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Gordian Nought
EnigmatikThe Socialist Republic of Belzarov, A.K.A. The Belzarov Republic, A.K.A. Belzarov
Geography:
|Geographical Location of Country:| Most of the Southwest of Idiea.
|Country Size:| 10000000 (ten million) square kilometers.
|Cities:| Being an exceptionally large nation, Belzarov has rather a lot of villages, towns, and cities to work with, covering fields from agriculture and livestock rearing to modern mining and industry, though few focus on it at present given that the industrial center of Belzarov is currently rebelling against them.
Its capital, located at roughly the midpoint of the country, beyond the borders of more hostile terrain but not within prime farming land, is Zetvolkrov, one of the larger towns of a former enemy that has long since been deemed the most appropriate place for the government to lead the country from, specialising in light industry such as weaving and brickmaking to send off to other parts of the country.
Its largest city, however, is in fact one of several: along the Northern edge of Belzarov lies the Stenarad, or Shield Wall, a collection of ten cities designed to act as the first lines of defense against invasion from the North, and in particular from typically-fightey nations such as Zengrav; whilst a lot of energy has been refocused further South in light of the Bravsaara Secession, the Stenarad still holds roughly 25% of the Republic’s standing army, and Stenarad Zet in particular, located nearer the three-way border between Belzarov, Voskiya and Chernogov, contains both the largest population in the country and the largest military concentration in the Northern half of Belzarov.
Further South, one of the most impressive cities is Satzayen, the biggest industrial hub outside of Bravsaara - largely because of its proximity to Bravsaara, a mere fifty kilometers away. The Secession took its toll on the city’s populace and infrastructure, but equally, its furnaces remain fired up in preparation to churn out weaponry for the military at any time, not to mention other important industrial resources such as steel and vehicular transport, as well as a significant army base located just nearby for the purposes of defense and ranging attacks into Bravsaara.
|Natural Resources:| Belzarov is replete with lumber, specifically wood from temperate and jungle forests due to the large longitudinal area it covers, as well as owning a great deal of farmland in the rolling fields and hills of the North, but the main source of ground-based resources like crude and coal were located in what is currently the Bravsaara Secession; whilst the rest of the land has some access to these resources, much of their industrial economy is currently based on trade, a problem that will be rectified once they reabsorb the Bravsaara region.
People & Culture:
|Population:| ~200000000 (two hundred million), even despite the loss of a few tens of millions of people in the Bravsaara Secession.
|Demographics:| Surprisingly for its large area and varied history, Belzarov mostly only bears a few distinct ethnicities. The majority ethnicity is the native Belzars, at around 80% of the population. Belzars normally have fair skin, caramel-coloured hair (although darker coloured hair and ‘dirty blondes’ are also common, and they have a higher likelihood to express red or copper-coloured hair,) and brown or grey eyes. Belzarovian Belzars vary somewhat in bodily tones depending on what part of the country they are born in - generally speaking, the further South, the more tanned their skin, and the darker their eyes. Equally, immigrants from other nations are readily accepted, granted of course that their contribution to the land is positive rather than negative.
|Government:| Democratic socialism - A largely planned economy focused on ensuring all people have similar, suitable amounts of wealth and high opportunities to one another, right up to and including the rulers of the nation; consequently, the means of production are mostly owned by the producers themselves, and distributed nation-wide accordingly by a number of administrative branches. A lot of people mistake them for a pure democracy.
|Ruler:| The “People’s Council” that runs Belzarov is an electorate of 1000 seats drawn from the wider populace, plus an extra 1 for the largely honorary title of "Leader of the Majority", specifically the current largest party in power. By law, it is illegal for the Council to deny any contender for a seat without good reason, such as serious criminal activity in the past, and though a lot of political parties exist, the main parties include the People’s Socialist Party, led by one Vuldosty Kuldvorak as present party head and Leader of the Majority, and the Democratic Republican Party, with Alexandra Cegorakh as the current leader replacing one Vasiliski Moltorova, both heavily tilted toward what modern layfolk would call the “left wing” of politics. Notably, the main supporters of the Bravsaara Secession, the former People’s Independent Management Party and the remnants of the former BDAP, has been entirely excised from the People’s Council, since they are each held responsible for what amounts to a wide-scale revolt and loss of vital resources at a crucial moment in history.
|Volksgeist:| Culturally, many folks remember their original tribes, but thanks to a lot of social support from the state, they generally identify with Belzarov over these, save a few regions such as current-day Bravsaara. Those who see the world beyond the borders of their nation and return often declare that Belzarov remains the most populous-supportive nation in the world, and many of its citizens hold pride in considering themselves forward thinkers.
