Ganimedi

Ganimedi Democracy of Ganimedi Democratica Ganimedi
Flag
Motto: Nihil Sub Sole Novum (Nothing New Under the Sun)
Anthem: Velluto Blu (Blue Velvet)
Capital and largest city	Cantobello (de facto)
Official languages	English, Italian
Ethnic groups	89% Ganimedic 6% Italian 5% British
Demonym	Ganimedic (adj) Ganimedici (n)
Government	Direct democracy
Legislature	Council
Establishment
• Independence	October 1st, 1745
Population
• 2013 estimate	45,800
• 2012 census	45,756
GDP (PPP)	2013 estimate
• Total	ƒ7.21 billion
• Per capita	ƒ157,423
GDP (nominal)	2013 estimate
• Total	ƒ6.98 billion
• Per capita	ƒ152,401
Gini (2012)	0.28 low
HDI	0.923 very high
Currency	Ganimedic florin (ƒ) (GAF)
Time zone	WET (UTC+0)
Drives on the	right
Calling code	+982
Internet TLD	.gc

Ganimedi (officially the Democracy of Ganimedi; Italian: Democratica Ganimedi, Ganimedi) is a sovereign state located in the Northern Atlantic Ocean, in between Europe and Africa, though it is considered apart of the European continent. Ganimedi is an island nation situated on the Ganimedic oceanic formation, composed of 23 islands with maritime boundaries extending across the entirety of the Ganimedic plateau. The nation has no maritime or land borders with any other nation, and it is bordered by the Northern Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Sea of Ganymede to the east.

The Democracy of Ganimedi is a direct democracy based on a system of localized syndication with limited central power. The 23 islands that compose the nation serve as small, syndicated localities which are responsible for the local administering of justice based upon a set of basic rights. Government services are paid by a tax on localities which allow for their participation within the democracy and insurance of their pseudo-sovereignty. Any locality which is unable to maintain their tax or defaults in the administration of nationally proclaimed justice is then seized by a neighboring or group of neighboring localities to insure that the rule of justice and equality are sustained. Annually, throughout the month of July, each locality will send a delegate to the largest city to represent their locality in the Council of Ganimedi. The Council then makes changes to the codified law as it sees fit. Special sessions can also take place should an event of great importance as defined within the law occurs. As of 1956, all localities have consisted of the 23 islands independently. The current law code has existed since its implementation in 1803, and the most recent amendment was made in 1908.

The nation's economy has been classified as a post-industrial artisan free market with little to no governmental regulation in certain areas. Ganimedi has historically, since the world advent of globalization, been known as relatively secluded and unconnected. The population imports a very small amount of foreign goods, preferring instead to provide for themselves through domestic and regional trade. As a result, the nation is extremely "backwards" from a contemporary technological standpoint. Only three out of the twenty-three islands have public electricity usage, with the majority of residents preferring to remain rather unconnected to a power network. Radio is also the most relied upon form of communications between islands, another particularly "backwards" feature of the nation's economy. Unlike many Western economies today, Ganimedi has an entirely self reliant economy, based largely on traditional economic practices. Farming and fishing are the largest industries in the nation, while other important trades include motorcycle manufacturing, ship and boat manufacturing, fashion, quarrying, mining, and biodiesel refinement. The nation has a high international trade export-to-import ratio due to its lack of interest in importation of goods.

Ganimedi has only small involvement in international politics, and prefers to remain relatively isolated from global affairs. Its largest international partners include Portugal and Italy, those being the only countries retaining a Ganimedic embassy within their capitals. The country is a participating member of the United Nations, though it largely remains abstained in the voting process and typically does not view the organization with any form of political power within Ganimedic territory.

