RBC Ideas Metapost


This is all a giant WIP. All ideas are rough dot points at this stage, will hopefully have the motivation to flesh it all out at a later date. Agriculture shit will MAYBE be compiled into an infographic or similar at some point.

To-Do List Updated 23/03

  • Update Geo/Env
  • Flesh Lore out a little bit
  • Factor Ocean Access in to industry
  • Overhaul Architecture
  • Compile the industry ideas in Geo/Env into the Economy Section.
  • Intl. Relations

Overall Lore (History) !WIP! (and also subject to change I guess)

Actual semi fleshed out lore proposals can be read here

  • 2nd oldest civilization on the continent
  • Unitary Constitutional Monarchy, monarch seemingly immortal but incredibly lazy/incompetent and has no real governmental duties.
  • Capital has moved from it's current place, to somewhere in modern day /cig/ and back again as borders have shifted.
  • Used to be one of the largest civilizations by size.
    • All territorial losses happened very early in the nation's history
    • Lost what is now the wastelands because a fat-assed bandit warlord claimed Roboco was inept and decided to split.
    • Lost everything else via laziness and ineptitude (no real conflict or bad blood), eventually forced over the mountain line into their current location.

Geography and environment

General Characteristics

  • Cold, although with enough sea access year-round to facilitate oceanic trade with close neighbours
  • Can trade with everyone by sea in the summer months

Geo and Resource anon's writeup
Climate-wise, I think what's in the metapost currently is fairly accurate. With most of /rbc/being north of 60th parallel north, it's safe to say that its climate will be subarctic (Dfc~Dfd). Going south does not help that due to it going inland and uphill towards the /rrat/ plateau, which means the highland might have both higher daily temperature variation and a lower minimum temperature, putting it in the Dfd category. The small valley near the southern slopes might be home to one of the contenders for the dubious honour of having the biggest temperature difference within a single day (the RL record is 105.8 °C). The northern coast will be tundra (ET), although its extent inland is determined by how the north pole ends up looking.
In terms of flora, the south might be surprisingly green - it should be capable of supporting boreal forest, with coniferous trees like larch, spruce and pine. Assuming a lack of large-scale deforestation, the taiga will spread slightly into the tundra, but the trees will become more patchy, with the space in between filled by lichen, moss, and cold-resistant grass.
For fauna, reindeer/caribou will be common in the boreal forest, alongside their predators like foxes and bears. Tundra is somewhat similar, although the animal density is lower due to the sparser vegetation. Polar bears will likely have to rely at least partially on fish. For IRL reference on how to survive in this environment, the Nenets and (even further north) Inuits managed to make it work.

In terms of soil quality, it is pretty much universally poor, with the riverside alluvium being (somewhat) better. For the boreal region, the main type of soil will be podzol, which is poor but some can be improved with fertiliser. That said, most of /rbc/ will likely be above some kind of permafrost due to the low temperature, which prevents water drainage. As a result, many areas of /rbc/ would likely become peatland, making them virtually impassable during the short summer season. However, with proper drainage, the peat can be used as fuel for heating, and some might be useful as fertiliser (although peat is not nutritious by itself). Just be careful not to set it on fire in the wild...
For the tundra region, the soil will mostly be gelisol/cryosol, which is pretty similar to podzol in its lack of agricultural value. Overall, agriculture will be very limited, likely in the mid-south area where the climate is warmer, but before it is offset by elevation. Personally, I'm not too sure if the area near /nasa/ would be more hospitable.


Climate, flora/fauna, etc.

Literally Northern Europe, or Iceland if it was bigger and had less sexy people.
Really low quality map (WIP)

  • Most of the country is cold plains-y tundra-ish land.
    • Can grow berries/parsnips/onions/feed crops (clover etc), can graze livestock also.
  • Ocean access to the north (Hydrology is taken from the Norwegian Sea in my head for convenience's sake)
    • Water desalination (later)
    • Fishing industry
    • Salt Mining (later)
  • Mountains to south east, Mining industry?
    • Metals (Iron/Alu/Nickel etc)
    • Salt? (The climate doc says Himalayas so I'm abusing it for pickling purposes LOL)
  • Tiny strip of warmer land on /nasa/ border
    • Root veggies, wheat/oats/barley can be grown. Probably the heart of the ag industry.

Govt. and politics

  • Unitary Constitutional Monarchy, I think.

Intl. Relations

General international stance is one of neutrality, will trade with basically anyone. Generally won't get involved in war as we are a small nation and also don't feel like it.

Military

  • Self-Defence force a la Japan.

Demographics

Official Language: Ainu (I think it's cool ok)
Recognized Languages: Japanese, English
Population: On the smaller end for a nation of it's size, will add hard numbers later.

Economy

Industries (map coming soon?)

The primary export industries are mining and manufacturing (especially micro circuitry), we are also a net exporter of tourism. Our food production industries are large enough to provide food security to the nation but there isn't a huge amount of headroom so exports will be quite limited.

Mining: Not sure what metals our mountains contain but we sure do mine them, salt too.
Manufacturing: Very high quality electrical components/microcircuits, whitegoods etc when the world progresses enough.
Fishing and Agriculture:

Intl. Trade

Current trading prospects are /nasa/ and /inf/ but nothing has been set in stone.

Culture

Architecture

  • Large Buildings must be elevated due to the permafrost
  • Small wooden single-occupancy dwellings can get away with being on the ground but it's probably ill advised to attach your house to what is essentially a giant heatsink.

Food?


Notes

  • Ainu was chosen primarily because I think it's cool, but also because it's rare enough to be interesting while also well documented enough for people to actually get their head around should they so desire.
  • Japanese is a minority language because I say it is. English was probably acquired through interactions with the space Aussies.
  • Foreign languages are absorbed faster than average in /rbc/ because they can be machine-learnt so to speak.

Changelog
23 Mar - Updated Geography and environment. Cleaned up WIP note. Added To-Do List. Added a little to the Lore rentry. Added a little to Demographics. Added notes.

25 Mar - Re-added writeup because I forgot to save (pon). Started migrating stuff to the Economy section, started on the Govt section.

Edit
Pub: 16 Mar 2022 10:15 UTC
Edit: 25 Mar 2022 09:45 UTC
Views: 856