Either despite or because of this heavily progressive worldview, they have a tendency to not interfere with nations beyond their own. Trade with, yes; attempt to overthrow in the name of democratic socialism, no, even if the target is fascist or autocratic. That said, they are not above throwing themselves into efforts to defend their land or those of their trading allies from external forces, and if an enemy nation invades them repeatedly, then logically, the only decent response will eventually be to mount a counter-invasion in order to destroy the foe utterly.
The sole exception to the above notion of pseudo-pacifism is the so-called “Bravsaara Republic”, former Belzarovian land that a lot of Belzars hold in poor regard as a result of their secession and the ensuing civil war, which is technically still ongoing. According to a dictat from the People’s Council, Bravsaara is still officially part of Belzarov, not an independent nation; thus, Belzarovian invasions of Bravsaara are still considered efforts to quell a rebellion, rather than taking over another nation’s land.
|Religion:| One significant holdover in Belzarov from its days as a mass of warring states is the notion of many differing religious beliefs, ranging from every creature having its own set of spirits to guide it to the notion of a single powerful being guiding its tribe through good and bad times as it sees fit. For its part, the governing body tends to avoid restricting religious worship unless it would actively harm the nation, and prefers to ensure any new beliefs properly integrate with those that are pre-existing to avoid unnecessary internal conflict.
The land comprising what is currently Belzarov was, just 150 years ago, a great number of warring feudal-era principalities, each vying with one another constantly for land and food in the zero-sum game that is pre-modern existence, and largely ignored by greater empires for lack of easily-accessible resources or technologies. As it happened, whilst some had gained a little bit of land over time, the game would ultimately go to whoever conquered another of their allies first, as a positive feedback loop of ever-increasing numbers would escalate their armies beyond what the other pseudo-states could hope to fend off.
As it happened, the Beharov tribe was ultimately the victor in that regard. A combination of good farming land and being contained within natural river boundaries preventing too many invasions allowed it first to develop more and more people, and eventually to spill out from the riverlands in the 1800's to take over the surrounding lands, and more importantly to put their people to work as serfs, both nomadic soldiers and stationary farmers: first the Dolzans, then the Chunibos, then the Magraths and Voltaks, then more and more and more tribes, even pushing deep into the jungle and desert territories further South and taking over any tribes in those regions too.
By the 1830's, the Belzharov Empire had expanded to account for just about the entire subcontinent, even going so far as to break through a natural chokepoint to begin invading the Bravzhaar region to the East. Yet, for all their size, the Empire was suffering a great deal of instability, as its slave farmers began making waves against what they perceived to be an upper class far smaller than themselves with little to no accountability for how they roamed the land, whilst at the same time the warlords of the shattered Zengrav Empire to the North began to push up against Belzharov's borders, threatening to take over if the threat wasn't addressed immediately.
Seeing their potential destruction at hand, the roving tyrants in charge at the time put up solutions to both these issues: first, they set up outposts in the north, a wall of troops supplied with all the weaponry and food they could want, intended to fend off Zengrav before it could march in; second, they allowed the peasantry and slaves a few concessions, such as reducing the penalties for gazing at Belzharovian nobility for too long and replacing the death penalty for not paying one's due taxes with mere temporary indenturement.
Over time, Zengrav's threat fell to the wayside. Nonetheless, the outposts that had been set up to defend against it still grew, becoming towns, and then cities. So, too, did the more nomadic members of the empire settle down, so as to rule their people more efficiently, allowing new villages and towns to spring up in places where they never had before, whilst pre-existing peasantry settlements evolved and grew ever larger. Seeing no real threat from doing so, the rulers of the Empire continued to allow their people concessions, though they always ensured that they were the ones who controlled the supply lines within the nation, just in case.
