The Paddler's Guide

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Introduction

Delte is a narrow populated strip of fertile river valley approximately fifteen kilometres wide and ninety long, along the length of the course of the River Delte, located in a wild, largely empty and unnamed region and isolated from the nearest geopolitical entities and populous distant communities at the far corners of the cartographer’s charts, save for transportation routes - rail and road - which pass through the valley on the way from one significant populated centre to another, hardly without stopping. The valley sits in a largely north-west to south-east orientation from the river source in the marches to its issue in Smite Bay at Deltemouth, and the river itself is approximately 170 kilometres in length, of which around 60% is navigable by commercial craft with a series of controlled locks.

The community of the River Delte consider themselves in modern times to be a self-governing autonomous zone, historically claimed by various imperial states in a long line of exterior sovereign rulers. Those claims are no longer considered legitimate in international politics and has hardly been pressed by any states themselves. The Honourable North Pacific Company had been responsible for administration of the valley from 1743 through to 1951, ending with the bankruptcy of its instrument of governance, the Six Towns Association. The Company continued to trade in the valley until its controversial demise in 1990, but autonomy for Delts was unofficially but in all practical senses legitimately established with the formation of the Delte River Trust in 1951. A bicameral governing body consisting of the appointed DRT officials and the elected representatives of the Stoic Council now operates in the valley as a sovereign territory.

The main administrative and cultural centre of the Delte Valley is Oswark, or Oswark-upon-Delte to give it the correct and formal title. The population of the market and tourist town is approximately 12,000 and makes up around 25% of the total population of the river community, which is around 48,000 at the last census. The community is administered by the Delte River Trust, DRT, with the elected board representing a cabinet and the Managing Director the de facto ‘head of community’. Tessa Sack is the present MD for the Trust; she commutes to the DRT office at Oswark Lock from her home in a typical rural farmstead off the beaten track in the wilds of the valley.

During its industrial prime, Oswark was a major hub for waterway transport and for various key industries including wool production, fabric dye manufacture, brewing, chandlery and agricultural inputs, with an agragrian base outside of the town. At that time it was one of the largest inland ports in the region connecting two canals with navigable river. In modern times with the decline of water-based transportation much of the industry went into steep depression to be replaced by a service-based economy in the town, although in recent times some manufacturing has returned in cottage-industries to serve the local population. The wider river basin community still operates a largely agrarian sector.

Etymology

Theories pertaining to derivation from the ancient ‘delta’ with the river issuing into the flat marshy Deltemouth Wash at Smite Bay are widely regarded to be convenient but off the mark, overly simplified. ‘Delte’ is probably a derivative of ‘deal’ - first recorded before 900; Middle Anglican verb delen, dalen, dealen “to separate, divide, share, have dealings,” Old Angle dǣlan (cognate with Saxe teilen “to divide, share”), derivative of dǣl “part, portion” (cognate with Saxe Teil ); Middle Angle noun del, dæl, deal, Old Angle dǣl; in part derivative of the verb.

Deal is also the Old Anglic dael meaning 'valley', cognate with the modern Anglican 'dale’, an open valley, usually in an area of low hills, Old Angle dæl; related to Old Wittish del, Old Boreal dalr, Old High Saxe tal valley.

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History

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See also: A General History of The Delte Valley

Early History

The river valleys of this part of the North Pacific region were formed by glacial action during the last ice age as glacial movement carved out the series of deep valleys, fed by spring waters from the upland plains, we see today - with the Delte being one of the smaller and less dramatically landscaped, it has supported first hunter gatherers and then small agragrian communities since antiquity.

Explorer-imperator Vertzingetorix of Ordoiza (Zimiamvia) (9th century), claimed all the valleys of the region and Delte was held for Zimiamvia by a series of administrator commanders beginning with Lier de Argentein. This period saw a regularisation of settlements together with immigration of noble families from the Greater Zimiamvian empire.

Medieval Period

With the decline and eventual collapse of the Zimiamvian Empire in the 11th century, Delte and the surrounding country became part of an ever-changing landscape of petty kingdoms, traded between or won in battle by a succession of rulers, valley states and distant tribute-taking countries, including Geonor, Gawne, and Screve.

In the Battle of Lye in 1403 local aristocrat Baron Aroth, the Duke of Oswark, defeated the invading King Thorulf of Asgar and began a period of ascendency which led, briefly, to the Kingdom of Delte.

The ‘Salt Queens’ Nyseld and Hatereld, House Quaine, invaded in 1443; the Delte valley fell without resistance to be absorbed within the grand state of The Salternland, and would remain under the crown of the queens of that country until the coming of the Uncivil Wars in the seventeenth century.

The Uncivil Wars

This has proven to be such a popular subject for amateur historians that there will one day be a whole separate article on the Uncivil Wars (1644-1661).

During the reign of Queen Limnoraea II (The Sharptail) of The Salternland, division arose between the royal household and the administrative parliament leading to three periods of civil war across 17 years of discontent from 1644.

