Sacred Azunal Kingdom

The Sacred Azunal Kingdom, often abbreviated to the SAK, is an elective theocratic monarchy that spans the vast majority of the main continent of Azunal. It is the oldest major power of the tripolar political system that inhabits the planet. The current monarch is the 2490 born Valeska Kalem, whose regressive technological policies and continuation of the policy of tribal assimilation are credited as the major reasons for the revolution by the Free Tajara Republic. The kingdom at the lower levels is entirely feudal, with noble families and influential clergy acting as district governors, and the average Tajaran is most likely to be a peasant serf or city labourer.

Server Relevant Information

This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a Tajaran from the Sacred Kingdom who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.

• Nobility, if seen on the server, would be petty rather than influential. The culture of excellence that surrounds the Tajara nobility creates a large demand for nobles to inhabit high ranking or influential roles if they do choose to leave Azunal space, lest they be subject to estrangement or disinheritance. Suggested jobs are paper-work heavy command roles, leadership roles such as captaincy or Head of Security, or “dignified” roles in scientific fields.
• Peasants that leave the planet are often sending money home, living in poverty relative to their coworkers in order to send enough money home that their family or tribe may be able to cover their tithe.
• Ornadi would only be spoken by nobility or clergy, with the exception of the servants of nobility which may speak enough to do their jobs. This is largely because of the seemingly sacred status of Ornadi as a language.
• Sacred Kingdom Tajara are typically very unfamiliar with common human gestures, taking an offered handshake as rude, albeit without reacting violently, and seeing refusing cigarettes as rude, if they even offer a non-Tajaran a cigarette.
• Both nobility and peasant alike are very prone to falling for common stereotypes about non-Tajarans, having become accustomed to the stock personalities of aliens in Tajara television. The major stereotypes are as follows:
  • humans are greedy and manipulative, always willing to stab another in the back for power;
  • unathi are primitive religious zealots who worship any suitably impressive superior as a god;
  • dionae are just plants, barely sentient and able to mimic speech to feed off of other species;
  • skrell are smug and technologically advanced, but often blind to the “truth” due to their over-reliance on science;
  • IPCs are the slaves of humanity, coming for the average Tajaran’s job and maybe even their life;
  • and Vaurca are creepy, mindless drones that have very little between the ears.

Economy

The economy of the Sacred Kingdom is a floundering, backwards, feudal economy that largely depends on noble-to-noble rule in how a region performs. Almost the entire economy is dedicated to agriculture or the extraction of raw resources, usually in ways that are considered wildly inefficient by contemporary standards. This is punctuated by the industrialisation of cities with up to date factory equipment on loan or payment plan from human and skrellian space, creating a jarring contrast between the newly-motorised farming and cobbled streets of the countryside and the black tarmac, shuttle ports and sleek steel buildings of the city centres, which in turn give way to brick and slate buildings on the outskirts.

The average kingdom Tajaran is versed in either farming, mining or mechanical work, as these are the large industries of the kingdom in which a commoner with little-to-no education is able to follow in. While medicine is seen as a profession for all, it is largely kept to the clergy due to their ability to read and write, with travelling “experimental” doctors being a cottage industry that helps to fill the gap in remote communities. However, pharmaceutical research is an incredibly new field on Azunal that has not reached the SAK.

The working conditions of the average kingdom Tajaran worker largely depends on their liege lord, who often bases their industrial needs of their lands on how much money or influence they can extract. Workers who have worked under indebted nobles often find their hours longer and their quotas harder to reach.

The Nobility

The nobility of the SAK are both what keep it together and often the major challenge that a new ruler must face when coming to the throne. Noble hierarchies are chaotically designed, often being vassals or having many of their own, and it can vary from noble family to noble family how many other families and territories are above or below them in the chain. There are no explicit titles given, however some families are more able to influence their liege than others by the nature of their existence.

Generally speaking, the nobility has been resistant to change, in some instances quite literally tearing up tarmac roads and attacking surveyors attempting to change the lands they own. While this is not universal, the vast majority of the original noble families that were a part of the group that formed the FTR took their technologically and socially progressive ideas with them when they revolted, leaving the remaining nobility begrudgingly modernising in order to keep up or pay their debts.

The clergy, after a certain stage, also become nobility, inheriting the lands that their predecessors owned alongside the responsibilities and debts. This status as nobility places them directly under the king, and is typically used as a reward for backing the current monarchy and giving them the mandate of the Two Suns.

The Commoners

Commoner is a general term for labourers and peasants, both of whom are what modern human society would consider working class. These groups have a variety of backgrounds as they make up the majority of the population, filling all manner of trades and vocations, but less-so white collar work outside of small office roles such as clerks.

Peasants are rural workers, typically farmers and their related fields. Some are miners, but not nearly as many, as the traditional farming methods employed by Tajara typically are only for feeding communities, not exporting food.

Labourers are city workers, often found in factories and mills. They have much more familiarity with modern technologies than their peasant kin, but only in the context of work, and many return home from electrically powered factories, that deal in industrial quantities never before seen on the planet of Azunal, to wood-fire heated homes of stone brick and tile roof and spring bed with a sheet for a blanket.

Commoners as a rule are generally hard working but poorly educated, being seen as stupid by the average Spur resident, and often seek entertainment in television, holo-shows and cinema over books, music or hobbies. They often care little for modern luxuries, not out of philosophy or belief, but simply because there is often too much reading involved for them to bother with modern consumerism, instead sending the savings home to tribe or family.

Detribalisation

While tribes are incredibly important to the average Tajaran in newly conquered lands of the SAK, they are much less so in the core lands. This gradual erosion of tribal values has created the attitude in the nobility that tribes are nothing but trouble, and should be eradicated. This is achieved, by and large, through the undermining of tribal characteristics, especially through outlawing more explicit traditions or assimilating them as “Azunali” traditions rather than their explicit tribal ones. Another major tool is the linguistic assimilation of tribal languages, forcing younger Tajara to learn Yapudi and Oponi rather than spend time immersed in their own languages, going to the lengths of declaring tribal languages as dialects of Yapudi so that they can disregard them in courts and legal proceedings. As television has become a major part of Tajara culture, the forcing out of tribal languages has become much easier, with children often speaking Yapudi over the language of their parents. In the most extreme cases, stubborn or rebellious elders may be imprisoned or deposed by overarching authorities in order to trim their power and stop them from keeping the spirit of the tribe alive, however this is rare and often unfavourable compared to the option of simply inserting a play into the local theatre that mocks or satirises the trouble-maker, undermining them.

This policy sees very little interstellar condemnation, as it is often too subtle for many powers to really care about. The creation of a monoculture is often seen as a result of being brought so rapidly into the modern age while censorship exists, rather than what it is, a concerted effort to quell dissent through a lack of independent cultural identity. The unfortunate truth is that this type of action simply doesn’t make for good news engagement, and having the press on one’s side is the most important part of resisting an effort such as this.