the Metal League's Finals are set between the Axlarhagi Hveitikonungar and Darrow Sjómenn a new showdown is taking shape at the heart of Prydanian hockey. The debate about whether the winner of Metal League's title should replace the last place Stormurholmr Eyjamenn in the ÍDP come the 2023-2024 season.

Traditionally speaking the Prydanian hockey pyramid has always been made up of closed leagues. From junior leagues to minor league pro teams to the top flight ÍDP.

But the Syndicalist government closed the major league system down and drafted its players into labour camps and the military, and the top flight league itself was in rough shape when the War ended. The Prydanian Ice Hockey Federation (ÍSP) has been slowly rebuilding the league structure since. With the first season of the Metal League- the name for the newly reconstituted highest level minor league- nearly done its given rise to the debate that the ÍSP should see this fresh start as an opportunity to implement promotion and relegation.

ÍSP Vice President of Competition Torbjörn Jorstad is leading the charge.
"Obviously a pro and rel system gives more incentives on the competition side of things but I believe it's more than that. I think that by having fluidity we're only going to strengthen minor league hockey."

He also points to Scalvia.
"The Scalvian league was an open league until the owners decided to close it," he says.
"Hockey's popularity suffered. Here in Prydania hockey is already incredibly popular. But our ability to reach even more people, and inspire more fans and future players will be incredible with the boost of popularity pro and rel will bring."

ÍSP President Leif Bjelland, however, wasn't as sold.
"In Scalvia an open league was the tradition. What happened went against it, and fans weren't happy. In Prydania the closed system is the tradition. We need to think very carefully about whether or not fans want this."

Fans of the Metal League teams are, of course, very eager to embrace the prospect if social media's to be believed. Especially Darrow and Axlarhagi fans. The chance to see their team promoted to the top level of Prydanian hockey is exciting.

But lost in the excitement is a necessary discussion of pros and cons.

While seeing your hometown's minor league team promoted to the top flight might be exciting it comes with managed expectations. It's very unlikely that a newly promoted team will make noise, and will likely be a fixture near the bottom of the standings. The hope is that if they are able to survive and not get relegated they will be able to sign and develop more top caliber players who will lead the team to new heights. But is the wait worth it? Excitement can turn to disappointment quickly.

And what of the other side of things? Prydanian fans are loyal to their teams but will Stormurholmr fans stomach being relegated to a lower level of competition? Even if they excelled a Metal League Championship might taste bitter after losing a spot in the ÍDP.

Herra Jorstad sees this as a feature though.
"Sport is about competition and self-betterment. You want a victory or a title to push you to do even better. Rel and pro makes more steps of that journey meaningful for fans. You're not just stuck in the bottom of the standings. You go to another league and figure things out. And if you excel you make a run at the top league again. I think fans will be receptive."

No sport in Prydania has operated an open league system. Yet its existence in some other countries has made it a topic of curiosity in Prydania. Hockey is Prydania's most popular sport, making it perhaps the perfect league to try it.

"Hockey fans are loyal," Herra Jorstad said.
"And we're in a position to lead a charge here."

Federation President Herra Bjelland said he's willing to put the question to a vote at the ÍSP's end of year conference following the Hamar Cup Final. He's made it clear though that he wants more than speculation.

"I want the pro and rel side to explain what it would look like. How many teams would go up vs go down. How would our organizations handle the interests that intersect both the ÍDP and Metal League? And when are we going to implement this if it's approved? What's the time table for organizing this? I would like to see a well thought out plan before I consent to adding a debate and vote to the agenda of the end of season Federation conference."

The ÍSP works with a number of ownership groups between the ÍDP, Metal League, and the lower leagues it's working on establishing or re-establishing. Owners of Prydanian clubs include local owners, foreign owners, singular owners, groups of investors, and locally owned communal teams. While these groups often have disparate goals and agendas they tend to coalesce on matters central to the game of hockey.

What the promotion and relegation argument will look like to them, and who will back what, remains to be seen.

Röddin Prydansk frá Alaterva (The Voice of Prydania from Alaterva) song contest is introducing a new format this year, that includes every province sending an act to represent them in a bid to see who wins. Additionally the judge votes will be weighed with a public vote.

All in all it has musicians and music fans across the country excited. As last year proved, when AusturSkvísur won with an act inspired by Iraelian country music, Prydanian music is more diverse then one might expect and anyone can win.
Well... almost anyone. Hastein Storlie, a musician from South Austurland who was selected to represent his province, has had his song disqualified.

The entry, We Don't Wanna Bend It, was removed from the slate by contest organizers who deemed the lyrics "political." Under contest rules songs are not allowed to have overly political references in a bid to keep the event's focus on music and art and not on using it as a political platform.

While We Don't Wanna Bend It's lyrics aren't overly political in nature contest organizers deemed the "don't wanna bend it" lyrics as being a reference to Hubert Bennett, the de facto leader of the socialist government that has just come to power in Callise. As tensions mount the sentiment among Prydanians that Callise's socialist have designs to try and force socialism back on Prydania. Herra Storlie's home province of South Austurland was one of the most victimized provinces during the Syndicalist regime, perhaps best symbolized by the Darrow Hangings, where twenty innocent people were executed by the Syndicalist regime in response to a FRE bombing.

Herra Storlie, who is from Mosfell, didn't seem put out though he didn't cop to the alleged political meaning.
"The rules of the contest are there, the organizers are just doing their jobs," he said with a shrug.

We asked him directly if the song was a reference to Hubert Bennett.
"But I mean you can read any meaning into anything if you try hard enough," he replied with a wink.
"But it's just like... we don't wanna bend it, you know?"

Hastein Storlie wrote songs during the Civil War, some of which very openly celebrated the anti-Syndicalist FRE who had liberated his home in 2013. He currently lives in Haland with his partner, Tord Langager, who is studying to be a computer engineer.

It's June, which means it's Pride Month. It's where LGBT+ folks the world over are celebrated, in the hopes that they find acceptance and happiness in a world that, until relatively recently, was hostile to their very existence. And the fact is that we as a nation are behind the curve.

Some of us might object. Spilvel, though now based in Saintonge, is a company with roots in Prydania that once again calls its Prydanian branch home for Craviter operations. And they proudly display the Rainbow Flag during Pride Month. And didn't Prydania legalize same-sex marriage in 2019? Surely, SURELY, is Spilvel and marriage are any indication we have nothing to be ashamed of come Pride Month.
Yet it's still legal to discriminate against LGBT+ peoples on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in the job market and housing. Transgendered Prydanians still lack any legal mechanism to be recognized as their identified gender.

Let's examine it though.

First thing's first, same sex marriage was legalized in 2005 by the Syndicalist Regime. Already I hear the pitchforks being taken out, and I urge everyone to listen. Já, the Syndicalist Republic was abhorrent and legally nothing from that regime is recognized. I understand why this is legally speaking, but it doesn't undo the reality of what happened.
In fact this vagueness was had married same-sex couples on edge about the statuses of their marriages. When then-Prince Tobias addressed the world with the FRE on the verge of its final victory over the Syndicalist regime he specifically mentioned the legacy of his uncle and how he wouldn't usher in a new SoComm fascist dictatorship. He mentioned that respecting the legality of same sex marriage legislation was one thing his government would abide by. Yet when the dust was settled the Syndicalist Republic- and therefore everything done by it- was declared invalid. A criminal conspiracy. The same mechanisms the FRE provisional government used to do this added caveats on certain issues- mostly related to same sex marriage and housing reforms- to uphold the acts of certain Syndicalist legislation while repealing the acts themselves. No same sex couple lost their rights as married couples, yet it wasn't until 2019 when the newly elected Free Democratic government of Magnus Brandt settled the issue by legalizing same sex marriage and retroactively recognizing all such marriages entered into under the Syndicalist government.

That saga represents the single greatest victory of LGBT+ folks in this country, and it took years of wrangling to make it a firm reality. Now I am not naive. The FRE government had a lot on their plate following the collapse of the Syndicalist regime and I'll risk my socdem card and say that focusing on housing, food, utilities and currency stabilization were the right choices over the same sex marriage issue.
But it also shouldn't have taken until 2019 to sort out the legal grey zone same sex marriage existed in after the fall of the Syndicalist Republic.

Yet I feel even that requires a deeper dive. The Syndicalist Republic's legalization of same-sex marriage in 2005 was not necessarily done in the name of LGBT+ liberation. It was more in line with the regime's desire to spit in the eye of traditional belief structures and present itself as outwardly progressive just a few years after the fall of Anders III's fascist regime. The regime's tight grip on media and entertainment meant that burgeoning LGBT+ culture, becoming more mainstream in the rest of the world, didn't grow in Prydania. In fact most of it was condemned by the Syndicalist Party as "degenerate consumerist" in a 2010 party report.
Truly the Syndicalist Republic was a great unifyer. By accepting gay marriage but banning glitter scarves they truly did piss everyone off.

All of this means, of course, that when gay culture was becoming increasingly mainstreamed Prydania was fully engulfed by Civil War. The world of 2002, at the start of the conflict, and the world of 2017 when it ended were very different places. And as Prydania finds itself behind the curb.

As stated before, discrimination against LGBT+ peoples in jobs and housing remains legal. Trans rights are virtually non-existent. Neither the Laurenist Church or Courantist Church, the two largest churches in the country, will perform same sex marriages.

This state of affairs was understandable in the years where the government had to act on more pressing matters to simply keep the country running but those days are past. Syndicalist compensation programs are well-funded. Economic growth is underway. The GDP and population has risen every year since 2018. We no longer find ourselves on the brink like we did before.

So now, I ask the Prime Minister and his Coalition this- if the rights of the LGBT+ community in this country are still not a priority then when will they be? The time for pushing them aside has passed. It's time we demand action. And what time is better to reflect both on how far we've come and how far we have to go then Pride Month?

Býkonsviði- The Callisean socialist front has launched a new international organization, the International Confederation of Populists, and Prydania's People's Party has joined.

The People's Party created something of a wave among left wing Craviterian circles when it rejected membership in the Callisean-based International Workers' Association. The decision- voted on at the 2022 People's Party Congress in Keris- came down the party unwilling to concede on the IWA's points regarding the overthrow of capitalism and the ban on forming coalitions with non-socialist parties.
The decision, or more specifically the arguments against membership made by prominent People's Party members, prompted the Workers' Party of Callise to issue a rebuttal, which prompted People's Party leader Anne Gram to issue a reply of her own.

There things lay until electoral turmoil resulted in a socialist front led by the Workers' Party seized control of the Callisean state. Now with a socialist Callise locked in a diplomatic game of chicken with the Prydanian government that decision had given the People's Party much needed wiggle room given Anne Gram's past association with the Workers' Party of Callise.

Now though, old arguments are on the rise. The new international federation is aimed at populist parties, which the organization describes as committed to left wing rural and agricultural politics. And the People's Party, after a canvassing of votes from local chapters, has joined.

Less Contention

The new org- which structurally bound to the IWA- seems to have taken some of its forerunners' issues to heart. The overt call to economic revolution and the ban on coalitions with non-left wing parties are both absent. And that undoubtedly makes the organization far more appealing to Prydanians whose memories of Syndicalist dictatorship are still raw.

"The People's Party's stance on the IWA remains unchained," Peter Sjöstedt, Chairman of the People's Party National Executive Committee, said.
"But we choose to view the IWA and the ICP as different federations with clearly unique aims and founding principals. Our membership was receptive to ICP membership. So we joined. As with all major policy decisions we listen to our party's rank and file."

A Question of Rural Identity

Membership, however, has given rise to questions about what the People's Party wishes to be, and how receptive the intended targets are of those desires.

The People's Party was founded in 2017 in the dying days of the Civil War. The Populist Front, made up of former Syndicalists-turned-rebels, had formed an alliance with the FRE, and made up a portion of the anti-Syndicalist resistance's overall governing council. Yet as FRE and Nordika forces pushed on Býkonsviði and Keris in the early summer of 2017 it became necessary to look to the future. The FRE itself was born of anti-Syndicalist resistance. Once the War was over it as an organization would wither away and a transitional government would rise up in its place. The Popular Front needed to transition into a political party to have a voice in the post-War world and the People's Party was formed.

Being formed from ex-Syndicalists meant that their perspective on left wing politics was oriented towards the industrial urban working class. And as the People's Party's electoral record and membership growth since has shown, that has remained their core base of support.

Syndicalist contempt for rural landowners, even the smallest ones, resulted in a harsh, degrading, deadly, criminal, and inefficient collectivization. The scars of which are still felt across the country's rural constituencies. The People's Party polled as low as two tenths a percentage point in the rural areas hit hardest by Syndicalist collectivized agriculture in the 2021 election, a result most agree was a result of the memories of that process of dispossession and oppression.

Yet that doesn't mean the People's Party is ready to concede the Countryside. The 2021 elections also saw the People's Party enter into coalition governments in the Landernne and Hadden provinces. While their votes were carried by strong showings in the urban centres of Keris and Hadden they've committed to using the stint in government in both to prove to those provinces' rural communities that they can be trusted to stand for working class rural issues and they're truly not a return to the Syndicalist oppression of old.

"It's pointless to whine about baggage," Herra Sjöstedt said.
"We can wail 'oh we're not Syndies' but that would ignore the very real feelings we're running into in our rural constituencies. They don't trust us. Ok. I understand why. Now we have a chance to win that trust, and I believe we're doing that."

Herra Sjöstedt has a point. The People's Party has its strongest rural polling results in the provinces of Landerrne and Hadden. Likely not enough to eclipse Peace not Blood or the Free Democrats in the immediate future, but the party is seeing some growth from seeds planted.

It's this that primarily motivated an exploration into joining the ICP.

"We aren't a party for the urban working class. We aren't a party for the rural working class. We're a party for the working class of Prydania, period," party leader Anne Gram stated.

"We need to understand that dynamic, that we're going to have different ways of reaching working people depending on where they live, and what their occupation is. But as far as the rural working class of Prydania goes, we consider ourselves populists."

Pushback

There has been pushback to the move. Ísgeir Aðaldal, the þingmaður* for Kiojaleit and the surrounding farmlands and the first Peace not Blood þingmaður, called the move "cynical."
"Rural people of this country remember what happened the last time class-obsessed urban workers tried to say they spoke for them. Thankfully this time there's a ballot box they can fight back with."

The Prime Minister also took to grilling Fröken Gram over the decision in the Alþingi.
"Callise's socialist government proclaims that they have our country and people in their crosshairs, and our colleagues from the People's Party join a socialist Callisean-led front. Their party can do what they want. The people of this country will judge them for it."

Anne Gram, however, was not silent.
"We refuse to be held hostage by the past, but we don't break those restraints by denying them. We listen. Maybe it won't be today or tomorrow. But to the small homesteaders. To the rural labourers. Our party will fight for you, and we will welcome you when we've earned your trust."

Free Democrats on Offensive

The Free Democratic Party has traditionally been the second choice of rural voters, with a solid support base of its own and a reputation in the countryside as the "progressive" choice compared to the Agrarians of the past and Peace not Blood of the present.

It is perhaps no surprise that they've hit out the hardest. So much so it's caused a minor crisis in government in two provinces.

"Wolf in sheep's clothing. It's as simple as that isn't it?" Marianne Toft, leader of the Free Democrats and leader of the Opposition said.