Etymology

The English word Ganimedi is directly imported from the Italian word for the islands. The Venetians named the archipelago after the Greek mythological figure Ganymede, which is known as Ganimede in Italian. The resultant Sea of Ganymede and Ganimedic oceanic formation are thus named after the archipelago. The Venetians named the island after the figure because of the beauty of the waters and the rock which compose the archipelago, and an unnamed Venetian explorer is believed to have come up with the idea for the basing of the island's name after the name of Ganymede, considered the most beautiful man of his supposed time. The national adjective is Ganimedic, while an inhabitant of the country is known as a Ganimedici.

History

Pre-colonization period

The Phoenicians were the first to explore the islands known today as the Ganimedi archipelago. The islands were not colonized by the Phoenicians, though several attempts to establish a small fort usually ended because of the great distance of the archipelago from any major settlements. Throughout the classical period, Ganimedi was largely forgotten about, until the voyages of explorers under the Umayyad Caliphate into the Atlantic charted the islands as insignificant. Some small expeditions passed through Ganimedi, though most exploratory groups remained uninterested in the settlement of the islands due to their barren appearance at first sight. It wasn't until 1304 that the Portuguese established a small military outpost on the island which would be known as Cantobello. Portugal maintained a sizable military presence in the islands until around 1378, when they abandoned the military encampment after a harsh storm ravaged supply sttores and resulted in the cut off of Portuguese control over the entirety of the archipelago.

Venetian period

The Venetian explorer Paulo Antioni first visited the islands in 1516, looking to establish a Venetian trading post in the Atlantic for the trade of Venetian goods with New World imports firsthand rather than through a colonial middleman. Antioni built a port on the island of Rosa, establishing a small trading outpost dedicated to the Venetian Republic. Officials from the Republic came in 1518 to legally claim the islands, a claim which was disputed with the Portuguese. After the discovery of the true fertility of the soil in 1517 by Antioni, the Venetian officials remained dedicated to keep control of the islands. An agreement was reached in the November of 1518, where the Venetian Republic stated it would not attempt to expand into the New World, reserving that right to Portugal. By 1523, the Venentians had established docks on the islands of Cantobello, Mazerana, and Lolita. A stable population of 670 was achieved in 1525 on the island of Cantobello, marked by the construction of Venetian government offices on the island.

In 1532, a large deposit of gold was discovered on Pacello, and subsequently many merchants and settlers began a large migration. Some 400 people are known to have traveled from Venice to Mazerana, which then resulted in a massive growth of the colony in Ganimedi. By 1550, approximately 2,000 people lived on the archipelago, a rate which would remain constant until around 1590. The Spanish and Venetians became large trading partners due to the passing of Spanish ships through the Sea of Ganymede to reach the Americas. A small Spanish speaking minority developed in the area around the port of Cantobello, which caused some tensions among Venetians who believed the islands should remain entirely Venentian. The importance of Venice in trade with the East slowly declined as they were replaced by Portugal in that aspect. As a result, the Venetians began to prohibit the passage of Portuguese ships through the Sea of Ganymede, and also remained hostile to ships attempting to cut through the Atlantic side of the islands. These hostilities resulted in the War of the Sea of Ganymede, which resulted in the loss of Venetian maritime control of a strong trade route to the Ganimedi archipelago.

By 1620, the islands had become largely independent of Venetian control as the Republic continued to decline in power. In 1629, the Portuguese attempted to take control of the islands in the Portuguese Invasion of Ganimedi. The Portuguese constantly sent naval detachments to blockade the ports and attempt to take control of certain ports across the islands. It wasn't until the Fire of Mazerana in the June of 1630 did the Portuguese end their attempts, as the fire did much more damage to the city then they had planned, and it would be too expensive to repair the damage the city had experienced back to its original value. The destruction of Mazerana actually benefited the settlements in the south, with the city of Cantobello experiencing massive growth after the largest city had been burnt. By 1660, most of the economic activity that occurred in the islands was centered around Cantobello, whose population rose to nearly 7,600 people by the end of 1670. The complete end of any Venetian claim occurred in the August of 1689, when the Venetian government building in Cantobello was replaced by a tavern. The islands were sold to the Kingdom of England in 1693 by Venice, who wished only that the Portuguese or the Spanish would never take control of their resources.

