Aalen

[frattastan]

Aalen



"Pli grandaj kaĝoj, pli longaj ĉenoj"* The government of Aalen opposes the partition of this factbook in various sections.
These forms of bourgeois specialisation of knowledge and social life have been abolished, and are kept here for the sole benefit of the foreign reader.

Official name	Aalen
Map
Demonym	Aalian
Capital city	Irmak
Official language	Esperanto
Ethnic groups	White European, with significant Turkic and Middle Eastern minorities
Recognised religions	none
Government	Council republic
Head of state/government	Council of People's Deputies
Independence	25 November 1979
Area
Population	9 million
GDP	115 billion USD (estimate)
Currency	none - foreign currencies are used as hard currency for trade purposes

Name

The name 'Aalen' is an exonym from the [language]. It refers to the abundance of eels near the mouth of the [name] river.

History

[Pre-colonial history]

In the 19th century, it was settled by [empire] as a trade outpost and naval base, to secure the sea route to the [western sea].
The attempts to assimilate the local population, by ending their nomadic lifestyle and imposing the colonisers' language and customs, led to a long but discontinuous campaign of resistance led by [resistance leaders], which was defeated only in 1870.

The discovery of important minerary resources at the beginning of the 20th century led to the growth of an industrial sector around the capital Irmak, and to increased urbanisation and immigration.

[more stuff goes here]

Geography

Aalen occupies the southern tip of the [peninsula], in the continent of Edea, the adjacent islands of [name] and [name] and a number of uninhabited islets and rocks. The northern border is formed by a mountain massif, with hills and valleys near the sea.
The [river] crosses the peninsular portion of the country from north to south.

Demographics

Culture and Society

In Aalen the idea of family is intertwined with the larger concept of community. Activities that in individualistic societies would be performed within a single family nucleus, such as living in the same space or close to each other, managing expenses, preparing and consuming food, cleaning, and raising infants are all managed at a higher level, in urban neighbourhoods or rural settlements formed by hundreds of people.

Aalians experience many forms of close personal relationships, and no kind of marriage is legally recognised. However, certificates recognising marriage-like status may be granted to emigrants, to ensure that they enjoy the legal protections accorded to married couples in pre-revolutionary countries.
Children are raised communally, and as a consequence blood ties are slowly becoming less relevant, but the persistence of old customs and the proximity between blood relatives that they remain important to this day.

Slavery and servitude are abolished in all their forms: no person can be the master of another.

Religious worship is largely confined to the private sphere. Many Aalians are devout in their everyday life, but their worship is often syncretic and struggles to be identified as a single, organised system of belief.

As luxury goods are no longer produced Aalians wear simple, uniform clothes, with few to no jewelry, save for celebratory occasions.

An important generational divide exists between the "revolutionary generation", who took part in the long struggle that led to the uprising of 1979, and the "new people", that was either born afterwards or too young to remember it.

Politics

Economy

Due to the lack of currency Aalen's accounting authorities do not measure the Gross Domestic Product, or other data which employ capitalistic exchange-value. However, rough estimates are provided.
Some measurements may show marked differences with other countries in so far as some socially-useful activities (unpaid housework like cleaning and cooking food, child-raising) that aren't taken into account elsewhere are considered 'labour' in Aalen.

GDP: ~ $115,000,000,000 (115 billion)
GDP per capita: ~ $12,778
GDP by sector: unknown
Labour force: 7,200,000
Labour force by sector: unknown
Unemployment rate: 0%
Inflation: n/a (due to the absence of a universal exchange equivalent)

Hours worked in a year:
Labour productivity (GDP/hours worked):

Aalen has a socialist economy.
All means of production, distribution and exchange are held in common.
Goods and services are distributed according to the communist principle ("from each according to its ability, to each according to its need").
Factors of production are allocated by the Office for the Division of Labour (ODL) on the basis of the demands of the base communal assemblies, and of data collected in real time from the workplaces.

There is no property: rather, usufruct applies.
There is no currency, as exchanges are no longer mediated by money (but occur on the basis of reciprocal obligation), and economic planning is done using calculation in kind.

People who are able to work apply for jobs at the ODL. However they may be assigned to other occupations in times of necessity.

Specialised or dangerous jobs have shorter working hours.
The working population is 80% of the total.

Due to the impossibility of complete self-sufficiency, Aalen trades with other economies in the region, exporting manufactured goods and metals, and importing goods which cannot be produced efficiently internally.
Stable foreign currencies are used as a hard currency for foreign trade purposes.

Military

The Armed Forces are organised on the basis of the national service for all citizens, beginning on the year they reach the age of nineteen and ending on the year they reach the age of forty-five.
Training is staggered over time, and proportional to a soldier's duties. On average, enlistees perform 150 days of service on the first year and then a total of 200 days over the following fifteen years, after which they are moved to second-line units.
People who are elected to command responsibilities, or assigned to technical or special units, perform additional training.