"I'm not going to let my people be hoodwinked," she added. This was followed by a massive Free Democratic Party outreach initiative to "re-engage" with the party's rural voter base.

"The daughter of Prydania's last fascist Prime Minister calling anyone else a wolf in sheep's clothing is rich," Sigewulf Reiten, a vocal member of the People's Party's left wing, said.
"And her people? Fröken Toft is from Erkiengill. That's pretty urban to start calling rural people 'her' people. I'm from Býkonsviði so maybe I don't get to talk, but I'm honest about it at least."

The problems for Fröken Toft mount, however. Her party is the senior coalition partner to the People's Party in the provincial governments of both Landerne and Hadden. And while provincial FDPP leaders have a more cordial relationship with their People's Party colleagues the attacks from the national branch and the outreach program that seems targeted at countering People's Party attempts at growing their rural base have ruffled feathers.

"We don't appreciate our coalition partners undermining our own efforts," Rebekka Wike, a Landerne People's Party representative, said.
"Coalition agreements are based on trust and now everything has to be examined. Was this or that a good faith move? It's not a good thing to have to ask about your coalition partner."

Regardless, the decision to join the ICP certainly is a statement of intent from the People's Party, of long term vision to reshape their party and rural politics.

---

*þingmaður- MP

15 June 2023


Krummedike- It was a year of firsts as far as ÍDP expansion teams go. Not only did we get our first ever expansion vs expansion finals, as Krummedike took on Eiderwig, but in only the second season of the expansion era the Krummedike Griffinar became the first of the new teams to win back to back Hamar Cups.

Storylines Out East
The most intriguing storyline, however, concerned Krummedike's opponent, the Eiderwig Stýrimaðar. Eiderwig made a huge splash in the off-season by signing Gunnar Stahl, the Prydanian national team captain and lead defenceman on his hometown team, Miðland ÍF. Stahl's contract had expired at the end of the 2021-2022 season and there were rumblings that he was frustrated with team management's inability to build a contending squad while an upstart like Krummedike was able to win the Hamar Cup in its first season.
While speculation ranged from him eventually signing with his hometown team to even signing elsewhere, Stahl opted to sign with Eiderwig. A short trip down the coast perhaps, but a move that seemed mutually beneficial.
Stahl helped elevated Eiderwig to playoff contention. Miðland, meanwhile, seemed to play a much more open game without the pressure to rely on the national team captain. Both teams made the playoffs, and advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals.
It was there that the true reason for Stahl's departure became known. It wasn't that he was frustrated with Miðland's squad, but rather that he and Miðland coach Öistein Aavik clashed over how they wanted to build the team. Stahl told the board of the non-profit community owned firm that owns Miðland that he'd resign with them if they dropped Aavik, but the board refused. So he signed with Eiderwig.

The Eastern Conference Finals result was a huge deal for Miðland too. The previous season, with Stahl on the team, they were blanked by arch rival Alaterva 4-0 in the first round. Now they were onto the finals. Coach Aavik didn't bury Stahl to the media, but suggested that the team had better chemistry then in years past.

Gunnar Stahl answered all the questions of how he'd do against his old team, scoring a hat trick in the first game in Eiderwig. He'd go on to average over a goal and an assist a game over a five game series that Eidwig won 4-1 over Miðland. There were no signs of hurt feelings though, as Gunnar's Miðland teammates embraced him in the handshake line after the final game, and Coach Aavik referred to him as "a hell of a competitor" in the post-game media scrum.

Storylines Out West
Meanwhile Krummedike defeated fellow expansion team Erkiengill ÍF 4-2 in the Western Conference Finals, a series that was tainted with ugliness when offseason Krummedike offensive addition Kolfinnur Grundt was called "a Syndie criminal" by Erkiengill winger Runolf Ueland during a scrum in front of the Krummedike net during game five, in reference to Grundt's past as a Second Lt-turned-Captain in the Syndicalist People's Militia during the Civil War. The event resulted in a mass outpouring of support for Herra Grundt from his teammates and Krummedike fans alike, and even Gunner Stahl over in Eiderwig. While both Grunt and Ueland participated in the handshake line their interaction was brief.

The shame of it is that, aside from picking raw old wounds that had perhaps just started to truly heal, the incident overshadowed Grundt's role in Krummedike's season. The Griffinar had won the Hamar Cup last year with a defensive-focused team, but the club made an effort to round out their game for the 2022-2023 campaign. Grund wasn't a flashy player but he provided very consistent offensive production that helped Krummedike bring the offence up to par. While he didn't produce the numbers Gunnar Stahl did over in Eiderwig, he was having a very notable season and playoffs.


Finals
Both teams entered the Hamar Cup Finals ready to go, and both teams traded wins for the first two games. The series returned to Krummedike for game five, which the Griffinar won 3-1, notable for being the first game of the 2023 playoffs that Gunnar Stahl was held pointless. Game six back in Eiderwig was looking like a blowout with Krummedike up 4-0 going into the third, but an Eiderwig comeback helmed by Stahl and centre Vebjörn Lorenzen tied the game 4-4 with less then a minute left.
Yet that seemed to be it for Eiderwig with Krummedike winning the game 5-4 ten minutes into OT on a goal by Griffinar defenceman Folkbjörn Aarseth, to win the series and Hamar Cup 4-2 over six games.
The Hamar Cup Finals MVP went to Krummedike goaltender Stækar Aagaard, adding to a list of growing accomplishments for the young goaltender. Who, like Gunnar Stahl, is a former member of Miðland ÍF. A fact not lost on Miðland fans who took to Twitcher to bemoan the success two former players were having for different clubs.

For Krummedike they repeat as Hamar Cup Champions and look forward to new challenges as they try to defend their title against eleven other teams hungry for it.
For Eiderwig? Gunnar Stahl got his first taste of Finals hockey and he's ready to give it another run.
"We'll be back," he said with a smile when asked by RÚV 8 what the plans are for next season.

OOC Note: big thanks to @Kyle who made the picture of Kolfinnur with his AI ninja skills

Býkonsviði- The 2021 election was a great unknown. A massive Free Democratic Party lead at the polls devolved into a three way neck and neck. Would the Free Democrats recover? Would Peace not Blood translate a wave of momentum into ballot box results? How would both the Conservative Party and Agrarian Party do now that the Conservative-Agrarian Alliance was dead? Could the People's Party grow from their two seat return in 2018 to something viable?

In the end the Free Democrats and Peace not Blood finished neck and neck and the government was formed when Peace not Blood entered into a coalition arrangement with the Conservative Party, which had finished third. The two parties also entered into coalition agreements in the provincial governments of North Austurland, South Austurland, Fölurpunktur, and Vesturmark (Alaterva is a unique case where a coalition of Free Democrats, Peace not Blood, and Conservatives governs the province).

Many jumped to the assumption that this would lead to a "new Alliance," a new replacement coalition of right wing parties now that the Conservative-Agrarian Alliance is history. After two years that finally appears to be happening. Each party has formally approved a motion to join in an electoral coalition.

Government Popularity and (Official) Opposition Stagnation
The success the parties had in collaboration not just nationally but in the provinces likely led to the decision, which was approved by 96% of Peace not Blood members and 90% of Conservative Party members. Yet what seems to have kicked the idea into the practical planning stages was the popularity of the government. Social market reforms have begun to show results as economic growth continues alongside recovery. With government approval ratings solidly in the 80s percentage wise there is a feeling among the Conservatives that the arrangement- which seems them take a junior role for the first time in their history- is advantageous.

Leader of the Official Opposition and of the Free Democratic Party Maríanna Toft criticized the move.
"Peace not Blood entered into the political sphere claiming it represented new ideas, but this shows us they're following the same Alliance playbook with a different coat of paint."

It's not the first time the Opposition Leader's attempted to split the governing coalition. She appealed to Conservative
þingmenn* who were hesitant about the government's plan to establish the Office for the Protection of the Realm's Constitution. And she attempted to do so again during the Kolfinnur Grundt situation, where she presented Prime Minister Svane's appeal to forgiveness as a sign of weakness towards those who sided with the Syndicalist cause during the War. That was perhaps her most successful attempt, as her hardline approach saw the Free Democrats rise at the expense of Peace not Blood in the polls, though that momentum has proven hard to keep up.

In fact the political gossip mill around Býkonsviði has suggested that Fröken Toft has effectively been supplanted as Opposition Leader by People's Party leader Annie Gram. Though her party's twenty-five seats are less than half of Fröken Toft's caucus and thus her team has less time to question the government, she has effectively made use of what she has, by challenging the government on everything from economic policy to LGBT rights, to the decision to invite Gojan and Andrennian military personnel into the country in light of Callise's turn to socialism.
Meanwhile Fröken Toft's team has really struggled to carve out a unique vision for the country or solidly challenge the government.

"She knows the government coalition is broadly popular and so she's been vary careful in how she's criticized it. She's trying to be seen as the same but different and viable and that's very hard to do," a Free Democratic þingmaður* staffer said on the condition of anonymity.
An Uncertain Road and Questions Left Unanswered
Yet despite the government's popularity issues remain between the Peace not Blood and the Conservative caucuses. It's been reported that members of the Conservative Party aren't entirely comfortable with Kjell Svane embracing social market theory. The more laissez faire-inclined among them have bristled but mostly stayed in line, due to the economic recovery trending well for their re-election prospects.
Another issue was how this new Alliance would be divided. The old Conservative-Agrarian Alliance kept things rather simple, with the Conservatives running candidates in the cities and large towns while the Agrarians focused on the rural constituencies. Yet while Peace not Blood supplanted the Agrarians in those areas they were not confined to them. Peace not Blood elected þingmenn in urban battleground seats, in large towns that have traditionally been Conservative strongholds, and in traditionally Conservative urban constituencies. It is not as simple as drawing a dividing line between the city and country anymore.
And while the electoral coalition agreement holds that each party will back the other's candidate in constituencies where they've been elected, the question remains which party will run where in opposition þingsviði*. Still, Prime Minister Svane and Deputy Prime Minister Sören Högh said such matters were being worked on.

"Both parties are working together to investigate and plan which candidate is best to represent the Alliance in upcoming elections," Herra Högh said.

The official name of the electoral coalition is the Peace-Conservative Allliance for Prydania.

Merger?

Another rumour swirling lately hasn't been that of an electoral coalition, but of merger. Does the advent of the coalition put a stop to that? No. Not necessarily. It could be seen as a trial balloon to see how the electorate responds to the parties formally joining forces. Or it could be just what it says, an electoral pact. And a merger may come down the line.
Regardless, merger talks haven't quieted. Yet right now no one is talking about them.

"My business is the running of this government," Prime Minister Svane said.
"I'm excited about our new partnership. I think it'll provide Prydanians with a strong, compassionate, conservative, voice in government. But right now political mergers aren't on my mind."

---

*þingmenn- MPs
*þingmaður- MP
*þingsviði- electoral constituency

Býkonsviði- Admiral of the Fleet Asmund Saetern of the Royal Prydanian Navy was before the Alþingi's Defence Committee to discuss the Navy's plans going forwards as a viable fighting force capable of defending the country and meeting its defence commitments to PGU, Bergum Pact, and Luscovo Pact alliances. Two reports were discussed, one authored by Brigadier Marshal Kaleb Stahl of Army Intelligence and the other by Flotilla Admiral Karl Torgersen. The two were discussed as part of a larger conversation between Admiral Saetern and the Defence Committee and naval growth.

"Growth" vs "Expansion"
Peace not Blood, as the largest party in the Alþingi, occupied a proportional number of seats on the Committee. And though the party has repeated declared it is in no way pacifist, its membership by and large still prefers to see the military option as the last resort. It's because of this position from the senior governing coalition party that Admiral Saetern repeatedly claimed that the Royal Prydanian Navy's plans weren't "expansion," but "growth." When Committee member Ingrid Teigen (FeB, ER-6/Reyrvollr og Bæjum) asked the Admiral to explain the difference he responded that "growth" indicated changing to meet new circumstances, not an increase in sailors, officers, ships, or money.

"When I say growth, Fröken," the Admiral stated, "I'm talking about the Navy changing with the times. Já, sometimes that means the Navy may need to expand, but it also could mean it shrinks to become a more efficient and streamlined force. The Navy must always grow to adapt to a changing world and changing objectives, but it doesn't always need to expand."

Specifically the Admiral mentioned that "expansion" was not an immediate goal of the Navy, but "growth" was, citing the roster of in-service ships.

"Prydania's fleet," the Admiral continued, "outside of patrol ships has one ship built in Prydania. The KPS Erik III, an Ozaviin-class destroyer set to sea in 1992. It's the only major surviving warship from the Civil War. And it's also over thirty years old."

The Admiral went on to explain that outside of patrol ships every ship in the Royal Prydanian Navy is an older model, procured from Goyanes, Saintonge, Predice, and Mošordia, save for the state of the art Santonian-built icebreaker, the KPS Princes Asleif.

"These are good ships," Admiral Saetern continued.
"And presently they've been updated to the extent they can be to serve our maritime defence needs. But their older nature means that, sooner or later, we will need to replace them."

Two Reports

Brigadier Marshal Kaleb Stahl's On the Effectiveness of State of the Art Technology in a Modern Battlefield outlined the need for a military to continually adapt with changing and advancing technologies, illustrating the shortfalls associated with relying on outdated technology and the the mistaken belief that battle-tested tech and skill can always overcome technological shortcomings. Admiral Torgersen's report On the Future of the KPSH* took the broad arguments made in Brigadier Marshal Stahl's report and focused it on the Navy's needs.

Admiral Saetern referred to both reports before the Defence Committee, outlining the Navy's needs to modernize. It's here where he specified his definition of the idea of "growth," pointing out that the goal is not the expansion of the fleet, but the responsible replacement of older vessels with more modern ones.

"The Royal Prydanian Navy needs to set two immediate goals for itself," the Admiral stated.
"We need to plan for the replacement of our main surface fleet with newer ships, and we need these ships built here, in Prydania. We boasted one of the continent's premier shipbuilding industries before. We can do it again. And the King's Navy will be better for it."

Shipyards and Ships

Prydania's shipyards have seen investment in some areas since before the end of the Civil War. Gojan and Andrennian technicians and companies aided in updating the shipyards of Stormurholmr and Austurland in 2013, following the offensive that drove the Syndicalist Republic from the east.
The Syndicalists themselves poured money and resources into shipbuilding on the Auburn, Pale Sea, and Kings' Lake coasts, though much of those resources and manpower were sent to the Army and People's Militia as the war turned in the FRE's favour. Still the infrastructure in places like Hadden, Alaterva, Leiruvagr, Keris, Stormurholmr, and Býkonsviði was taken over by the FRE and the Nordika allies.

Gojan and Andrennian investment and technical know-how has been added to by Predician technical assistance and Santonian investment and technical aid, through their state-owned Chantiers royaux* and FNS.
All of this happened against the backdrop of re-compensation, where the private yards that were nationalized and "collectivized" by the Syndicalist regime were returned to either their owners or their owners' descendants. Presently Járngríma HF in Keris, Eðaverksmiðjur HF in Haland and Ozaviin Skipasmíðastöð in Stormurholmr are the larger private firms. A number of smaller private firms, however, were sold back to the government by their owners after re-compensation, and these have been re-organized into crown corporations on the Chantiers royaux* model. These are Konungsgarðar Býkonsviði, Konungsgarðar Alaterva, Konungsgarðar Leiruvagr, Konungsgarðar Keris, Konungsgarðar Hadden, and Konungsgarðar Haland.
In some cases it's been a process that's been ongoing since before the War was over. Regardless, these shipyards are once again operational, dealing in both domestic and international orders. The next step, the Admiralty insists, is the Navy.