Almost unintentionally, the culture began to shift. The people began to be seen as important assets by the government, and in turn gained the people's trust with more and more important matters, especially once the people themselves became the most important aspect of the government. By the time their nation's official title changed from Empire to Republic, at the cusp of the century, Belzarov had transformed into a society that was, inexplicably, close to its opposite in personality and spirit a century ago, its people happier than a lot of other nations in the world, its borders open to visitors of all sorts (even including the prince of the Xiath Confederacy in the late 1910's), and very quick to industrialise for what had previously been a mass of tribes turned ravening horde.
But alas, a few areas remained unhappy even with all the positive changes for their people over time, and in recent years the most restless county had very consistently been Bravsaara, whose representatives in the People's Council regularly complained that the Belzarovians had degraded and softened after "falling into the pits of democratic rule". They had been the prime beneficiaries of Belzarov's industrial revolution, bearing the majority of the Republic's crude, precious metals, and other mineable resources - and eventually, they chose to take those resources for themselves.
Pressed to action by ever-more-radical political parties, Bravsaara announced that it was done taking orders from its former masters, igniting a civil war in 1924 that has lasted into the present day. Their hoarded resources and allies within the Iron Pact have more than sufficed to hold off Belzarov's sheer numbers, and the sudden loss of most of their industrial resources has left Belzarov in quite a bind since the war's beginning. Though their trade with fellow democratic nations and groups such as the monarchist Commonwealth is stronger than ever, they are well aware that they cannot keep outsourcing their raw materials, and many worry that Bravsaara's guarantee from the newly-united Zengrav, not to mention the threat of the Reformed Nation itself, will ultimately lead to tragedy on an apocalyptic scale.
As it happened, the Beharov tribe was ultimately the victor in that regard. A combination of good farming land and being contained within natural river boundaries preventing too many invasions allowed it first to develop more and more people, and eventually to spill out from the riverlands in the 1800's to take over the surrounding lands, and more importantly to put their people to work as serfs, both nomadic soldiers and stationary farmers: first the Dolzans, then the Chunibos, then the Magraths and Voltaks, then more and more and more tribes, even pushing deep into the jungle and desert territories further South and taking over any tribes in those regions too.
By the 1830's, the Belzharov Empire had expanded to account for just about the entire subcontinent, even going so far as to break through a natural chokepoint to begin invading the Bravzhaar region to the East. Yet, for all their size, the Empire was suffering a great deal of instability, as its slave farmers began making waves against what they perceived to be an upper class far smaller than themselves with little to no accountability for how they roamed the land, whilst at the same time the warlords of the shattered Zengrav Empire to the North began to push up against Belzharov's borders, threatening to take over if the threat wasn't addressed immediately.
Seeing their potential destruction at hand, the roving tyrants in charge at the time put up solutions to both these issues: first, they set up outposts in the north, a wall of troops supplied with all the weaponry and food they could want, intended to fend off Zengrav before it could march in; second, they allowed the peasantry and slaves a few concessions, such as reducing the penalties for gazing at Belzharovian nobility for too long and replacing the death penalty for not paying one's due taxes with mere temporary indenturement.
Over time, Zengrav's threat fell to the wayside. Nonetheless, the outposts that had been set up to defend against it still grew, becoming towns, and then cities. So, too, did the more nomadic members of the empire settle down, so as to rule their people more efficiently, allowing new villages and towns to spring up in places where they never had before, whilst pre-existing peasantry settlements evolved and grew ever larger. Seeing no real threat from doing so, the rulers of the Empire continued to allow their people concessions, though they always ensured that they were the ones who controlled the supply lines within the nation, just in case.
Almost unintentionally, the culture began to shift. The people began to be seen as important assets by the government, and in turn gained the people's trust with more and more important matters, especially once the people themselves became the most important aspect of the government. By the time their nation's official title changed from Empire to Republic, at the cusp of the century, Belzarov had transformed into a society that was, inexplicably, close to its opposite in personality and spirit a century ago, its people happier than a lot of other nations in the world, its borders open to visitors of all sorts (even including the prince of the Xiath Confederacy in the late 1910's), and very quick to industrialise for what had previously been a mass of tribes turned ravening horde.