British period

An English force was sent to the city of Cantobello in 1695 to mark the beginning of English rule over the islands. The construction of a magistrates office in the city in 1697 also sparked renewed foreign economic interest in the islands as their political owner was in a much stronger state than that of Venice. The English had little interest in the renewed settlement of the islands, and a strong amount of Italians continued to flow into the city even though the English had taken full control. In 1701, with the outbreak of the War of Spanish Succession, the islands became very useful to the English as a territorial location from which they could easily deploy troops into the Iberian peninsula. As a result, the island of Puccola became heavily militarized, with the completion of fortifications and a naval dock by 1703. The increase in English military control over the islands startled the highly pacifistic Italians who had lived in Ganimedi since its rule by Venice. Tensions grew especially in the city of Cantobello, where several merchants began to refuse to buy goods imported from the British Isles. The transition of the Kingdom of England into the Kingdom of Great Britain only further worried Italians on the island, who believed the British would attempt to completely integrate Ganimedi into their Imperial system.

The success of Great Britain in the War of Spanish Succession only added to tensions between the Italians and the British on the islands, the latter of which believed that the British could easily turn the islands into a total colony by force. In 1723, a British vessel was destroyed in the port of Cantobello, in an attempt to stop the British from further exporting a large amount of goods back to Great Britain. The response by the Parliament was to send more troops to secure order within Ganimedi, and the British force landed in the city in the February of 1724. The soldiers cleared a large amount of civil instability which existed in the islands, however a great amount of philosophical support for independence began to formulate among the islanders. By 1741, the tensions between the British and the Italians began to boil into full out conflicts between the two in several cities. The Venere Tavern incident in the May of 1741 marked the beginning of full scale fighting between British soldiers and Italian partisans. The Ganimedic War of Independence lasted until 1745, and, at a cost of near devastation to the islands, resulted in the Peace of Lolita, securing Ganimedic independence from the British crown.

First independent period

The newly established Ganimedic Republic retained influences from both its Venetian and British rule. The mixture of these influences and peoples resulted in what is known as the Ganimedic peoples, who are considered to be Italio-British hybrids. In the year 1745, the majority of the population spoke English, though many cultural practices linked back to the new nation's Venetian origins. Strong feelings of independence and anti-Imperialism existed within the population, and the establishment of the republic served to implicate a new era of self reliance and isolation. The republican government created several programs to rebuild cities devastated by the revolution, and many of these programs were financed by the export of luxury Ganimedic goods. By 1762, Ganimedi had become a sort of hermit state to many European courts, which held the view that the nation's government was extremely unfriendly to political association, though it greatly enthused the practice of foreign trade. The highly protectionist policies of the republican government paired with the export quotas made on luxury goods resulted in a system of governance which was very involved in its economy. The isolationist policies also reflected in the political thinking of generations born after the revolution, and a growing trend within those people was that a government should leave governance to smaller units of land.

This new movement was mostly taken from the Ancient Greeks who found isolation and regionalism to benefit them greatly throughout most of their Pre-Alexandrian history. By 1798, significant efforts were made to completely restructure the political system, and a new constitution was first drafted in the December of 1802. On February 5th, 1803, after three months of debate, the new constitution was introduced to the islands. The ideas of foreign protection, isolation, regionalism, and syndication were all heavily implemented into the new government, which was based off a system of liberal direct democracy. The small government which provided only the "bare necessities" to the people and implied that justice was to be found within society was a major success with the populace, and a period of cultural advancement begin to take form in Ganimedi. From the city of Cantobello, revived constructions of ornate Italian architecture, known as Ganimedic Ornate, new forms of literature and music, and a great number of paintings in revived Renaissance and sculptures in Neoclassical styles emerged within the nation. The period of cultural progress lasted until 1846, with new movements from abroad to reopen the Ganimedic market.