They've already born fruit too. The Navy's fleet of patrol ships is almost entirely Prydanian, with the Stolt and Arfleifð classes being new classes developed since the end of the War, which account for 73% of the fleet's patrol craft. The proof of concept has held firm.

"We are not going to turn away from purchasing ships from foreign governments should the circumstances prove advantageous to the military and government," Admiral Saetern said.
"But we should focus on the development of our native industry as we continue to plan for the Navy's technological growth."

---

*KPSH- Konunglegi Prydanskssjóherinn- Royal Prydanian Navy
*Chantiers royaux- Royal Yards, state-owned Santonian shipyards

OOC note: post made with input from @Kyle, @Predice, @Goyanes, and @Andrenne

Býkonsviði- The Prime Minister condemned the declared Dominius of the Austurveldi* Nero Juili Octavian's actions in crucifying the the captured staff of the Arcanstostatska's embassy in the Aurorean empire, and referred to the Arcanstotskans invoking the Bergum Pact's mutual defence clause.

"My government," Prime Minister Svane stated, "holds as a sacred principal the belief in peace above all other options. Yet we cannot stand idly by as our allies, allies we are treaty bound to, are attacked without cause."

The Prime Minister was insistent that the Alþingi will not, under any circumstance, hold a vote on a declaration of war unless Prydania itself, or its diplomatic personnel, were attacked first. Yet the Prime Minister insisted that it had other avenues at its disposal.

"We will stand with our Arcanstotskan allies, and we will do what we can within our means to bring Nero's regime to the negotiating table to both meet out justice for our allies and turn the government of Austurveldi back over to the legitimate authorities. To this end Prydania is halting all grain shipments to areas of Austurveldi under the control of Nero's National Populist government."

The Prime Minister also stated that he has authorized Prydania's ambassador to the FSO to raise the issue of a special food scheme for Austurveldi that would see an organized effort to ship aid to areas outside of Nero's control.

"We don't wish to harm the people living under Herra Nero's tyranny, but the fact is that we cannot guarantee that any Prydanian foodstuffs shipped to areas under his control will make it into the hands of the people unmolested. We must focus our efforts on areas of Austurveldi not under the control of dictatorship."

The Prime Minister ended his statement on the matter by addressing the upstart regime in Austurveldi directly.
"International law is very clear on the rights, privileges, and duties associated with diplomatic personnel and space. I would advise the regime in Suavidicum to keep this in mind, as violating it will make it harder for everyone, themselves included, to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis at hand."

---

*Austurveldi- Imperium Suavidici

Let's not mince words, the government has been very transparent about a lot of what went down in the Civil War. Our nation's intelligence chief flat out told a foreign newspaper that the FRE had conducted intelligence gathering within their borders.
So given that, why won't they be open about where the gold went from 2002-2018?

Foreign Reserves
The Loðbrók family's gold reserves formed part of Prydania's national reserves for centuries. And they do once more, along with foreign currency and natural minerals. Yet they famously vanished in 2002 shortly after the Syndicalist coup. The lack of the gold reserves crippled the Sydicalist currency from the start, something that it never fully recovered from.
It would perhaps go down as one of the great mysteries of the Syndicalist Era, where the gold vanished to during a period of lawlessness and chaos as the Syndicalist regime clawed its way into power.

And yet in early 2018 the government announced that the gold reserves had returned. All 277.08 tonnes, an amount that is an exact match to the amount that went missing in 2002. The government could not confirm that it was the exact same gold, mentioning that its exile required it to be melted down before it was reformed and returned to Prydania, but the exact amount having returned has seemingly confirmed that this is the gold that went missing in one form or another.

So where did it go? The government refuses to say, calling that information classified.

Strangely Classified

This is very odd. After all the Royal family's wealth wasn't all tied up in gold. And their finances were spirited away digitally to Goyanes, only accessible to His Majesty after the War was over and the Kingdom restored.
Yet this is public knowledge. The Goyaneans admitted to it, even before the War officially ended. So if the finances of the Royal family being held in Goyanes during the War is such a non-issue then why the coyness about the gold? Surely it wouldn't matter to anyone to explain where it was ferried off to, years after the Syndicalists' defeat and the gold's return. What's the incentive for the secrecy?

And yet here we are.

So let us indulge some rumours.

The Guessing Game

The Syndicalist regime was rather open about the theft, hoping to paint the thieves as unpatriotic reactionaries as well as galvanize the security apparatus of their newly formed regime to hunt down the thieves with a hopefully enthusiastic public. This leads us to the first guess...

Norsia
Support for the Syndicalist regime was always weakest in Austurland, even when they held it, and the willingness of Austurlanders to aid in sticking it to the Syndies led the Syndicalist Republic to believe that the gold reserves could have been smuggled to Norsia, helped along by royalists among the local population.
The Syndicalist Republic even demanded that the Norsian Empire hand over any and all information they might have on the gold reserve's whereabouts, and were rebuked by Empress Elly. This only furthered the belief that the reserves were in Norsia, and the government's secrecy about it to this day could be tied to the closeness between the two countries since the marriage of King Tobias III and Empress Alycia.

Malor-Kanada
Geographically this would have been the easiest option, as Býkonsviði is not terribly far from the Malor-Kanadian border relatively speaking. Secrecy in the present day could be explained as wanting to avoid making it seem like Malor-Kanada was holding undue influence over Prydania, a regular talking point among critics of the Bergum Pact.
The trouble with this theory is that the western parts of the country were firmly Syndicalist in those early days with the border with Malor-Kanada armed and guarded early on. The is a very low chance the reserves could have been smuggled across it.

Andrenne
Andrenne was a friend to the FRE and an opponent of the Syndicalist regime from the start, and Andrenne would have likely harboured the gold reserves if it found itself in a situation to do so. However our Andrennian cousins have never been one for subtly and likely would have no issues admitting to harbouring the gold reserves to spite the Syndicalists.

Goyanes
Goyanes makes a lot of sense as it was the country that housed the royal family's finances during the War. If it did that, why not the gold as well? Like Andrenne it was a friend to the FRE and opposed the Syndicalist Republic and would have likely harboured the reserves if it had the chance. The issue here is that they readily admit to housing the royals' finances. Why would the gold be such a secret that couldn't be revealed today?

If I may be so bold, Norsia seems like the most logical choice, but I am a simple reporter trying to make sense out of facts that don't entirely make sense themselves.

Gold Reserves Today

Today all 277.08 tonnes of Loðbrók gold is locked down in a secure location, a vital part of Prydania's national reserves. The government has indicated a desire to diversify the country's reserves, so who knows how that will change in the coming years, but regardless a mystery was solved and a new one erected in short order. The vanishing gold reserves re-appeared. And yet where they went remains an unknown. Some sort of present to His Majesty from Empress Alycia early on in their courtship seems like the best guess to me, but it remains perhaps the last great mystery of a turbulent period of our history after so much has already been brought into the light.

---

OOC Note: If you'd like to know where the gold actually went please read this from For the King, to Valhalla

Dansa and Korotek Entertainment have come together to announce a for what they call an affordable and versatile release that's both useful and nostalgic, a modern twist on classic gaming. They call it Mestadaðst, which is Prydanian for "marvellous and plentiful."


Dansa and Affordability

Like Korotek, Dansa is a result of tech industry growth in Haland. The company is less than five years old but has already made a name for themselves by offering low cost yet reliable laptops. The company- started by Haland natives Hildur Fodness, Ingjerd Kaas, and Roald Nylund- primarily focused on the Prydanian market.

"Polykor is a big presence," Herra Nylund explained.
"They were vital to helping rebuild and strengthen cellular and internet infrastructure here after the War, and their phones and computers are everywhere. Nolf is big too. Polykor had the big contracts like the government, schools, universities, businesses. Nolf targeted individual consumers. But we saw an opening."

"A lot of people, after the War, didn't have much, but that changed. Government programs, tax policies, and pensions to soldiers regardless of side meant people could afford some luxury goods. Computers are the sorts of things that people go to at first with those purchases and we thought we could carve out a niche by providing entry-level hardware," Fröken Kaas explained.

Dansa- named after the Prydanian word for dancing, like electric currents dancing- uses Polykor's operating system for their laptops and the company has seen positive growth.

"I don't think we're ahead of Nolf or Polykor in Prydanian market share," Fröken Fodness said, "but we are very happy with our growth so far, and who we're able to reach. Internet access has been stable in this country for a few years now, but that is, ultimately, software. People need hardware, and we're proud to offer affordable options on that front."

The Korotek Partnership and Mestadaðst

Korotek since its start had leaned into a retro pixel art aesthetic, a legacy of founder Glenn Bruun's homebrewed games during the War. The approach has seen them gain some international success, with the colourful retro style games standing out amidst a marketplace of hyper-realism and desaturated colours.
Kototek's games have been ported to a number of platforms across the world, but it lacked its own platform.

"We never really got into that business," Bruun said.
"We wanted to be a software company, not a hardware company. It's fine. Plenty of good companies make reliable hardware. We're happy and proud to be on them."

Still, Dansa's suggestion that the two could collaborate on a project was intriguing. It was something that would emphasize both company's strengths.

"Dansa was a company that we jived with," Brunn continued.
"We work with a lot of other companies, Nolf, Polykor, tons of others. And they have their Prydanian branches here in Haland. But Dansa is another Prydanian company from the ground up, so we were really keen to work with them. They understood us too. They make very basic but reliable hardware. Our software is retro styled. Kind of that same idea in digital space."

The Mestadaðst reflects both lines of thinking. It's retro-styled. While its stylings are a remix of a number of famous handheld gaming consoles the most obvious influence is the AE series from Santonian video game company Arts Électroniques.
"The AE series," Herra Nylund of Dansa explains, "has evolved a lot, but I think that classic design from the 80s is pretty untouchable."

The system is cartridge based and will natively be able to play Korotek games. Yet it will also come with a modular adapter allowing it play classic cartridges from most well-known handheld systems in the past.
"Cartridges," Nylund continued, "are kind of dead technology ripe for a comeback. Most of the gaming world today is moving beyond even disks. Your system is hardwired into the net and you download it, but ownership is tricky. It depends on where you live. Thankfully Prydania and a lot of other countries have laws establishing consumer ownership over digital media. But a lot of other countries just let you buy the license. You're buying a license to a game you think is owned, but can be revoked at any time. Physical media means you own it, for good. You don't have to worry about what the politicians say."

Fröken Kaas explained how this means that that old cartridges can fuel new systems.
"We looked around. All over. Prydania, and abroad. Old cartridges are everywhere. In dusty drawers, boxes in an attic, or for sale in second hand shops. No one's making these things anymore, even the companies that used to are just porting the games to digital libraries. But they're cheap and easily affordable if you can find a dealer. So we made a handheld with an adapter that can play old cartridges- and display the old pixel art in sharp, clear, bright graphics. If you buy a Mestadaðst system your library is the largest in the world. It's Korotek's games and pretty much every other handheld game cartridge ever made."

Glenn Bruun of Korotek was very excited to see what it could do for retro games.
"We make our games in a retro style with modern sharpness and definition. The Mestadaðst brings that clarity and sharpness to the very classic games that inspired me."
The Music

Dansa had one more announcement though. Fröken Fodness displayed the Mestadaðst's use as a digital audio workstation.
"It’s for making music too," Fröken Fodness demonstrated as she showed off the device's "Songbird" workstation program.
"It's a synthesizer and a sequencer. We designed it for music creation and live performances. You can shape, stretch and morph sounds all from our Songbird program. You can capture music or play and sculpt it live."


The Mestadaðst will be released and packaged with ports of Korotek favourites Ogier Tækniriddari and Sjóræningja on 10 November 2023. The full set- the system, adapter, link cable, and two games, will only run x1050, or 150 IBU.

Býkonsviði- In two hundred years, when the Civil War is as far away from the present as the Wars of the Callisean Republic are to us, when society has shifted, shifted again and again, and after political alignments have merged, shattered, and re-arranged themselves, one thing will likely be true. The Free Democratic Party of Prydania will be around, in some form. There’s a greater chance that in two hundred years Peace not Blood, the Conservatives, and the People’s Party find themselves as a merged entity then the Free Democrats vanishing.

The party is truly, truly resilient, after all. It is, through the old Liberal Party, the oldest political force in Prydania. Its victory in the 1848 Alþingi elections ushered in party politics into Prydania, and among their successes include universal freedom of religion, expanding the poltical power of the middle class, minimization of the State Church in non-theological affairs, overseeing the nation’s recovery after the Fascist Wars, elected the first (and so far only) non-Messianist party leader, educational reform twice over, legalized same sex marriage in the wake of the Civil War and the question over Syndicalist legislative legality. And finally they can claim credit for the constitution that enshrines the hardfought freedoms from the Civil War.
It is a party that has survived two fascist dictatorships, a Syndicalist dictatorship, a world war, a Civil War, and the political re-alignments that were sure to follow. While their old 19th century rivals the Conservatives struggle with decreased relevancy as Peace not Blood has eclipsed them on the right and rendered them a junior coalition partner the Free Democrats remain the official opposition despite heavy criticism of their leader Maríanna Toft and her controversial rise to power within the party.

Adaptability

The reason for this longevity is adaptability. The party began as the party of the urban middle class and was centrist in nature. Centrism breeds pragmatism, more so than their rivals to the right or left who were constrained by ideological considerations. The party could move to the left or right as needed, and never had to worry about betraying any core principles. Its core principles were always to be the party of the middle ground, of the professional class. What that meant could change over time.

The party emerged from the Civil War not sure what it would be, but got pulled to the left by Magnus Brandt who argued that the Civil War’s outcome had afforded the country the opportunity to be modernize its institutions. William Aubyn’s Conservative-Agrarian Alliance campaigned in 2018 “For a Stable Realm,” and Brandt and the Free Democrats parodied this with “For a Modern Realm” to great effectiveness. Brandt’s willingness to push for a constitution to safeguard the freedoms won in the War and enshrine a Free Democratic policy goal of ridding the Alþingi of unelected peers.
It was the right move for the time, and now they’re shifting once more.

Peace not Blood emerged on the right among young people who had grown up under the Syndicalist Jackbook and who rejected overtly left wing politics as a result. Yet their origins amongst people who grew up seeing war and violence used as the answer to problems gave birth to a compassionate side to the movement that rejected traditional conservative skepticism of market oversight and safety nets. This blossomed into the Social Market policy of Peace not Blood in government, called “ordered liberalism” by its proponents.

Peace not Blood’s junior coalition partner the Conservatives have watched as these reforms have resulted in economic growth and stability, and have been viewed as broadly popular, especially with their own base. The decision of the Conservative Party to form a formal election coalition with Peace not Blood was telling. The Conservative Party at its core has a deep dislike of many aspects of Social Market theory, but they know that if they choose to challenge their coalition partners in the next election they will likely lose. And better to get on board then fade away, like the Agrarians.