The Delte Valley, held by Lady Nyske Daldare, Duchess of Oswark, declared early for the Queen but the stoic Garo Tone delivered a series of famous public speeches decrying the stewardship of the Dukes and Duchesses of Oswark; Nyske fled in the spring of 1645, never to return. The Delte valley saw action through three sieges at Oswark; the naval Battle of Smite Bay; and the infamous assassination of Garo Tone by royalist sympathisers. Oswark-upon-Delte, and the whole valley, remained steadfastly in support of republicans through to the end of the war and the ushering in of a new constitutional monarchy.

The Bél Epoque

The restoration of the crown in The Salternland heralded a period of peace and quiet and flourishing culture of the Bél Epoque, in particular under the Queens for whom the period is named, the Béls: Bél I; II; III; and IV. For the valley of the Delte it was also a period in which the autonomous rule which we see today began to develop as an idea under the initial stewardship of Prince Tyrbert of The Salternland, who as a young prince came to live amongst the Delts as one of their own in the town of Oswark.

During Prince Tyrbert’s residency in Oswark from 1678-1714 came the establishment of the loose association of great minds who informally called themselves The Looking Glass and were significant in the building of an independent community in Oswark and all along the Delte, rich in culture and education, materially prosperous and well-organised, and passionate for the advancement of the cause of the Delts.

Industrial Era

The Honourable North Pacific Company ushered in the beginning of the Industrial Era. Founded as separate entities in the imperial powers of Prudenlund and Marche Noire, with offices all over the North Pacific and registered as one of the oldest corporations in the world in the tax haven of Manamana, The Company was an agent of conquest and imperial ambition. The Salternland ceased to exist under its ravages after 50 years of exploitation and conquest.

Distant from the centre of The Salternland, the valleys escaped the militarised occupation of The Company but welcomed in the new money, technologies and opportunities. In the Delte Valley, this lead to the industrialisation of the river way, and the commercial exploitation of the key resources in the valley - water and land. The Company provided extensive development of the river while later adoption of rail and road as the industrial era developed was also largely funded by The Company, and Oswark grew into a thriving industrial town of 80,000 people by 1850.

Modern History

Over a period of two decades at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, politicians in the homelands of The Honourable North Pacific Company sought to limit its strength and influence. For The Salternland, it was all too little too late - a country of 450 years history was gone for good, replaced by a satellite state, Outer Pruden.

For Delte, the instruments for governing the valley were given over by The Company to the Delte River Trust, in the middle of the twentieth century. By then, 175 years of industrialisation on the river had seen a huge rise in the fortunes and infrastructure of the valley, a peak in the mid-nineteenth century and then first a decline in the use of the river followed by a decline generally in the economics of the valley.

1990 proved to be the ruin and the end of The Honourable North Pacific Company following the Great Big Smite Bay Contamination Scandal - a highly toxic refinery in the next valley along, the Smite Valley, exploded following years of cover-ups about the state of the refinery and the competance of its operators. Vast financial reparations to the community of the Delte Valley remain in place to this day.

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Geography

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The River Delte

Symbolic of everything Deltic, there will surely be a full article on The River Delte one day.

The Delte springs in the highlands of the Garga Marshes, close to the village of Garga Springs and issues at Deltemouth Wash, into Smite Bay; as the crow flies from Garga Springs to Deltemouth Wash in the south-east, the River Delte covers a distance of 72km, while the territorial claim distance of the Delte River Trust from the coast to the north of the marshes is around 90km. The river itself meanders to a distance of 174km from spring to issue.

The course of the Delte is fed by six small tributaries - the Lere and Garga streams and the rivers Ursam and Ough all join the Delte in the highlands, the River Mirren further south at the parish town of Ughmirren, and the River Nalga in Sullenden parish north of Duskard. The river features 18 bridge crossings in total, and connects three canals - the Brewer’s, the Northward and the Delte & Smite Canals; it is commercially navigable from Marshlock Spa to Askirk (using stretches of all three canals) and features five lock systems directly on the river, at Oswark, Duskard, Toddwardine, Sullenden and Askirk. As well as the six main towns, four villages and eleven hamlets are found directly on the riverside.

Artificial changes along the Delte, due to navigation, farming, industrialisation and drainage works, mean that much of the riparian landscape has been altered, reducing the amount of natural habitat. The river channel links the wetland areas and nature reserves, providing a refuge for native and migrant species. These include wildfowl and wading birds that use the Delte Valley as a migration corridor, with the river also being used as a wildlife route by mammals such as otters and non-native Mustard mink. Decades of repair to the waterway overseen by the Delte River Trust have re-established healthy Gargoyle Salmon and Two-Tone Trout species which thrived prior to industrialisation.

Settlements & Features

The main town of the Delte valley is Oswark, formally Oswark-upon-Delte, which is also recorded as the earliest known site of major population dwelling on the ancient census of Caeso Betilienus (5th century) noted as Oest Weke, likely East Fort for its location on the eastern bank of the river. At its largest during the middle of the nineteenth century when as the centre of the industrial age of the valley it had a population of over 80,000 people - close to double the entire population of the valley today. Modern Oswark has a population of just over 12,000, around 25% of the valley population.