There are two branches - the Army and the Fleet - which exist as skeleton units, that can be mobilised to full strength by the National Assembly in time of war or natural disaster.

* This is the motto we would write on our coins and banknotes, if we had them.

[frattastan]

Society & Culture Religion

Followers of traditional religions remain, but their numbers and the extent to which they conform to a specific doctrine are unknown.
The pervasiveness of revolutionary theory and its influence on the ethics, rituals, and eschatology of the people of Aalen has led some authors to characterise it as "a secular religion". However, it distinctly lacks a belief in the supernatural.
Many rites and formal gestures of traditional cults have been secularised and are still practiced by Aalians in their everyday life.

Ethics

Crime and punishment

Philosophy

The prevailing worldview among the Aalian population and leadership is markedly 'modernist'. After the Revolution all concepts created by previously-existing men and women, that were superstitiously treated as natural presuppositions, came to be seen as things that could be consciously changed according to the needs of society. This led to the dismissal of many of the previous traditions and the destruction of many artifacts of the past, and the emergence of a self-conscious attitude towards various aspects of social life, including intimate relationships, education, language and art.

The historicist view of communism as the last phase of history provides a secular eschatology. In this view, after the abolition of class society history is no longer seen as a history of class struggle, but as the collective path of mankind to achieve total mastery over the natural world.
In light of this, science is highly valued as a form of critical thought and as an affirmation of the power of human beings to understand and reshape their environment, and the pursuit of ambitious and far-fetched goals such as the defeat of illness and death, the exploration and settlement of the cosmos, and the halting and reversal of entropic processes is a major driver behind scientific and technical efforts.

Science

Science and technology are strongly valued in Aalian society. Science has a central role in education, its achievements are widely praised, and science-oriented pastimes are popular. Notwithstanding the lack of means compared to larger, wealthier and better-connected capitalist societies, important resources are devoted to research and development in fields such as medicine, engineering, and environmental science.

However, scientific work is considered highly impersonal. No single researcher is held as a genius or a pioneer. Rather, the dominant idea is that everyone has at their disposal the experience amassed by the previous generations and by contemporary researchers, and in turn can contribute to the general intellect on the basis of that.

Time, space, and language

The Aalians' view of time, space and language is rooted in the philosophical belief that nothing should be held sacred. Thus, with the Revolution a new system of measurement was introduced, and the planned language that had already been used by activists to organise people who spoke different native languages or educate those who were excluded from schools became the main language of the nation.

While other languages survive within some communities, Esperanto has a quasi-official status in so far as it is used by a majority of the population, as well as for intercommunal communication, and for all public uses.

The revolutionary calendar divides the solar year, which begins on the day of the autumn equinox (September 22 or 23 according to the Gregorian calendar), in ten months of thirty days each. A month is divided in three "decades"

Decimal time (called "metric time") is adopted. A day is divided in ten parts ("metric hours" or hours), each in turn divided in one hundred parts ("primes" or minutes), each itself divided in one hundred parts ("seconds").

The adoption of metric time has caused problems for merchants and international travellers, but it persists due to uncompromising revolutionary stubborness.

Aesthetics

Sports

All sport is practiced on an 'amateur' basis, and it's frequent for communes or workplaces to have sports societies and teams.

The most popular sport is three-sided football, a variant of association football played by three teams on an hexagonal pitch where the goal is to concede as few points as possible.

Athletics, swimming, basketball, boxing and martial arts are also popular.

[frattastan]

Military

"Our attitude towards war is based on two principles. First, we are against it. Second, we are not afraid of it."

The military is organised as a militia, on the principle of the nation-in-arms.
National defence service is compulsory for all able-bodied citizens from the age of 19 to 45, regardless of sex, and there are no professional soldiers.
Training is staggered over time and proportional to a soldier's duties. On average enlistees perform 150 days of dedicated service during the first year and then an additional total of 200 days over the following fifteen years, after which they are assigned to second-line duties, although skills that might be useful in the military are frequently learned in other contexts and times as well. People who are elected to command responsibilities, or assigned to technical or special units, perform additional training.

As a rule, service is performed in the same district that the recruit is associated with. Each community keeps its soldiers' uniforms and personal equipment, including small arms and even for those members who aren't in active service. There are no barracks, while armouries are spread across the country.

The Armed Forces have two branches, the Army and the Fleet, which exist as skeleton units that can be mobilised at any time by the National Assembly in time of war or natural disasters.
There are no official ranks, although each unit elects its own commander.

The Fleet is tasked with the protection of Aalen's territorial waters. It is a brown-water navy: to patrol coasts and rivers it relies on fast and light craft, such as missile boats and torpedo boats, while its main interdiction force is made up by diesel-electric submarines.
These stealthy vessels, which are relatively inexpensive and can pose a threat to much more powerful units (including aircraft carriers), are important force multipliers for a small nation like Aalen and do the most to take advantage of the country's geographical position and control of maritime chokepoints. If required, they can also perform duties such as minelaying, or infiltration and extraction of intelligence agents and special forces.





[To be finished]