The result, however, is that no one was staking a claim to positions to the right of the Peace not Blood coalition. Ordered liberalism and the social market advocates for a healthy regulatory apparatus and a strong safety net. If these are the positions of mainstream conservative option then where do the Free Democrats fit in with the People’s Party to their left? Well they’ve gone right. They’ve filled that space.

Alaterva Manifesto

The Free Democratic Party conference in Alaterva introduced a list of party policies that, at least economically, place the party to Peace not Blood’s right.

They’ve called for the privatization of Prydania Railways, Prydania Power and Hydro, and even segments of Prydania Post, specifically package delivery. They’ve promised to repeal the Peace Not Blood government's Competition Act, which regulates everything from horizontal to vertical integration, establishes a robust regulatory and fining system to deal with price fixing and monopolistic activities, and empower fair market competition and cooperation in the agricultural sector, among other far reaching policies aimed at giving the government effective tools to regulate the economy as it rebounds and grows.

“Today the Free Democratic Party stands up and says that we will not abide by the economic restraints placed on us by the current government coalition,” Maríanna Toft said at the Alaterva conference.
“Our party is committed to supercharging economic growth. Completing the de-Syndification of our government and economy, empowering business.”

“It’s an interesting position,” says Dr. Odin Berg, a professor of economics at the University of Haland.
“The provisional government and the Free Democratic government of Magnus Brandt actually sold off a lot of assets nationalized by the Syndicalists. Farms, businesses, all of it was given back to those they were taken from or sold off to interested parties if the old owners were gone. So that privatization, that was done, but utilities have always been government owned in Prydania. Always. So it seems like the Free Democrats want to privatize these things that have always been public, and do so under the guise of anti-Syndicalism. It’s a clear push for something, wrapped up in the banner of something else.”

A little to the Right, a little to the Left

The rightward leap wasn’t all that occurred though. The party has retained and strengthened left wing positions too.

“Too long this government says that transgendered rights, rights of women, these aren’t priorities,” Fröken Toft said.
“As a woman, I’m proud to lead the charge in saying. Já! They! Are! A Free Democratic government promises to draft legislation to empower transgendered people of this country to legally have their chosen gender recognized, and we will enact legislation that protects a woman’s right to safe, legal, abortion access regardless of circumstance.”

Legally speaking transgendered people have no avenue to legally change their gender in Prydania, and abortion has been limited to cases where the mother’s life is in danger, if there are serious birth defects, or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. The abortion law was specifically adopted by the provisional government in 2017 shortly after the War and based on legislation in Saintonge and Predice.

With these policy declarations, though, the Free Democrats have declared themselves socially left wing. Their abortion position remains unchanged, though it has been restated. And on the transgendered issue the party has abandoned its old policy of supporting legal gender change if the person in question has undergone gender reassignment surgery to pilfer the People’s Party position of being able to change legal gender upon request.

Blazing a Path, and an Identity

The Free Democratic Alaterva Manifesto comes as the party looks to rebrand itself. They were jokingly referred to as “opposition in name only” in political circles when Anne Gram of the People’s Party became the governing coalition’s biggest critic during the diplomatic standoff with Callise. Gram, who commands an Alþingi caucus of less than half of Toft’s, saw her stock rise among voters not on board with the coalition, and this seems to be the Free Democratic Party’s response.

They’ve tried to make the case that socially they’re on par with the People’s Party while economically to the right of the Peace not Blood/Conservative coalition, attempting to add left wingers not thrilled with socialist economic policy of the People's Party and right wingers who may feel abandoned by the Conservatives’ surrender to the Peace not Blood tidal wave, to their own base.

The shift itself is not out of character. The party is resilient after all, and will likely always be. Time will tell if this shift is what’s needed to dislodge the Peace not Blood lead in the polls. Regardless, the Free Democratic Party has thrown down the gauntlet as Fröken Toft makes her most insistent case since the 2021 election why voters should trust her over Kjell Svane.

3 October 2023


Býkonsviði- As Oktoberfest begins, now six years out from the end of the Civil War, we feel it is our civic duty to go over the basics of Oktoberfest food and drink for those who have come from afar. Indeed, as war recedes and peace marches on the Prydanian diaspora has made Prydania's Oktoberfest something of a destination. While our guests from Goyanes and Andrenne need no introduction, newcomers from Saintonge and elsewhere might find such a rundown handy! So without further adieu...

What is Okotoberfest?

Oktoberfest is less a holiday and more a festival found in North Gotic countries. It lasts two-three weeks, usually in September leading into October, or in October itself. In Prydania it lasts from 3 October-22 October every year, ending on St. Vortgyn's Feast Day.
Regardless of where it's celebrated though, it's grown out of a celebration of a successful harvest. This has made it an exceptionally big deal in a country with a strong agricultural tradition such as Prydania.

Beer and Food, Where From?

Perhaps you've seen the food and beer stands, the beer tents, and wondered where they come from? Traditionally they're set up by local municipal governments, large land owners and noble families, and private organizations. Local festivals are run by local governments and anyone or any entity can establish a stand or tent provided they pay the associated fees and foot the bill for their stock of food and beer themselves.
Since Prydania's festivals have begun to take off again in the last three years prominant private sponsors for tents and stands have been Sayfansinn Groceries, the Agarian Credit Union, Gull Beer, Örn Beer, Tóki's Kóla, Heimviður Furniture, the Góðajörð Agricultural Cooperative chapters, the National Board of Trade Unions, and the fast food company Rax.

Beer and....?

Beer is a given, but there are still rules! Oktoberfest rules state that all beer served must adhere to the Hreinleikaröð, a law dealing with beer purity passed in 1622, and based on earlier Gojan laws in Gothis. The Hreinleikaröð specifically states that beer must only consist of the ingredients of barley, hops, and water. Of course such restrictions are no longer the law of the land in Prydania today, but they are ironclad when it comes to Oktoberfest. You will find a wide variety of beer available, but leave your microbrewed pumpkin spiced beers at home until at least the 23rd of October!
For children under the age of sixteen we recommend the top non-alcoholic beverage of Oktoberfest, sítrónukóla! This is a kid-friendly cocktail that mixes lemonade with classic Tóki's Kóla.
As far as food goes, the rules are far less strict. Rax, for example, tends to serve its full menu of items, many of which aren't traditional Oktoberfest fare.
Yet in many places the old favourites still go strong. These include spörfz (a type of egg noodle), steiktsvínakjöt (Prydania's national dish, fried pork belly), potato salad, sausage, and, of course, pretzels.

Pretzels and Beer: A Guide


Beer and pretzels are a huge deal in Prydania, but if you're not familiar with Prydanian varities you might be a bit lost! See, Prydania doesn't just have your traditional lye pretzels. There's a Prydanian variation on the classic snack, called the Prydanian Pretzel, or the Sweet Pretzel.

They came to be in the years after Baldr III kicked the Korovans out of Prydania in 1511. Baldr III had spent the previous ten years in the Royal Guard in Saintonge, counted the future Baldric III of that country as his closest friend, and married Princess Alexandra of Saintonge. His court therefore had a lot of Santonian influence, and as a result Santonian wine came over to Prydania in large amounts.

Wine had never really caught on in Prydania and so chefs were intriguied and got experimental with it. Using wine as an ingrediant in baking is what led to the Prydanian pretzel. It's made from flour, eggs, white wine, sugar, and anise, coated with an egg wash and cinnamon instead of salt. The confection conforms to the traditional pretzel shape but is more a cookie or shortbread in texture compared to a lye pretzel.
Still, the two pretzel varities create a nice duality, salty and sweet.

While you are, of course, free to pair your pretzel of your choice with the beer of your choice long time connoisseurs will insist that the best way to enjoy a salty lye pretzel is with a lighter beer, while a sweet Prydanian-style pretzel is best enjoyed with a darker beer.

Enjoy, and Drink Responsibly!

Oktoberfest will be held across the country for three weeks, and so there's no rush to experience everything it has to offer. The event is a great communal activity, bringing families, towns, and cities, neighbours and friends, together. It's a celebration of hard work, prosperity, and a good time. To anyone visiting our country from aborad for the festivities, or to those of you here, have a good time and don't be afraid to take advantage of the complimentary programs meant to help the intoxicated find their way back to their homes or hotels!

Býkonsviði- At 12:00 pm BST King Tobias III granted royal assent to the act of the Althingi that would embargo Iolanta, and freeze any Iolantan assets in Prydania.

The discussion over the embattled Aurorian state came to the forefront of the Althingi in light of Prydania's international commitments made earlier this year. The legislative debate over the proposed measures of economically embargoing Iolanta saw a rarity in alignment as the People's Party backed the governing coalition's proposed course of action. The People's Party had grown to be the government's biggest critic during the Callisean affair, but they proved much more amicable towards actions against Iolanta.

This time it was the official opposition that argued against a full embargo. Fröken Toft led the Free Democrats in arguing that Iolanta was an Aurorean concern and that completely removing them from the international community economically could create a humanitarian crisis.
Sören Högh, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, re-iterated Prydania's commitments to promoting democracy through meaningful action, and highlighted the oppressive nature of the Iolantan regime.

Free Democratic Caucus Unease
There were apparently murmus of dissent within the Free Democratic Althingi cacus, necessitating a strange series of events where a party was forced to enforce party dicipline on a vote that it knew it would most likely lose.
One Free Democratic staffer, speaking on condition of anonimity, claimed that the ruckus was over the percieved strength of Fröken Toft as Free Democratic leader, needing the party to appear united in light of their controversal platform adopted months back. In the end the Free Democratic cacus fell in line, though in the end the economic sanctions and embargo against Iolanta passed easily.

FeB
057y 000n 000a
ÍF
050y 000n 000a
FLFP
000y 055n 000a
AF
025y 000n 000a
Total
132y 055n 000a

Býkonsviði- Chairman of the RÚV Board Mikael Bekk and Head of Drama Hæming Mostrom have announced a new series that will debut in the spring of 2024, called Alheimsvegurinn. The title, which translates as "the Universal Road," is a cosmic play on the term "hvalavegurinn," which means "whale road" and appears as a poetic name for the sea in Prydanian viking sagas.

The series' astronomic name gives away its status as a science fiction drama. The show will star Aslak Rogness of Alaterva as Professor Thaunell, a mysterious man whose daughter, Solja (Ingirun Ryen), is enrolled in a Hvaldsey high school. Her science teacher Forni Kappelen (Hrut Kjos) ends up on a journey through time and space with her and her mysterious father, eventually picking up a viking shield-maiden Arika (Siv Buhaug), from the 900s. The four will travel across the cosmos and through our own history, exploring time and space in a show that the RÚV brass hopes will appeal to the entire family, spark imagination in young people, and be educational to boot.

Mystery in the Mundane
Most perplexing in the visual language of the show is the craft the four stars will travel time and space in. The craft is a red window tinted phone booth. Or at least has the outward appearance of one. Stepping inside shows the craft to be bigger on the inside as a result of science fiction techno-explanations. This marks the central craft of the show as something wholey different from the hit Battlecarrier Ardent, which focuses on a massive warship in space. This craft, by contrast, seems small and mundane.

"The idea is really what spurred on the entire concept of the show," producer Holmstæin Rosett said.
"We wanted children to see this thing, this mundane thing people don't even really use much anymore, and envision it as a gateway to the fantastic. Afterall if the red telephone booth on the corner can be an alien spaceship then what else in the world around you can be a gateway to the fantastical? It will hopefully spur on imagination. That it also fits some narrative needs, such as the need to travel to the present day occassionally and remain undetected, was a nice bonus."

Mythology, Science, and History
Some might notice that the driver of the science fiction adentures, Professor Thaunell, is named for the chief diety in the Thaunic pantheon. And that his daughter is named for one of Thaunnell's two daughters. Herra Rosett was very cagey in revealing too much about whether this has deeper meaning or if it is just some cultural allusion, but did say it would be "significant."

The inclusion of a science teacher, the character of Forni, and a shield-maiden out of time, Arika, were both added for what they provided the show. Forni, a Civil War veteran-turned-science teacher is the sort of authority figure children will be used to and older viewers will be able to see themselves or a close friend or family member in. His ocupation allows him to comment on the science on display, leaning into the educational aspirations of the program. And as a younger man still in his physical prime he can be counted on to carry the action load while the wirey, thin, eccentric Professor takes on the heavier character aspects.
Arika the shield-maiden allows for an additional lightening of the action load and provides the historical counter-weight to the scienctifically inclined Forni. Arika, by being a character from the distant past, will also serve as a unique viewpoint character for the science fiction craziness on display.

Aliens? War? Conflict? Discovery?
The show is meant to be a character drama for the family as well as a vehicle to enagage childrens' immaginations and encourage educational inquisitiveness. The RÚV is a crown corporation, run and funded by the government and tax payers. This was on the forefront of the mind of producer Holmstæin Rosett.

"I'm not saying everything the RÚV does needs to have a deeper social fuction," the producer said with a smile.
"Providing entertainment via the medium of television is often enough for it to fulfill its mandate. But we shouldn't be afraid to ask 'what can we do better to provide people?' Science fiction has often had a didactic function and using it and engaging character drama to encourage learning and imagination in young people seems like a sensible and justifiable use of funds for the RÚV."

As a drama conflict, even violence, will be part of the show. Yet Herra Rosett pointed to the cast of characters.

"We have a war veteran, a shield-maiden from the viking age, and a genius whose wits are often better weapons than any sword or gun. We have a cast of characters who can solve conflict in any number of ways. Which means the conflicts they face can take any number of forms. It's exciting, that creative freedom. We're not confined by a battle bridge or the like that dictates that things must be solved in a certain way every week."

Debut

Alheimsvegurinn is scheduled to debut on 6 April 2024 and stay on Saturday nights at 7:05 pm BST. The first season is expected to have twenty-four episodes, carrying through to August with a Christmas special planned for 25 December 2024.

Darrow, the capital of Suður Austurland, is known for a few things. The fishing and harbour town, once shaken to its core by the Darrow Executions, is today once again home to a thriving marketplace. And while you can find anything and everything you'd expect in a seaside Prydanian town, there's a little extra. Darrow is perhaps the best place in Prydania to get authentic Khastenian cuisine. All thanks to Drekaríkisbær, or Khastenia Town, an ethnic enclave of Khastenians and families descended from them.

A walk through Drekaríkisbær will see your senses overwhelmed by the sights and smells of Khastenian cooking and storefronts. To the people of Darrow this is simply another neighbourhood. For visitors from elsewhere it's a peak into a fellow Craviterian nation. And newcomers might also be confused by the duelling flags.

Indeed, as you make your way through Drekaríkisbær you'll notice some homes, stores, and resturants flying the white-red-blue tricolour of Khastenia. Not an usual sight in a place like this, surely. Yet you'll also find homes, stores, and resturants flying a blue-white-blue tricolour. What is it? What does it mean? What, exactly, is going on?

Saintonge and Goyanes
We Prydanians only need to look to our own history to understand what's happening. Saintonge and Goyanes are the countries that took in the most Prydanian refugees during the Civil War, and for a brief time duelling flags became common in those communities. The barbed cross of the monarchy and the FRE was favoured by refugees who fled Syndicalist tyranny, but the Syndicalist hammer and gear was favoured by Prydanians in those countries who had fled the SoComm regime of Anders III and Stefan Toft. While the Syndicalist flags grew fewer and fewer as the Syndicalist Regime's list of known crimes grew, this does provide a common point of comparison for Prydanians trying to figure out what's going on in Drekaríkisbær.