But alas, a few areas remained unhappy even with all the positive changes for their people over time, and in recent years the most restless county had very consistently been Bravsaara, whose representatives in the People's Council regularly complained that the Belzarovians had degraded and softened after "falling into the pits of democratic rule". They had been the prime beneficiaries of Belzarov's industrial revolution, bearing the majority of the Republic's crude, precious metals, and other mineable resources - and eventually, they chose to take those resources for themselves.
Pressed to action by ever-more-radical political parties, Bravsaara announced that it was done taking orders from its former masters, igniting a civil war in 1924 that has lasted into the present day. Their hoarded resources and allies within the Iron Pact have more than sufficed to hold off Belzarov's sheer numbers, and the sudden loss of most of their industrial resources has left Belzarov in quite a bind since the war's beginning. Though their trade with fellow democratic nations and groups such as the monarchist Commonwealth is stronger than ever, they are well aware that they cannot keep outsourcing their raw materials, and many worry that Bravsaara's guarantee from the newly-united Zengrav, not to mention the threat of the Reformed Nation itself, will ultimately lead to tragedy on an apocalyptic scale.
|Armed Forces|
Though it lacks many potent resources at present, Belzarov has one resource it can expend with impunity: people. The fact that it largely avoids doing this if it can help itself is testament to the republic’s good nature. The country’s standing army is generally around 1-2% of the population, or 2000000-4000000 (two to four million) bodies, but in a pinch, older laws exist that allow for conscription and accelerated training of able bodies from non-essential roles, even up to and including the People’s Council if it is feasible for replacements to be brought in. Such conscription, at full bore, can increase the army’s number to as high as 30000000 (thirty million) troops or more, essentially generating a human wave intended to overwhelm opponents with sheer force as a historically-successful plan of attack.
|Weaponry:|The standard Belzarovian soldier will normally carry with him the Belzarovian IR-19, a bolt action rifle containing ten shots, reloaded individually. Successful efforts have been made to replicate the Bravsaaran Radom-Gerin 19 with a wooden stock, largely due to how similar it is to the IR-19; consequently, the Belzarovian version of the Radom, named the Meliora, uses somewhat less advanced straight stripper clips to push ten rounds into the weapon before reclaiming the clips to be refilled. Other than this, the two versions of the Radom are very similar: a straight-pull bolt in order to allow for more rapid firing at close ranges than the IR-19, a marginally shorter barrel (the Meliora retains most of the IR-19's weight), as well as a more modern knife bayonet lug rather than the older spike, or ‘pigsticker’ lug.
Close-range weaponry in Belzarov is mildly limited compared to Bravsaaran equivalents, but they have nonetheless kept up decently. The Zaromezhen Karkarrot is a light sub machine gun that fires 300 rounds a minute with 30-round clips over distances of 350 to 500 meters or so, developed specifically to account for limited resources during the Bravsaara Secession; consequently, it has been overdesigned to the point of extreme simplicity and excessive reliability, and will continue to shoot reasonably accurately even if there is mud in the chamber or the weapon itself is on fire. The equivalent shotgun is the Zaromezhen Vantash, a 10-gauge slamfire weapon that can hold up to six shells at a time, including one in the chamber; the larger shot size is more damaging against infantry, and to some extent helps prevent material waste.
The previous standard for heavy machine guns was the Guddlehad multibarrel gatling gun- operated by two people and with a diesel engine attached to achieve a rate of fire of roughly 600 rounds per minute. Whilst this weapon is still very common in Belzarov due to their crippled industrial output, especially on the relatively few mechs they have developed, the later parts of the revolution saw the development of the Beskrynosnov 29 by Bravsaara, with a whopping 1500 rounds per minute and both light and heavy variants. The heavy variant is still crewed by one man, however unlike the Guddlehad, it can be carried rather than rolled. The light machine gun variant is prone to overheating, and breaks more often than the heavy variant, but provides surprisingly powerful anti-infantry capabilities to soldiers qualified to use it. The Beskrynosnov's design has been stolen from Bravsaara by Belzarov and renamed the Guddlehad V2, but is nonetheless uncommon within their ranks for aforementioned reasons.