1848- The Year of Revolution
In 1819 King Rikard III of Prydania stormed the Khastenian capital as part of the UKAG counter-offensive against revolutionary Callise and its allies and killed the First Khastinian Republic. Tsar Eduard V Tsirkunov was restored to the Khastinian throne. The white-red-blue tricolour was lowered, and the blue-white-blue Imperial flag was raised once more.

By 1848 Tsar Alexei III had failed to heed the warnings of his family's recent history and Khastenia once again became engulfed with republican revolution. The victory of the revolutionaries who proclaimed the Second Khastenian Republic restulted in most of the Khastenian nobility fleeing abroad. Some came to Prydania, where they settled in Darrow and formed the nucleus of what is now Drekaríkisbær. As a sign of their allegience to old Imperial Khastenia they flew the blue-white-blue tricolour from their homes and businesses.

Drekaríkisbær Grows
Drekaríkisbær's history was a curious one. Queen Alexandria of Prydania heeded the advice of the recently elected Liberal government to not pursue war with the Second Khastenian Republic. Yet the Second Republic remained weak and battered after fending off a five nation invasion. Some of the expats in Prydania implored the Queen to launch an attack, feeling like the weakened revolutionaries would be overrun by a fresh Royal Prydanian Army.

Yet Queen Alexandria did not pursue this course of action, and in fact her government granted the Second Khatenian Republic diplomatic recognition when it became clear that it had no ambitions to plunge Craviter into another war the likes of which Chavelier foistered onto it thirty years earlier.

The hopes of the families that formed Drekaríkisbær's earliest core for a quick return home were dashed, and the community began to settle into their new homes. Coming from fleeing nobility, they had money. Some were able to live comfortably without the need to work, others realized they'd need to start businesses lest the family fortunes dry up without the stead income their old lands in Khastenia would have provided. And so an affluent foreign enclave formed that soon built ties to the wider Darrow community.
This proved advantageous as Prydania became fully soverign following the Callisean Republic's Wars, yet retained favourable trade deals with Goyanes and Andrenne. Trade and money from the local fishing industry flowed into the cities, and into Drekaríkisbær. The community grew. And that attracted eyes from down south.

The Flag Duelling Begins
Immigration from Khastenia to Drekaríkisbær began to pick up in the 1920s as the city of Darrow boomed, however these early republican immigrants had their enthusiasm cut short by the arrival of fascism in the 1930s. Prydania was officially a member of the fascist Dominion alliance, and allies Maloria and Mintoria had carved out Khastenia for themselves.

For the first time since 1848 the noble families of Drekaríkisbær- now at least partially Prydanianized through 90 years of intermarriage to the local Prydanian population- began to dream of a reconstituted Imperial Khastenia. They hoped that if they appealed to King Rikard VI, the head of Prydania's fascist state, that he would champion the cause amongst his Mintorian and Malorian allies.
The chances of such an outcome seem slim. Neither Mintoria or Maloria seemed interested in Khastenia as anything but something to exploit and annex for themselves. Regardless, it never meant much. Pro-republican partisans freed Khastenia as the War turned on the Dominion.

But the end of the War brought, paradoxically, more economic success. The reforms of King Robert VII and Prime Minister Kristvin Austdal to dismantle the fascist state led to an economic golden age for Prydania. And the trickle of pro republican immigrants from Khastenia that had begun in the 1920s picked up after the War.

Now, the flag duels truly begun. These new immigrants weren't fleeing anything in Khastenia. They had merely moved to Prydania- Drekaríkisbær in Darrow specifically- for economic oppertunity. They responded to the old noble families that formed Drekaríkisbær's core flying the imperial blue-white-blue flag by flying the white-red-blue republican tricolour.

Kasimir Yevdokim is too young to remember those days, but he remembers what his grandparents and parents would say about them.

"It was a huge scandal if you went over to a friend's house, and they had the wrong flag," he'd chuckled.
"That's what they said. It was crazy. We've always been a mixed community, and even were back then. A lot of the old families were more Prydanian than Khastenian by that point, but they held onto their old loyalities. And anyone flying a republican flag was... well... bad news," he said with a smile.

Herra Yevdokim comes from one of those old noble Khastenian families that flew the Imperial blue-white-blue flag. Yet he considers the stories of such divisions with bemusement.

Today
Drekaríkisbær, like all of Darrow, came under Syndicalist control in late 2002. While the Syndicalists went about banning both flags- considering both counter-revolutionary for various reasons- the older families suffered the hardest as they had aristocratic lineage.

"My family was evicted from our home," Herra Yevdokim said.
"The home my family built when they came to this country in 1848. We were forced into crowded tenaments across town as part of a 'working folks conscription' program. Basically they worked us as slave labourers on docks or as maids or janitors to break us down. But it was sweet in the end. We had each other, and the Drekaríkisbær community ended up helping each other out as best as we could in those days."

The Darrow Executions of 2012 spurred a lot of the town into a frenzy.

"No one who was killed was a Khastenian-Prydanian," Kasimir said.
"But it didn't matter. We're all Prydanians. Those were my friends, co-workers, or their friends, their kids... it was hell to see but it spurred something inside of you, to never want to see it again."

Five months later the FRE's winter offensive swept through Austurland and liberated Darrow. Kasimir Yevdokim decided to make sure that he played a role in making sure his city never saw such brutality again. He helped his family rebuild their home and business after the FRE recompensated them. And after the war he went into politics, working for Rannveig Hylen's campaign for Darrow's Alþingi seat under the Conservative Party banner in the 2018 election. Fröken Hylen lost a very close race to the Free Democratic candidate Ketill Borja. It was one of many very close races that delivered the Free Democrats a razor thin upset win in Prydania's first free national elections since 1984.
By the time the 2021 election had rolled around Kasimir had joined Peace not Blood and was selected as the young party's candidate for Darrow og Bæjum(SA-1). He road the pink wave to victory, becoming the ÞM* for his home town.

"Peace not Blood was everything I believed in. Above all else it believes that we can stop what happened in our country from happening again. It was an honour to be selected, and it's an honour to serve my community in the Alþingi."

We asked him, if the duelling flags mean what they once meant.

"No," he said with a chuckle.
"Most of our families have been in Prydania for decades at the very least. This is our home. And I think a lot of people in Drekaríkisbær saw the damage hatred and suspicion over politics can cause during the Civil War. We took to heart. It's more a symbolic thing. My family came from Imperials. My neighbour's from republicans. But we still hang out at the pub to catch hockey on RÚV 8 every Saturday, you know?"

Khastenia and Prydania
The Khastenian Republic and Prydania have had a history of suprisingly cordial relations since 1848. Queen Alexandria recognized their legitimacy and, though they were on serparte sides of the Fascist Wars, Prydania wasn't involved in the invasion or partitian of Khastenia. Prydanian troops primarily served on the Cogorian front, or in an expeditionary force to Gothis to aid the Andrennians.

When the Third Khastenian Republic chose to recognize the FRE as Prydania's rightful government and worked with it to provide humanitarian aid it was, perhaps, the Khastenian Republican spirit returning the favour for Queen Alexandria's reognition and offer of peace so many years ago.

Today the two countries are trading partners and allies. The only statement made from anyone in the Prydanian government regarding the status of the Khastenian monarchy came from His Majesty King Tobias III himself, who only remarked that Prydania would support the will of the Khastenian people.

Perhaps in that way Drekaríkisbær is an allegory for our nations' relationship. Across language, across ideology, across different forms of governnance, we find a friend to stand by.

---

*ÞM- MP

Býkonsviði- The world, still reeling from the kidnapping of Iraelia's AN ambassador, was forced to confront Sorovia's invasion of Iolanta in the name of liberating ethnic Sorovians.

Apartheid

The Bayardi word "apartheid" was coined to described the first Social Commonwealth dictatorship's policies regarding Shaddaist Prydanians and other "undesirables" during the Fascist Wars. Notably it refers to the policy of expelling Shaddaists from public life and forcing them into ghettoed communities under the euphemism of "separateness." It was this term, translated into Bayardi, that became the term "apartheid," a term that was adopted by the government itself.

Ultramontese diplomats familiar with the Social Commonwealth policy in Prydania during the Fascist Wars applied it to the strict system of ethic segregation in Iolanta, where those of Sorovian descent are often forced to live in slums with little to no chance at upward social mobility.

Ultramont's use of "apartheid" has since gone on to be used by most nations to describe the situation in Iolanta.

The Situation Today

Sorovia has made their intentions clear- they want the liberation of ethnic Sorovians. The systemic issues inherent in Iolanta's system are too great to be quickly resolved peacefully, however.

This has resulted in Sorovia unilaterally invading Iolanta to liberate ethnically Sorovian regions.

Allies' Response

Two of Prydania's more trusted allies, Andrenne and Scalvia, have condemned the invasion. Both declare that such a move is a rash decision unjustifiable even given Iolanta's deeply rooted issues, and could lead to new issues down the line.

Yet such arguments appear to have fallen on deaf ears among younger Coalition ÞMs*.

The Coalition Disagrees

The Conservative Party, the Coalition's junior partner, boasts senior membership. Many of its ÞMs are from the generation that saw the dawn of the Civil War and more than a few either held FRE leadership posts or worked directly for someone who did.
This older cadre of politicians tend to favour the Andrennian and Scalvian line and feel as if Sorovia acted too harshly. The problem is, for these experienced hands, that they don't make up the majority of the governing coalition.

Peace not Blood's membership is more eclectic, but it certainly trends younger and more idealistic.
Ísgeir Aðaldal, the þingmaður for Kiojaleit and the surrounding farmlands, made news back in 2020 as the first Peace not Blood ÞM after defecting from Tenna Nygaard's Agrarians. Still, the young man most say likes to keep his head down has stuck it out again.
Herra Aðaldal led most of Peace not Blood's young caucus in supporting Sorovia.

"Our position is clear- injustice and tyranny cannot be negotiated with," Herra Aðaldal said.
"Every call for reform, or attempt at negotiating with Iolantans just adds more suffering to the people living under this regime. We speak from experience. We're the children of men and women who died under Syndicalist bootheels because foreign diplomats somewhere else said 'let's proceed with caution.' Well we refuse to let that blood stain our hands. We won't be the cause of more death at the hands of the Iolantan regime. We won't be what disheartened us in our youth to the people suffering in Iolanta. We support Sorovia moving to liberate the downtrodden. It's a blow against dictatorship everywhere."

The uproar from Peace not Blood forced the more cautious Conservatives onto the defensive.

Meanwhile Maríanna Toft, Leader of the Opposition, has decried what she says is a lack of a unified direction and message on Iolanta.

"What is Prydania's position? Kjell Svane's coalition can't make up its mind."

Coalition Negotiations Represent Win for Peace not Blood

The Prime Minister took on a role he's familiar with, that of a negotiator. Rumours as to what was promised or what was said abound... in the sorts of ways that would make it irresponsible to report on.

What is clear, however, is the result. For now, at the very least, Prydania has backed Iolanta. The more cautious Conservatives backed down before a seemingly unified Peace not Blood wall.

"We need to ask ourselves what we believe in as a coalition of parties, and as a nation. The Opposition Leader wants clarity? So do I. And we have it. This government backs Sorovian military action so long as it it's restrained to areas of large ethnically Sorovian populations."

The Prime Minister went on to add that any annexation of land must be accompanied by referendums overseen by the AN.

Going Forward

The Prime Minister expressed a desire to meet with delegates from Andrenne and Scalvia, as well as Sorovia, to find a solution to the Sorovian invasion that satisfies all parties, though the Prime Minister warned that no liberated peoples should be returned to Iolanta.

"The Iolantan regime cannot be allowed to continue its reign of oppression. We seek to find ways in which our international partners can find common ground, but we won't return men, women, and children to the frying pan that they have just been pulled out of."

---

*ÞMs- MPs

The term "ofurhetja" or "superhero" is a word in Prydanian that has distinctly foreign flavour to it. Though superheroes have adorned the covers of comic books since the 1930s, the trend never quite took hold in Prydania. Here, comic books were popular "pulp" mediums for pirate stories, romance, or as illustrated stories based off of medieval broadside ballads. Pirate and knight stories became famously popular among Prydanian publishers in the 1960s and 1970s.

Enter a Santonian Captain?

Superhero comic books became the staple of the medium in foreign countries, however. In Saintonge one of the more popular heroes is Captain Saintonge, a personifcation of the country's best qualities in the form of a hero published by Prodige.
The Captain has gone through many incarnations through the years, and when Prydanian refugees began to arrive in large numbers during the Civil War, Captain Saintonge had a Prydanian sidekick named "Styrbjörn" who wore a bear-themed costume in reference to his name's meaning of "Strong Bear."
Styrbjörn was a Prydanian superhero who likely served as a means for Prydanian youth arriving in Saitnonge to get interested in the Captain Saintonge character. And though Styrbjörn was not available in his "home" country at first, he began to trickle north. First when Santonian businesses not attached to the Santonian government began to do business in liberated FRE territory, and then when the War ended and Santonian aid workers and returning Prydanians brought their Captain Saintonge comics with them.
The traditional Prydanian comic industry that was built on non-superhero genres was all but dead, and for youths emerging from the Civil War the foreign superhero comics weren't necessarily seen as foreign, they were just new. And exciting. Prodige capitalized off of this, and has been selling Prydanian-language issues of Captain Saintonge here for years since the War's end.

It's time for a Bandit?

This success has not gone unnoticed. Uglubækur (Owl Books) has taken it upon themselves to enter the comic market. The Prydanian publishing house founded the comic imprint Stjörnumyndasögur (Star Comics) with the goal of producing a Prydanian superhero. The result is Ræningi (Bandit). And she's ready to hit shelves and virtual comic stands everywhere.

Ræningi was developed by Æirik Fingur and Robert Kain, who will author the line of Ræningi comics for Star.

"It was a process of just going 'where do we start?' Herra Fingur said.
"You're told 'we want a Prydanian superhero.' Well ok. That's very vague. What does that look like? Do we go the Captain Saintonge route? Make a Captain Prydania? It was considered but we didn't want to ride someone else's idea like that. And besides, Captain Saintonge has a Prydanian friend already," he added with a laugh.

"I was utterly lost when we got the assignment," Herra Kain added.
"So I thought, ok... what are comic books in this country? I remember when I was a kid, before the War, that they'd print these comics that were basically illustrated forms of medieval broadside ballads. You know, stories of bandits, knights, and the like. So I was like... what if we did a Prydanian superhero based off of what Prydanian comicbooks used to be?"

"We developed the idea from that," Herra Fingur added.
"Ok, pirates, knights, bandits... there were a lot of options, but we chose the bandit because there was something striking about that. It's versitile in ways the other archetypes aren't. And if you look at those old illustrations of bandits, there's a lot of red and green. Red is a national colour, green is a royal colour. Our national teams wear both, and we figured, well maybe we won't do Captain Prydania but the bandit imagery let us work our colours into the costume anyway as a little nod."

Ræningi began life as a male, as most superheroes abroad are.

"Our original scetches were all young adult men, late teens, early 20s. Young enough that kids could aspire to the character. We actually refined the male Ræningi character quite a bit until Æirik wanted to make him a her."

"I was just thinking," Herra Fingur said, "that a lot of superheroes are men because the idea was boys wouldn't want to read about a girl. The gender imbalance is sort of a remnant of that thinking years ago. But as I looked into it I found that girls liked stuff like Captain Saintonge as much as boys, and looking at foreign data it didn't seem like boys were put off by female-led titles. So I just sort of put it out there? What if Ræningi was a young woman instead?"

"I didn't hate the idea," Herra Kain added.
"And I thought about it, you know... it would make her stand out. So we convinced the bosses to let us do it."


What about villains?

"We won't give anything away yet," Herra Kain said with a smile.
"Once we adjusted her gender we revamped her story, her backstory, and we have a whole arc plotted. I don't want to give too much away. You'll have to wait until the summer to find out."

Stjörnumyndasögur has planned to launch the line of comics in time for the end of the 2023-2024 school year, which animated comercials to hype the release starting in May.

"We think children are going to enjoy reading about Ræningi and her adventures," says Stjörnumyndasögur Editor in Chief Gunnvor Sundby.
"And we're excited to be at the forefront of the reinvention of the Prydanian comicbook industry."

Korovka- His Majesty King Tobias III concluded a state visit to the Republic of Korova by formally renouncing his role as Head of the Korovan Laurenist Church. The move brings to an end the personal union of the Prydanian and Korovan Laurenist Churches after nearly 500 years.

Unity

The Laurenist Reformation arrived from Andrenne in the early 1600s and swept through Prydania. One such convert was the son of King Robert II, Crown Prince Harald, Grand Thane of Stormurholmr. Harald successfully secured the throne against Courantist challengers, leveraging popular support amongst a
majority Laurenist population for his cause. Prydania has been a Laurenist majority country since.

The Laurenist Reformation did not stop at the Auburn Channel, however. A significant minority of Orthodox Korova converted to the new Laurenist denomination during the 1600s. Unlike in Prydania, however, Korovan Laurenists didn't have support of the monarchy.

Shortly after accepting the role of Head and Defender of the Prydanian Laurenist Church, the newly crowned King Harald II accepted an offer from Korova's Laurenist Church to serve as that Church's head.
King Harald granted the Korovan Church the right to conduct services in its own language and empowered a council of Bishops to manage Church affairs in his absence.
The Royal patronage allowed the Korovan Laurenist Church to survive tumultuous early years, as the pledge of protection from the Prydanian Crown afforded them a much needed shield against forces that might attempt to stomp them out.

Over time the King's role as defender of both Craviter branches of the Laurenist faith became symbolic to the point that most Laurenist Korovans were unaware the Prydanian monarch was the head of their church, despite the Council of Bishops issuing decisions in their name, and the Prydanian monarch pledging to uphold the Korovan Church's independence as part of their coronation oath.

The Storm of Craviter- the political instability that rocked Prydania, Norsia, Korova, and Cogoria at the start of the 21st century- threw all of this into chaos.

But with the Prydanian monarchy restored in the form of King Tobias III after the Civil War and the Korovan Anarchy ending with Arthur Tatarov being declared King, some form of stability returned.

Arthur Tatarov abdicated the throne of Korova three years ago, citing the stability of the country following YEET-aided reconstruction, and Korova became a republic. Still, Korovan Laurenists counted Prydania's King as Head of their church.

Personal Diplomacy

Arthur Tatarov and King Tobias III became friends over their shared experiences during the political instability that rocked the Auburn region of Craviter, a friendship that remained even after Arthur stepped down from his role as King of Korova. King Tobias III himself confirmed that he'd talked to Arthur about the Prydanian Crown's role in the Korovan Church, but both he and Herra Tatarov insisted no one asked the King to renounce his Korovan title. The King had this to say in Karovoka:

"Our nations share history. I share a friendship with Korova's last king. None of this will change, regardless of what I do here today. What I do, I do because the Messianic Laurenist Church of Korova deserves to chart its own path. I was told that it may not have survived without my family's patronage. If that's true then I'm immensely proud of that legacy, but as with everything else, that won't change. Our history is immovable. The Korovan Laurenist Church will always be in spiritual communion with their brothers and sisters across the Auburn Channel, and that more than any Royal patronage, is what matters before Christ. I, Tobias III, Head and Defender of the Faith of the Messianic Laurenist Churches of Prydania and Korova, formally empower the Korovan
Laurenist Council of Bishops to act with supreme sovereignty in the name of their church, and renounce all claims and duties to the Korovan denomination."

King Tobias III was thanked by Korovan President Razuvayeva Pavlinka and Bishop of Karovoka Tsvilenev Tanas for both his duties and service to the Korovan Church and his decision to renounce his Korovan duties.

"It's a powerful day," Bishop Tanas said, "to know our Church is sovereign in its own right within the wider Laurenist Communion. Thank you King Tobias, for your service and friendship, but it is time we were a fully Korovan Church."

"His Majesty and I share a vision for Prydanian-Korovan relations President Pavlinka said.
"One built on mutual understanding and friendship, one of co-equals. I believe this helps further that. I'm not blind to the history, and it's because of that, that I express my gratitude to His Majesty for what must have been a weighty decision."

Neither King Tobias III or Arthur Tatarov commented further on this decision regarding their personal relationship, stating that it was a private matter between friends.

Editor's Note: Dr. Eskildsen is a Professor of Political Science from the University of Haland.

Why did Prydanians fight?
I admit, the answer was so obvious I, until recently, barely considered the question worth my time.

Why did Prydanians fight? Well it was to secure a better future for our country, our friends and family, and our children and grandchildren, so that even when we're old and grey, even when we pass on, those we leave behind could know peace and happiness.
Even the Syndicalists- the ones who did not resort to thuggery- believed in this and continued to fight for that accursed cause out of a belief that somehow, some way, the ideology they believed in could overcome its increasingly tyrannical leadership.

I assumed this self-evident truth- that Prydanians fought for their loved ones, ideals, and hopes for a better future- was understood the world over. The Civil War was a mainstay on international news for fifteen years, and the intrepid efforts the Gojan GRK, Andrennian ARK, Silean Lodestar News, Santonian STV, and others would play important roles in exposing Syndicalist crimes to the world, and giving context to those- and as this is my editorial I feel comfortable being this forward- moral cowards elsewhere who wondered why the FRE didn't just accept peace at the hands of the Syndicalist Republic. It was people of the liberated territories, and FRE soldiers, who were willing to fight for a peace worth having and not just accept the peace of a tyrant.

Again, all of this seems very self-evident to me, and I assumed this was widely understood.

And yet new insidious ideals crawl out of every nook and cranny of the world presumably because the dark hearts of men won't be sated for long, and there must always be an enemy to truth and decency in the world.

So why did Prydanians fight?

Something Something Saintonge

I have written about Saintonge in the past and the inherent danger the Radical movements presents to its political culture and traditions.

The point, the crux, of that article was that the Radicals are a small movement that shouldn't be allowed to fester.

The key word is small. Most Santonians- and I speak from a position of experience- seem to regard Prydanians and those Prydanian refugees in their country kindly.
And it's in part due to the action of the Santonian foreign ministry helping so many Prydanian refugees escape the Syndicalists and the coverage of STV on the War's front lines that Saintonge is a country that, despite having not experienced political upheaval in three hundred years, is very sympathetic to why Prydanians fought.

I'm sure they'd be as shocked as we are to hear that Prydanians fought as part of their plans for global conquest.

It is a position new to Santonians. I must ask my niece- one such refugee who found refuge in Saintonge and who is now a Santonian citizen- how Santonians managed to wrestle control of the Illuminati from Shaddaists over the last twenty years. Surely an epic struggle waged in the shadows.

My snark aside, Shaddaists have been scapegoats for the world's malcontents for hundreds of years. Rikard VI and Anders III's regime both persecuted Shaddaist Prydanians on the basis that they represented a parasitic "other" trying to secretly control Prydania. This belief that Shaddaists controlled the world's finances influenced the Syndicalists' own anti-Shaddaist sentiment, and echoes of that could be heard from the Callisean far right just a few years ago who claimed that CEA funds were being directed to the Iraelian capital of Adonai-Jireah.

Yet apparently- if we go by the rantings of the conspiracy minded- the Shaddaist illuminati was usurped by a devious Santonian plot.

A Land of Contradictions

The conspiracy theory that has emerged among both the left and right fringes of the world recently states that the Prydanian Civil War was enacted as plot by the Santonians to push some brand of neoliberal politics onto Prydania as part of a plot to spread influence. This is absurd for a variety of reasons but among them is that Prydania is a more conservative country today as a result of- or reaction against- the Syndicalist regime then it was forty years ago. If the Santonians masterminded thirty-three years of political upheaval to push liberalism on a liberalizing country only to see it become more conservative then clearly we have nothing to fear from this conspiracy. At least the Shaddaists got results.

The crazed web of nonsense this theory pushes tries to tie a collection of unconnected facts together, from the fact that the Santonians granted the Syndicalists diplomatic recognition for most of the War to Empress Alycia's time in Saintonge as a student in her teenage years.

Yet despite its nonsensical nature its gained currency. Yet before we examine where it's going we must look at where it began. The nation of Severoszlavia.

Severoszlavia is a land of contradictions. It calls itself a republic but has an Emperor. It claims to represent all of Gothis but has a Meteran monarch. It claims its regime is Syndicalist but its ruling party is led by aristocrats.
Severoszlavia has long held a place in the Prydania consciousness as a land of regimental darkness. Perhaps it should be the personification of an oxymoron.

Regardless the Severoszlavian elite have decided that Saintonge is engaged in a conspiracy the world over to spread things they find problematic- democracy and liberty- and have begun to use them as the boogeymen of their propaganda. And the believe that Saintonge has used the Civil War in Prydania to push their plot on Prydania is a central tenant of this narrative.

Spread

Dictatorships all have their scapegoats that change as the regime sees fit.
Yet this narrative coming out of Severoszlavia seems to have gained traction. Anti-AN politicians in Kaliva- a country with an ethnically Prydanian minority- have begun to use Prydania as a warning against Kalivian involvement in international organizations, claiming that Prydania has been corrupted by "liberalizing" influence from Saintonge.

The Worst Insult

To be clear this "conspiracy" is insulting to everyone involved. To Prydanians it's insulting that the War waged in our country that saw our brave men and women risk everything for the hope of a better future is being reduced to a mere point in a nonsensical fantasy centred on Santonian world domination.

It's insulting to Saintonge- home of the largest population of the Prydanian diaspora- that the efforts of their people to save ours are being belittled and twisted. Not to mention the aid provided to us in the War's aftermath.
In my last editorial examining the bigotries of the Radical movement I said the relationship between Prydania and Saintonge was forged on Crusade in the Syrixian jungles. It was a friendship- a brotherhood- that was forged then.
And it's insulting to twist that for the purposes of propping up a scapegoat for a morally bankrupt regime to tear down.

And to the Severoszlavians themselves and anyone else who parrots their nonsense, it's insulting to your fellow countrymen who have to be shamed by association with you.

Why?

Why has it come to this though?
Well that much is easy to uncover.

The Prydanian Civil War broke the world. At least the parts of the world who desperately cling to authoritarian rot.

Volodymyr Svrtan- the former dictator of Yamantau- was terrified of King Tobias because he represented successful struggle against dictatorship.

Rayvostoka, New Aleman, and Cogoria openly supported the Syndicalist Republic. Only to watch it turn to ash.

Right wing dictatorships- which Severoszlavia is despite its trapings- may have cheered on the FRE in some form against the Syndicalist Republic but had to watch with unease as it became clear Prince Tobias and William Aubyn were not King Anders and Stefan Toft.

The Prydanian Civil War was a strike against dictatorship. And all those who support dictatorship trembled because if we could do it so could their people.

And so this insulting, demeaning, and insane conspiracy theory was birthed by the worst of humanity because believing it is easier than trying to be just a little bit better.

excerpt from The Dilemma of Reform in Solidarist Severoszlavia
Pólitík 168 no.10 (2024)
by Dr. Asfrid Fehn
University of Miðland

Bolkonsky's Ambiguous Legacy

Prince Włodokus Andrzejsyn "The Butcher" Bolkonsky held power for twenty-nine years, among the longest of any Severoszlavian leader. To his immediate heirs, Ridder Mikołaj Antonsyn Anttonen and Lotar Horacysyn Aleksandrów, he left a legacy of accomplishments but also of challenges and looming problems. For the younger politicians who will soon step into their shoes, the Bolkonsky years were a crucial formative experience. The triumphs and failures of this period will have a major effect on Severoszlavian politics for the next half century.

Bolkonsky's legacy defies easy analysis. Anttonen is said to have "grasped well the Bolkonsky (bolkonskii) style of leadership, the Bolkonskivite concern for the people's interests, the Bolkonskivite attitude toward personnel," but this is a hymn less to Bolkonsky the man than to the era over which he presided.' By the standards of the Severoszlavian past, Bolkonsky's rule was curiously impersonal. Avalov was a revolutionary, Pucilowski a despot, and Sawinkow a flawed reformer, to follow the simple labels of Nordic textbooks. But what was Bolkonsky? What did he stand for, and what did he leave behind?

Part of the puzzle arises from the character and mind-set of Bolkonsky himself. Sketchy evidence suggests that he was a person of breadth rather than depth, more a tactician than a strategist, superficially voluble but reticent and cautious on the points that counted. Before reaching the top in 1993 during the Severoszlavian 'Revolution,' Bolkonsky had been everything from a military man to an administrator, and eventually the leader of a faction of reformists ready to seize power in the chaotic early 1990s. His career took him to several parts of the Severoszlavian state, allowing him to connect with a wide variety of the ethnicities that make up the country, before settling in Cesarskie Miasto. As Reagent of the Severoszlavian state and head of the Solidarist Party Bolkonsky remained in many respects an elusive and enigmatic figure. His quirks and endearing gestures were few, and they were better known outside Severoszlavia than inside. He did have policy preoccupations - such as the building of Severoszlavian military might and the modernization of industry- but even these he touted like someone reading the minutes of a committee meeting.
Bolkonsky's ghost-written memoirs betray no hint of inner drives or anxieties and reinforce the impression of a stolid individual accustomed more to accommodating to his surroundings than actively molding them. Among his few personal remarks are limp eulogies of his father and mother, generic enough to be amicable but personal enough to seem like a salt of Eras sort. People who had known the rule of his predecessors were both reassured and amused by such pale sentimentality and by the sight of Bolkonsky, labouriously reciting speeches from note cards on the evening television news. Bolkonsky provoked neither strong affection nor strong antipathy. My many attempts to draw Severoszlavian acquaintances into conversation about him discovered little knowledge and less interest.

To assess the murky nature of the Bolkonsky era, we must return to the politics that carried him to power. The 1993 'revolution' was in the simplest political terms a repudiation of one brand of authoritarianism skittishly flirting with reform to establish another.