The standard Belzarovian sidearm, be it for troops or officers, is the Republikrevolver, a single-action revolver that kicks like a mule, but can kill a man with one well placed shot. The Bravsaaran Revolver 26 is very rare to see in Belzarov, as it is considered unreliable and an unnecessary development, though a few officers do possess stolen Revolver 26s for some reason or another.
More specialised weaponry also exists within Belzarov's ranks. With the realisation of how inflammable certain fuels are, the Molott firehurler has been invented, spewing highly flammable petroleum out of a hose from a tank on the user's back with a range of about twenty meters. Whilst it manages to be lighter than the Bravsaaran flintstick, and can be fired for about ten seconds continuously, it also has far less range, and a bad habit of setting the fuel inside the hose, and shortly thereafter the tank itself, on fire if not handled properly; the only way for the user to fix this without blowing up is to immediately turn the pilot light off whilst continuing to spray the fuel in short bursts.
Whilst the Molott seems highly inefficient compared to its Bravsaaran cousin, the Belzarovian AT weaponry almost seems more effective: the Mekpiercer AT Rifle is, very loosely speaking, the equivalent of a rocket launcher compressed to about double the bore diameter of an IR-19, albeit with a rather thicker barrel. Whilst somewhat heavy, the weapon can nonetheless fire an explosive shell a great distance with just as much force behind it as its larger cousin, and manages to be reusable to boot. It also comes with flak versions of its rockets, essentially converting it into a MANPAD and allowing it to target light aircraft and zeppelins with fusillades of wide-spreading steel pellets.
Finally, are the man-portable mortars, grenades and satchel charges that troops may also carry. A typical Belzarovian satchel charge carries four explosives, two fewer than their Bravsaaran equivalents, with enough power to collapse a wall or destroy less heavily-armoured enemy installations as necessary. However, the charges are surprisingly easy to link together to produce a larger wave of explosions if needed, a feature many of Belzarov's soldiers have been grateful for when targeting Bravsaaran bunkers. Grenades in use include the standard Belzarovian stick-handled grenade, a more recent bundled grenade with greater explosive impact, an explodes-on-impact smoke grenade and incendiary grenade. Unlike Bravsaara, their mortar shells are almost exclusively high-explosive or Mekpiercer-style flak in nature, as they consider gas attacks to be both inhumane and inefficient, depending on the wind, though they are working on a mortar version of their incendiary grenade.
|Vehicles:| Whilst many of Belzarov's troops see the use in vehicles as all-terrain transport, most are not intended for direct combat even if they can be retrofitted with weaponry, being lightly armoured if at all. Additionally, tank, mech, and oceanic technology has been left somewhat to the wayside as a result of lacking resources, and as such the primary armoured vehicle in Belzarov is the GH20 assault platform, a heavy device not far off from being a steel box on treads. Though a somewhat inefficient design, it does come with two mounting/firing points for gatling cannons or machine guns, though the preferred armament is a large cannon turret, both to save materials and deal out a notable amount of damage to enemy armour.
Various other vehicles have been developed by Belzarovian scientists, but one of the most interesting is the Zeitgeist 1, a basic (if fairly large) hydrogen blimp platform with as many manned and armed Guddlehads mounted beneath it as it can reasonably carry. Whilst a somewhat bizarre development with only a few hundred kilometers of range, it has seen some success during the Bravsaara Secession due to the Bravsaara region's proximity to one of Belzarov's main cities, and the fact that it can pour out several metric tonnes of machine gun fire upon an enemy army in a relatively short span of time without being too readily threatened makes it very well-liked by Belzarovian troops, though rather disliked by their supply lines.