If Pucilowski, who possessed more potent instruments of tyranny, could get away with running roughshod over the established order, Bolkonsky's predecessors could not. Having emptied most of the labour camps and foresworn mass terror, they were dictator enough to alienate fellow governors but not enough of one to cow them. Their successors, lead by Bolkonsky, in effect wrote a 'charter of oligarchy' for the Solidarist system, entrenching collective leadership at its summit.
Over time Bolkonsky slowly amended this charter of oligarchy in his favor. By the late 1990s, he appeared bedecked with medals and ribbons, his memoirs were printed in huge editions and was given state prizes, his military record was being extolled, and he had been named Reagent, effectively the most powerful man in both country and Party. Nevertheless, even as his power grew, along with the stilted Bolkonsky cult, his associates applauded him most for fostering team decision making. "One of the best qualities of Włodokus Andrzejsyn," a Party deputy said, "lies in the fact that he does not don the mantle of a superman, that he does not think and work for everyone but, while making his own outstanding contribution to the common cause, creates the conditions under which all can think creatively."

This and other tributes were inspired most by the things Bolkonsky did not do. He did not affect omniscience, he did not push others around, he did not sow "blind fear, egoism, envy, or suspicion." At a mawkish birthday celebration Bolkonsky returned to the theme of collaborative leadership. The strides made since 1993 were not his alone, he said, but the product of "true mutual understanding in the leadership... the practice of joint investigation and serious discussion... and the joint taking of decisions. "
If Bolkonskism resists simple characterization, therefore, this reflects the political settlement around which it was fashioned. Especially in the early years, power at the top was divided and shared. And the kingpin of the regime was temperamentally suited to its bland image and far less gripped than previous bosses by strong ideas that he wished to impose on Severoszlavian society.

The Three Faces of Bolkonskism

A more fundamental factor obstructs an easy assessment...

Býkonsviði- In the old Heorotian Saga of Vánern the witch Veleda is cast down into the murky depths of the ocean only to rise up the next full moons and unleash a scourge of þyrs* upon the Kingdom.
Vánern's historicity is murky at best but whether or not he was a real hero in the early days of the vikings is almost besides the point. The Saga's legacy is that of time, and cyclical human behaviour. There is always a turn of the wheel of time, and nothing stays buried forever.

The re-emergence of Tenna Nygaard onto the national scene in her hometown of Barosvik offers a modern day reflection of the legend. And signals a new era of our work in progress democracy.

Death of the Extremes
The death of the Syndicalist Republic and the collapse of the Syndicalist Party closed the book on thirty-three years of extreme political polarization in this country, which tore the very fabric of society apart. The arrest of a cadre of Social Commonwealth loyalists looking to seize power after the War was over was, at best, a pithy epilogue to the sad story that had befallen our country.
When the first post-war local elections were held in the fall of 2017 the two major contenders were the Conservative-Agrarian Alliance and Free Democrats. And those two forces would dominate the national elections that followed in the winter of 2018. Much has happened since then. The People's Party has risen to be a respectable force in politics, Tenna Nygaard attempted to push the Conservative-Agrarian Alliance in a far right direction and failed, and Peace not Blood swept the nation as a generation of young people denied their agency under Syndicalism took to the streets and demanded a voice.

But all of this- specifically Nygaard's failing- indicated that the far left and the far right were dead in this country. How could they not be? So many Prydanians- here and abroad- bare the scars of the Social Commonwealth dictatorship and the Syndicalist regime that followed, some bare the scars of both. It meant that anything approaching left wing radicalism or right wing reactionary politics was just... shunned. The Bayardi Action Party even tried to fine-tune the national populist message as a minority ethnic rights vehicle, and that too failed.

But Veleda doesn't stay in her watery tomb for long.

The Left Alternative

The first re-emergence of politics away from the centre was on the left. The People's Party, formed by ex-Syndicalists who had turned against the regime during the Civil War, hoped to be a catch-all party for those left of the centre occupied by the Free Democrats. For a while they succeeded. They slowly built up a political system that, in 2021, saw them return twenty-five ÞMs and enter government in three provinces.
The party, however, had issues to contend with. How left wing was it going to be? Would they support the Callisean Workers' Party's Internationale? In the end the party's driving goal- to be a home for left wingers unwilling to abide by the extremism of the old Syndicalist Party as well as the pratical politics of post-War Prydania- meant that it would firmly embrace both sides of the soc dem/dem soc divide. Left wing? Absolutely. Radical? No.

For some that wasn't enough. Svæin Leirdal, a People's Party city counciler of Býkonsviði, was one of a few breakaway People's Party members to form the Left Alternative.

The new party is hard to parce. Their only elected officials are people like Herra Lierdal, who have been elected to local government under the People's Party ticket. Their unifying message is that the People's Party is not committed to real social change, and they condemn what they see as a "culture of political reaction" that has taken hold of the country since the end of the Civil War.

Herra Leirdal, who was elected the first leader of the new party, has stressed that his party does not condone the "excesses" of the Syndicalist regime, and has pledged to uphold the Constitution of the Kingdom of Prydania- including the monarchy. Yet it stresses it will push for "radical" economic change to make Prydania a, to quote the party's official platform, "the egalitarian country so many past reformers dreamed it could be."

One must wonder what road those reformers took. Or why the "reaction" they're rallying against is so popular. Regardless, they insist there's no love for the Syndicalist cause... though it probably is the one place where you'll find it tolerated. Already Herra Lierdal had to clean house of the new party's Keris branch when a leaked text group chat of the Keris chapter's leadership showed, among other things, mockery towards victims of the Syndicalist state, and "joking" references to sending opposition politicans to labour camps.

"We reject the mockery of those the Syndicalist regime hurt," Herra Lierdal insisted.
"And we reject the Syndicalist legacy. We want a new vision for a progressive and egalitarian Prydania. These people, their values are not compatible with our movement."

Polling indicates that the Left Alternative has a long way to go before it seriously challenges the People's Party for the left wing vote in Prydania, though Herra Leirdal is committed for the long run.

"The issues we stand for won't be solved by any other party. And so, we will be here. Always fighting for them."

The Prydanian Justice Party

It was a sunny day as spring emerges yet again, and Barosvik is as good a town as any to take in the Prydanian countryside. The hometown of Tenna Nygaard voted her out in 2021 as part of Peace not Blood's Pink Wave, but she's used her hometown to launch a new party. The Prydanian Justice Party.

"The country is beholden to milksop politicians who rejected nationalism the very moment we regained the freedom to have it!" Fröken Nygaard said at an event decked out in cyan and ruby balloons and giant "PRF" lettering.
"We fought for it in 2021, and will fight for it tomorrow. And the day after, I promise all of you," she told a group of supporters who, if we include the media sent to cover the event, were outnumbered by people not there to support the party. Peace not Blood itself staged a protest, calling it a "neo-Social Commonwealth stunt."

Nygaard's role as a political refugee from a wealthy planter family to little-known Agrarian chief, to leader of the opposition, to national populist firebrand, to electoral flamout was something to behold. But with the Agrarians having kicked her out and otherwise struggling to find relevancy, and neither the Conservatives or PnB willing to have her... she's leveraged her money and whatever name recognition she has to launch the Prydanian Justice Party.

The party itself is vague on concrete policy. They oppose the Santonian-aided defensive footing for the Armed Forces, but haven't formulated a repalcement vision for the Armed Forces. They've called the social market econonmic policies of the Peace not Blood-led coalition "restricting," a complaint they share with the Free Democrats. Yet they also blast the Free Democrats' social liberalism, calling the advent of legalized same-sex marriage in 2019 "a national shame." They've expressed anger at the levels of foreign ownership of the Prydanian economy yet offer no real goals towards how to rectify this- most of the deals of this sort include provisions for the Prydanian government to buy out some or all of the foreign shares once certain benchmarks are met, but whether the PRF thinks they can speed run this or they have something else in mind is a mystery.
Nygaard addressed none of the controversies that plagued her stint as leader rof the opposition, not induldging any of the press, as she snidely referred to reporters at the event as "lygapressa."

Horseshoe Theory

The horsehoe theory holds that, like a horseshoe, the further left or right you go the more alike the two sides get. Fundmentally a far left and far right politican will be more alike then a centre left or centre right poltician. In a lot of ways Prydanians know this in their bones. If they didn't live it all in action their parents or older siblings did, and they at least caught the left-leaning end of it all. At the end of the day very little separated the Social Commonwealth and Syndicalist regimes other than the types of people they targeted. And in some cases there was overlap there. Ask a Shaddaist.

The aftermath of all of this that created a centrist-first political culture left space on the left and right for new organizations to form, to claim that realestate. And the horseshoe theory is at work once more.

Both parties swear they're not anything like the Syndicalist or Social Commonwealth parties. Both parties attack the centrist-minded status quo and claim only they can answer the issues that Prydania is facing. Both have vague policy platforms that rely on populist emotion more than concrete policy proposals.

Still, the realestate on the far left and far right of Prydanian politics was abandoned for a reason. Sure, the realestate sat unused, and so these parties have taken residences at the far ends of the horseshoe shaped culdasack. But whether anyone stops by, or just keeps on moving past them, remains to be seen.

---

*þyrs- evil demons
*ÞMs- MPs
*lygapressa- lying press

Býkonsviði- The Prydanian Supreme Court, in a 15-3 decision, has ruled that the Regulation of Abortion Act of 2017 passed by the post-Civil War provisional government, is still legally enforceable. The challenge to act came from a lawsuit initiated by the FfA- Frjósemisfrelsi fyrir Alla- a pro-choice lobbying group. The country’s top court ruled that the 2017 act was legally passed and still legally enforceable despite the FfA’s claims to the contrary.

Abortion in Prydania

Presently abortion access in Prydania is defined by the Regulation of Abortion Act of 2017 which limits abortions to adult women, or girls with guardian approval, if the health of the mother is in serious jeopardy because of the pregnancy, if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or if there are serious birth defects found with the fetus. In such cases an abortion can legally be obtained following the assessment of a physician, and with the signature of a Crown prosecutor if the pregnancy is believed to have occurred under illegal (rape, incest) circumstances. Abortion remains illegal outside of these circumstances.

The act was passed in the fall of 2017 by the post-Civil War government led by William Aubyn, and signed into law by His Majesty King Tobias III shortly thereafter. The law was modelled on similar statutes in Predice and Saintonge.

Pushback on Syndicalist Legacy of Abortion

The Provisional Government of William Aubyn was not a strictly Conservative-Agrarian endeavour, and Aubyn’s cabinet included Free Democrats and People’s Party voices, a coalition of political parties that had resisted Syndicalist tyranny. It’s because of this that the Act had been hotly debated.

Syndicalist re-education camps, labour camps, and agricultural homesteads were rife with sexual abuse, with guards given free reign to sexually assault inmates however they saw fit. Often this would result in pregnancy and forced abortion was a quick and easy way to solve these “problems.” The Syndicalist Republic itself repealed the strong anti-abortion laws of the Social Commonwealth regime- which made it almost entirely illegal- and re-instituted the old statute passed in 1976 that legalized abortion up to twenty-three weeks.

The trauma of these forced abortions and the association of the procedure with Syndicalist imprisonment and abuse drove the Conservatives and Agrarians in Aubyn’s cabinet to draft the law, though the Agrarians’ push to strike “rape” from the exceptions to the ban failed. In the end Aubyn leveraged his political faction’s numbers in the cabinet, and the growing anti-abortion mood as the result of Syndicalist abuses to pass the act through the Cabinet and deliver it to King Tobias III’s desk. His Majesty signed the act into law shortly thereafter.

The Case

The lawsuit that wound up before the Supreme Court of Prydania was Frjósemisfrelsi fyrir Alla*- FfA. FfA argued that the Provisional Government overstepped its boundaries by passing the Regulation of Abortion Act, that its mandate was merely the re-establishment of a non-Syndicalist government following the defeat of the Syndicalist Republic and to ensure national recovery before democratic national elections could be held. The FfA argued that such elections- which were held in December of 2018- were the venue to decide something as fundamental as reproductive rights. The FfA was asking the Supreme Court to invalidate the 2017 act and revert the law back to the 1976 law that provided for legalized abortion up to twenty-three weeks, the same law the Syndicalists referenced with their own abortion legislation.

Though not involved with the FfA’s case, Maríanna Toft of the Free Democratic Party offered support for the cause, insisting that expanding reproductive freedoms must be the priority of the next government, which she hopes to lead.

“I am confident that the courts will make the right decision in striking down a law that was overreaching in scope for the mandate of the Provisional Government,” Fröken Toft said.
“I don’t believe in legislating from the bench,” the Leader of the Opposition added, “but this broken Coalition government has refused to even discuss the issue. So we have to rely on the courts for some sort of justice. Regardless though, when the Free Democratic Party is given a mandate from the people to form a government in two years solidifying reproductive freedom will be a day one priority.”

This has put her at odds with Prime Minister Kjell Svane, whose government defended the legality of the act in court.

“The Regulation of Abortion Act was passed by a legally recognized Prydanian government, signed into law by the King, and has been the law of the land since. My party, and our coalition partners, don’t feel the courts are the appropriate place to decide this. The Free Democrats won the 2018 election and never moved to dismantle this law because they realized what we see, that it enjoys the support of the Prydanian people. If Fröken Toft wishes to challenge this, she can in two years on the campaign trail.”

Polls- both Prydanian and from international polling firms- place support for the current legislation at around 68%, with 13% opposed, 12% unsure, and 7% believing it should be more restrictive.

“The polling tells only one part of the story,” FfA spokeswoman Stina Gjerde insisted.
“We are sympathetic to women who don’t believe in abortion because of the Syndicalist abuses, but to them I’d say we can’t let that define ourselves forever and also no one is forcing anything on anyone. We simply want the procedure available. If the majority of women still opt out then that’s their choice, but at least they’ll have it.”


The Decision

Olaf Skjöld, writing for the 15-3 majority of the Supreme Court, stated that no such legal restrictions existed that would narrowly define the Provisional Government’s scope as FfA argued. Justice Skjöld also wrote that the Court must be mindful of its role on matters such as this.

“We serve as a vital check on the government’s, and even Crown’s, authority in regards to the constitution. Neither exists above it, and we have a duty to act if either attempts to circumnavigate it. With that being said, we must not confuse this duty with a right to legislate. The Provisional Government, as irregular as it was, was vested with legislative rights. The Alþingi and the Crown today enjoy those rights and powers. If any alteration is to come to laws regulating abortion access they must come from the elected Alþingi, and not the Courts. It’s this exercise of democratic governance that is the hallmark of a free society, not mandates issued by appointed judges.”

Responses

The Prime Minister celebrated the Court’s decision.

“Our courts put the power to decide in the hands of the people,” Herra Svane said.
“Our Coalition remains committed to the 2017 law in terms of freedoms, provisions, and restrictions. We’re confident in taking that position to the voters in two years, the appropriate venue to decide these issues.”

The Leader of the Opposition expressed her disappointment.

“The Courts had an opportunity to tell this broken Coalition government that this Social Commonwealth-esque law has no place in a modern Prydania,” Fröken Toft said.
“But they upheld the status quo. If they have stated that we must win on the campaign trail, then so be it. This Coalition, and the majority of Justices on the Court, will be amazed by the electoral power of motivated women.”

“I’m disappointed,” Fröken Gjered added.
“For the decision, and for the women of this country that were let down by it. But it only furthers our resolve to continue to fight for bodily autonomy.”

Absalonhöll issued a neutral statement on the matter.
“His Majesty remains confident in both the Courts to uphold the laws of the country and the Alþingi to make them with the consent of the people. Unlike in the recent past where unelected tyrants imposed such matters on the people, Prydanians today enjoy the freedom to decide for themselves.”

---

*Frjósemisfrelsi fyrir Alla- Reproductive Freedom for All

Býkonsviði- The government of Prydania introduced a new logo a year ago, the first fresh branding since the end of the Civil War. The logo gave the coat of arms a sort of stylized makeover against a red box. It was meant to represent the government in a less formal, more every day sort of way. The same design firm behind that logo, Fulltsegl Designs out of Hadden, has just unveiled the marks to represent the Government of Prydania's seventeen ministries in an effort to unify the government's branding.

Government Branding and Visual Uniformity
Governments have used branding since at least the 1920s, with branding becoming more and more standardized as branding itself has become more well-defined. Yet the Prydanian government post-Civil War has lacked a unified branding, using a hodgepodge of coats of arms, emblems, seals, and logos. The logo introduced last year was part of a government initiative to streamline branding and the government's visual identity.

"We want there to be a visual consistency with how the public views the government, and the folks at Fulltsegl helped us do that," Minister of Culture Fastvi Lerum said.
"It's a forward thinking aesthetic, and we like that. We want to emphasize that the darkest days are behind us and we're moving forward."

All seventeen Ministry logos contain the coat of arms logo Fulltsegl designed last year, with a second red box containing a stylized emblem representing each Ministry with black text reading "HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT, KINGDOM OF PRYDANIA" followed by the Ministry name.



Ministry of Agriculture


Ministry of Culture


Ministry of Defence


Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs


Ministry of Economic Growth


Ministry of Education


Ministry of the Environment


Ministry of Finance


Ministry of Fisheries


Ministry of Foreign Affairs


Ministry of Health


Ministry of Housing


Ministry of the Interior


Ministry of Justice


Ministry of Science


Ministry of Transportation


Ministry of Utilities

Býkonsviði- The Conservative Party, the oldest political party in the country, and the upstart Peace not Blood party make shocking gains in the 2021 election, have merged. The new unified party, known as the National Democratic League (ÞLD), will replace both Coalition parties in the Alþingi. Elections Prydania received the submission for national registration, and has ruled that both Peace not Blood and the Conservative Party assets and legal legacies will belong to the new party.

Merger Talks

Merger talks began over a year ago when Conservative Party operatives began to discuss how the party would approach the 2026 election. The Conservatives and Peace not Blood did not run as a coalition in 2021 and only agreed to form one to secure an Alþingi majority after the election. While the private party strategy sessions of the Conservatives remain a secret it's widely speculated that leader Sören Högh was confronted with the reality that Peace not Blood would further eat into the Conservative base if the party tried to go it alone.
The result was the signing of a formal coalition agreement one year ago, the Peace-Conservative Alliance for Prydania that would see the parties cooperate in future elections, agreeing to a single slate of candidates.

This was reflective of localized cooperation between the two parties. Notably both the Jórvík branches combined efforts to field a single slate of candidates for the local elections in 2022.

While some speculated that this was a gambit from Herra Högh to preserve the Conservative Party as a political force others have speculated that it was merely the first step towards a former merger.

The latter camp proved to be correct. Peace not Blood ratified the merger agreement via a national postal vote open to all party members 96% to 4%. Meanwhile the Conservatives held localized conventions across the country where local delegates could cast their votes. The merger was secured 90% to 10% amongst Conservative delegates.

Swallowing the Conservatives?

What compelled the Conservatives to agree to merger terms after securing a degree of continued viability via the electoral coalition agreement is being speculated on.

"Junior coalition partners always struggle to keep support up because supporters of the government tend to gravitate towards the senior partner" Dr. Agnar Vignes, a professor of political science at the University of Haland, explained.

"Young voters of a conservative stripe," Dr. Vignes continued, "are also more and more drawn to Peace not Blood. A commitment to peaceful solutions, social market theory, and a sort of compassionate conservative advocacy embodied by the party is more appealing than the Conservatives, a party that is frankly lost in time. It's a relic of the post-Civil War world."

Simply put, Sören Högh might have realized that the Conservatives were going to slowly move towards irrelevancy. It would be best to agree to terms now, while the party was still relevant enough to agree to terms with.

Reactions

The coalition agreed to one year ago was seen as some as a new version of the old Conservative-Agrarian electoral coalition that dominated right wing politics in Prydania for decades. Now Peace not Blood and the Conservatives have done what the Conservatives and Argarians never did; merge.

"It's become more apparent than ever that there needs to be a party dedicated to the rural vote," Agrarian leader Björn Laksáfoss said in a press release.
"This ÞLD is an increasingly metropolitan party. We're the only ones specifically dedicated to rural issues."

Free Democratic Party leader, and Leader of the Opposition, Maríanna Toft disparaged the merger.

"This is merger of dead ideas," Fröken Toft said.
"Peace not Blood was supposed to be something new. Now it's just usurped a failing party's place."

Prime Minister Kjell Svane, however, shot back.
"I'm disappointed that Fröken Toft used our merger to try and promote her radical party program. Regardless, this merger will allow us to continue the work we began as Peace not Blood to continue onward. It's the next step of our movement's development."

As provincial parties are not legally distinct entities in Prydania this merger affects all provincial and local wings of Peace not Blood and the Conservatives.

The smjörbrauð- who doesn't love this staple of Prydanian cuisine? The rye bread open faced sandwich has been the backbone of lunches and dinners for centuries. What started as rye sourdough with butter evolved. Now a proper smjörbrauð is whatever you desire it to be, from any spread you can imagine to any topping. Butter, mayonnaise, meatballs, mushrooms, pork, beef, fish, vegetables, any sort of cheese you desire.

The smjörbrauð is adaptable, and that's lead to its longevity. When rations were introduced during the Fascist Wars the smjörbrauð got much simpler. The post FW boom saw smjörbrauð innovation reach new heights, as foreign chefs- and Prydanian chefs trained abroad- came to introduce new combinations.

The Syndicalist regime's mismanagement of agriculture led to localized famines and food shortages, and the War didn't alleviate these issues. The immediate post-War era saw the smjörbrauð slowly re-emerge as the populace relied less and less on packaged food aid from abroad, as more and more farms were rehabilitated in recently liberated areas. And, slowly, the simple smjörbrauð has begun to regain its diversity and, in some places, its eccentricity.

But as this staple of Prydanian cuisine re-asserts itself, a challenger has emerged. One that is not entirely welcome, but which has none the less taken hold because of convenience.
The pre-packaged sandwich.

To be clear, double-breaded sandwiches are not foreign to Prydania. The Goyanean Stektöst sandwhich- breaded and fried gouda between buns with a variety of toppings have been popular in Prydania since at least the end of the Fascist Wars. Hessunlandian hamburgers have also been popular. This, though, is different.

Perhaps it started with Gojan, Andrennian, Santonian, Predician, and Khestnian aid packages during the Civil War and the immediate aftermath, where simple sandwiches would be packed as part of meals.
Or pehaps the smjörbrauð's chief limitation caused its downfall.
Or maybe it's simply economics.

Maybe it's all three.

Since the end of the Civil War, however, Sayfansinn and smaller food and grocery shops have been to sell pre-packaged sandwiches. And they've proven quite popular.

"We saw a need to fill, and we found we could garuntee freshness up to three days, so we decided to jump on it," Lodin Sayfansinn, the head of Sayfansinn Prydansk said when reached for comment.

Indeed, the cost effectiveness and cheapness- only x13.25 per sandwich regardless of ingredients- makes them appealing. They're good on the go too. Trying to each a smjörbrauð on the bus or in the car will prove to be difficult. But a packaged sandwhich makes it easy.

But is it worth it?

At only x13.25- 2 IBU- there is a sense that you get what you pay for. Nothing is disgusting, nothing is objectionable. The ham tastes like ham, the eggs like eggs, the chicken like chicken, the bacon like bacon...
but nothing my mama couldn't beat if given five minutes in the kitchen.

It's cheap, semi-automated production. And while the price- and format- is convenient, we are a nation of farmers. Let's try to be better than this. Let's emrbace the smjörbrauð. Or at the very least embrace double breaded sandwiches that don't radiate processed blandness.

12 April 2024

statement:

A Statement from His Majesty King Tobias III
​

At noon today Býkonsviði time I, along with the rest of the world, was informed that King Thibault II of Saintonge had passed away. Prydania lost a friend, Saintonge lost a beloved King, my aunt lost a husband, and my cousins lost a father.
To the Royal family of Saintonge, and to the Santonian nation as a whole, Prydania mourns and prays with you in this time of tragedy and sadness. We wish you the best in navigating this, and we stand by you in shared grief.
May King Thibault II know the grace of God in heaven, and may Saintonge, with all the might and dignity it possesses, find peace in his rest.

Click to expand...

Býkonsviði- Judge Arnvid Haugland of the Eastern High Court in Býkonsviði has ruled in favour of the National Democratic League (ÞLD) in a case where their main political rivals, the Free Democratic Party of Prydania, were suing to stop the registration of their ballot mark with the Realm's Election Commission.

In his decision Judge Haugland stated "from a legal perspective all requirements have been met to satisfy both the Election Commission and the Courts that the National Democratic League is, as a registered political party, the heir to the former party Peace not Blood, and may register marks accordingly. The arguments presented by council representing Fröken Toft's party may be pursued in the court of public opinion, but fall short in a court of law."

The ruling, which dealt with ballot marks, seems both trivial and consequential all at once. Some accuse Maríanna Toft of making a mountain out of a molehill, while others have highlighted the strategy in her decision to raise the issue legally.


Ballot Marks in Prydania

Prydanian ballots include a number of pieces of information. The candidate's name and party affiliation is listed, along with a circle to mark the voter's choice. To the left, however, is a white box containing a black and white image. This is what's called an atkvæðamerki or "ballot mark."
The ballot mark came about in the mid 1800s as party politics began to take hold in Prydania. Symbols representing a candidate's party affiliation were added to ballots to make voting easier for the illiterate. The symbols stuck around even as illiteracy faded away, in some part due to the ease of identification. Prydansk as a language can be difficult for the elderly at smaller print scales, and so it was decided that ballot marks would remain.
Ballot marks are separate, however, from a party's logo. All political parties, once meeting the legal requirements for being a political party in Prydania as laid down by statute, must register the Realm's Election Commission if they hope to appear on the ballot. Registration includes the party's name, abbreviation, logo, customary colour, and ballot mark. Since Prydania's ballots are printed in black and white a ballot mark is often a simplified version of part of the party's official logo. The ballot mark for the FLFP, for example, is a single swallow, in reference to the yellowtail swallows in their logo.


This case is not the first time ballot marks have come up recently. Just last year the newly founded Left Alternative attempted to register the old Syndicalist cog and gear as their ballot mark, a move which the Election Commission rejected on the grounds that all Syndicalist symbolism is illegal in Prydania, with educational matters being the only exception. Party leader Svæin Leirdal claimed the attempt was a stunt to prove a point about an "anti-progressive bias" in the Election Commission. It didn't, however, result in a court case. Instead the Left Alternative simply registered a black and white rendering of their double V logo as their ballot mark. So what happened here?

When the Conservative Party and Peace not Blood each voted to accept the merger terms negotiated between the two parties the new party, the National Democratic League, had to register. Since they were formed by two previously registered parties merging, they additionally requested to be recognized as the legal successor of both the old Conservative Party and Peace not Blood. The Election Commission, citing the approval of both former parties' members, agreed. The ÞLD then, with this approval, registered to use Peace not Blood's old Peace Sign ballot mark as the new party's ballot mark. And this is where the FLFP took issue.

Toft('s lawyers) in Court
The FLFP's legal team argued in court that as the ÞLD is not Peace not Blood they should be barred from using Peace not Blood's symbols.

"This is a party that is trying to use the symbolism of another party to give the voters the wrong impression," FLFP legal council Svartkollr Tjessem said in court.
"No one put a gun to the collective heads of Peace not Blood members and told them to vote their party out of existence. They decided to do that, for whatever reasons they may have had. Those reasons don't really matter her. What matters is that they did that, and the party is gone. The ÞLD is a new party. It should use new symbols, and not try to use a dead party's symbols to confuse the electorate."

The ÞLD's position was rather straightforward.
"The ÞLD is a merger of the Conservatives and Peace not Blood. The Election Commission recognizes this," ÞLD attorney Hildegunn Folstad stated.
"The ÞLD includes the Conservative stag and the Peace not Blood peace sign in its logo to reflect this. It has every right to use the peace sign as its ballot mark."

The "Why?" of it All

The courts agreed with the ÞLD in the end, and some have wondered what Maríanna Toft hoped to gain. The law was rather unambiguous on the issue. Some have called the matter a waste of time, others a stunt, but some see a deeper meaining

Dr. Joar Handeland is a political science professor at Miðland University and says it's a matter of trying to undermine the newly unified governing party.
"Maríanna Toft's strategy has, since the formational of the Peace not Blood and Conservative coaltion government, been to break that coalition" Dr. Handeland said when asked for a comment from RÚV.
"The Conservatives and Peace not Blood were not in lockstep and Toft attempted to pry at the gaps between the two parties as Opposition Leader. The formal merger makes that harder, but the Conservatives basically got eaten. She launched this stunt to try and paint the ÞLD as something lacking substance, lacking form, a facsimile that replaced two dead parties. And if you're a Conservative maybe not happy with the state of things, well... she's got a hand out for you."

Some pushback, however, hasn't come from the ÞLD. It's come from Toft's own party. Pieter Bruyn, the Free Democratic Lord Mayor of Jórvík, didn't seem enthused about his party boss' decision to drag this into the courts.

"On a practical matter I and my team now have to hear from our supporters in Jórvík about it when we canvas and fundraise," the Lord Mayor told RÚV.
"We are proud of the voter base we've built here in this great city, but people who were once eager to support us now ask my volunteers and I 'will my krossar go to help the party, or be wasted on lawyers?' I wish I could be more reassuring. If it's happening in Jórvík, it's happening across the country."

The Free Democrats find such internal divisions shaky. The party's new national platform, one that promises to end the "social market economy" of the ÞLD government by easing economic regulations while also promising a whole host of socially progressive policies, has not sat well with the traditionally liberal party's stalwarts.

"As Free Democrats, as liberals, we value individual liberty," Herra Bruyn said.
"I want Prydanians to think 'personal liberty' and 'economic transparency' when they think of our party, not a whole host of promises every which way and stunts that waste the party's funds and taxpayers' dollars."

Herra Bruyn's rebuttal hasn't sat well with FLFP leadership, however.

"We stood up for voter rights and tried to stop the misleading of the electorate," Fröken Toft said when asked about Herra Bruyn's criticisms.
"If Pieter thinks that's a waste of taxpayer krossar then I suppose I'm at a loss. He needs to trust that the party is acting in the interests of the ideals he and the rest of us hold dear."

Legally Settled

The Supreme Court of Prydania delcined to accept the appeal issued by the FLFP's legal team, settling the matter and allowed the ÞLD to register the peace sign as their ballot mark. With an election coming up in just under two years it remains to be seen if this odd epsiode will even be on voters' minds or if, in retrospect, this was the first shot in a campaign.