|Uniform:| The Belzarovian uniform is generally fairly colourful, though in recent years has toned itself down for the sake of practicality. It generally consists of dark blue leather trousers with suspenders, a deep yellow undershirt, and a dark blue uniform jacket, as well as knee-length leather boots designed to seal out water during the wetter parts of the year and in wetter parts of the nation. The look is finished off with a dark blue peaked cap complete with armour plating to help protect the skull from shrapnel and glancing bullet fire, and is universal amongst all ranks, give or take a certain degree of customisation; a given soldier’s rank symbol is pinned upon their jacket and cap.
|Organisation:| The Marshal of the Belzarov Republic is the overall leader of the armed forces, presently led by one Mikhael Zakharov after his father Votroy passed away some years back. Beneath the Marshal are the Generals of the Infantry, Armour (recently expanded from Cavalry to include armoured vehicles), Navy, and Airforce of the Belzarov Republic, the present-day positions respectively filled by Aleksi Suvorov, Nikol Talzhat, Vutsony Yipsilan, and Varsaara Prudih.
The Infantry Forces of the Belzarov Republic is typically composed of unusually large squadrons of twenty four soldiers, led by a twenty fifth man bearing a commissioned officer rank; this number can, through assignment of NCOs within the squadron to lesser soldiers, consequently be split equally into two, three, four, six, or even eight fireteams of three soldiers minimum at once, allowing even one squadron to present a much more widespread threat to a foe than expected. Whilst conscription laws are in effect, the size of a squadron can bloat to as large as a hundred men each, making them mildly unwieldy, but nonetheless incredibly dangerous forces, so long as the conscripts don't break and run. Four squadrons form a platoon, ten platoons form a battalion, five battalions form a regiment, five regiments form a brigade, and four brigades make up each division. Thus, each division contains anywhere from 100000-400000 (one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand) men, with divisions forming, collapsing and re-forming as soldiers present or absent themselves.
The Armoured Forces of the Belzarov Republic, formerly the Cavalry of the Belzharov Empire, has suffered quite a lot of changes to its structure due to the change in focus. Though it still makes heavy use of cavalry, with a fairly similar structure to the Infantry Forces, a significant portion of its members are now vehicle-bound in some way or another, and limitations to the size of a squadron are accounted for as such: under normal circumstances, the largest size any crew-squadron reaches is ten men including a commissioned officer, depending on the vehicle in question, and one fire team comprises five men should the need arise. That said, one vehicle platoon consists of anywhere from eight to twenty vehicles rather than just four, depending on conscription rates; five platoons form a battalion; and further scaling up is otherwise similar to the Infantry Forces, though there are ultimately far fewer Armour divisions than Infantry divisions.
The Naval Forces and Aerial Forces of the Belzarov Republic, both relatively newer to the armed forces (especially the latter) than the Infantry and Armour, are arranged quite differently to their cousins. The crew of a Navy ship or boat is, generally speaking, composed of anywhere from fifty to four hundred men led by a commissioned officer, whilst aerial "squadrons" comprise three to ten vehicles each, with as many crew as needed to operate each vehicle in the squadron. Though force scaling is otherwise similar to the Armoured Forces, neither the Navy nor the Airforce tend to utilise larger forces in any given engagement than a battalion, simply because any more than that results in a lot of confusion for everyone involved.
Technology
- Infantry - Adept 1 (Belzarovian troops have always been the mainstay of the armed forces, and ensuring they are properly equipped is frequently their number one priority, be it by improving their own technology, or stealing that of the rebels attempting to secede from them.)
- Armour - Basic
- Artillery - Basic
- Subs - Basic
- Ships - Basic
- Heavier-Than-Air - Basic
- Lighter-Than-Air - Basic
- Materials - Basic
- Electronics - Adept 1 (Belzarov is a very large nation, and for much of its history horses were the single quickest way for news and orders to be relayed; with man-portable radio technology, this is no longer the case, and even the earliest of computing tech has allowed Belzarov to increase their processing speed twice over to boot.)
- Supply - Adept 1 (Bravsaara's stolen industrial capacity has allowed them to develop much of their technology rapidly despite their comparatively fewer citizens, meaning that the only way for Belzarov to keep up in terms of weaponry is to ensure they can supply as many weapons as possible as quickly as possible. The capacity to refuel vehicles on the field is, of course, a bonus.)