Five parish towns have populations of over 1,200 people - Deltemouth, Sullenden, Askirk, Ughmirren and Marshlock Spa, each with its own market and historically forming, with Oswark, the Sexmarketter or Six Towns. From Deltmouth with a population of just over 8,300 to Marshlock Spa with 1,200 the Six Towns house just below 70% of the population. All six towns contain parish stoas, meeting places which form the democratic governing councils of the valley.

The valley is divided into six administrative areas, or parishes, each named for one of the market towns which form the administrative centre. Parishes each contain, in addition to one of the six towns, between one and five designated villages (populations 250 - 1,250 residents) and between five and twelve designated hamlets (populations between 10-250 residents); the eastern ‘village’ of Ageness in the parish of Askirk has dwindled to a population of 8 due to the ongoing effects of the Great Big Smite Bay Contamination Scandal, but retains the buildings and designation of a much larger settlement.

Climate

The Delte valley has a temperate oceanic climate. Average rainfall is highest at Garga Springs, where it is around 1,900 millimetres a year. At lower levels it can be around 800 millimetres a year. In drier spots, the valley averages 1,651 hours sun per year at the official Isray station. The highest recorded temperature was 31.9 °C in Isray in the summer of 1983. Due to the moderate surface temperatures of Smite Bay, the valley rarely receives outlier bursts of heat that sometimes can hit sheltered mainland valleys. The stable water temperature also means that air frost is rare, averaging just ten occasions per year.

Population & Demography

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The population of the Delte Valley at the last census (2021) was 48,806 of which 69.3% live in the six towns of the valley. 61.7% of Delts are considered of working age (18-64) or above working age but still within the workforce - 18.9% of over 64s remain working. The total workforce of the valley is 20,837 people, removing stay-home parents. The population growth rate is 0.84%, with the birth rate per 1000 at 10.8 and death rate 9.99; the median age is 44. Net migration is 0.71%. Life expectancy is 91 - the Delts are notably long-lived, claiming it is the beer and the fish that keep them young. Human development index is very high at 0.929.

Ethnicity rates are 96.3% Deltic with small ethnic groupings of Navarinos, Taxhavnites, Portmuthians and Inkians amounting to around 2.3% of population and the remainder from Brancaland, Dàguó and Prudenlund. There is a family of refugees from Marche Noire residing in the port town of Deltemouth.

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Governance & Politics

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See also: Registry of Officials

The community of the River Delte consider themselves in modern times to be a self-governing autonomous zone, once claimed by both Prudenlund and independent Outer Pruden as the last in a long line of exterior sovereign rulers. That claim is no longer considered legitimate in international politics and has hardly been pressed by the Prudenites themselves. The Honourable North Pacific Company had been responsible for administration of the valley from 1743 through to 1951, ending with the bankruptcy of the Six Towns Association. The Company continued to trade in the valley until its controversial demise in 1990, but autonomy for Delts was unofficially but in all practical senses legitimately established with the formation of the Delte River Trust in 1951 under Ange Hawser. Today the trust acts as the administrative body for the valley, whilst The Stoic Council sits seperately as the oversight body in a bicameral legislature. Under this system the executive officers of the Trust are appointed by their own internal recruitment processes, whilst the Council are formed of elected members from each of the districts and parishes of the valley. The Council has the power to remove officers of the Trust and is required to ratify the appointment of the Managing Director of the Trust, who is in effect the ‘Head of Community’, and to conduct ‘biennial appraisals’ which will recommend continuation or removal from post. There is now an absolute limit of ten consecutive years in post before the MD must step down - although in the early days no such limit existed and the first MD, Ange Hawser, held office for 20 years and then returned later for another 4 years. A provision exists in the constitution that an individual may be appointed to a second and final term after a minimum of four years out of office.

Delte River Trust

Founded in 1951 to replace the bankrupt Six Towns Association (the administrative organisation that had worked on behalf of the governing Honourable North Pacific Company) by Ange Hawser and redundant employees of the association, the Delte River Trust is responsible for the day-to-day maintenance and business of the River Delte, the valley which surrounds it, the Garga Marshes as the river source and by extension, local governance. The DRT is based at Oswark Lock and the Managing Director is the de facto head of the valley community. The DRT has responsibility for the economy of the valley, industry and tourism, the environment, community services, valley infrastructure, transport and culture. It retains joint repsonsibility for legislation and law & order (with The Stoic Council) and finances (with The Corn Exchange).

Ange Hawser became first head of the Trust and informal leader of the valley from 1951 through to 1971, and again from 1979 to 1983, firmly entrenching the DRT as the main arm of governance in the self-administered autonomous zone - a term which she herself introduced to describe the valley.

Industrialisation left behind a contaminated river, a decimated Gargoyle Salmon population, and a small community of locals left to their own devices. The Delte River Trust was founded with the aim of saving the dying river and preserving the dwindling Deltic population and its culture; this remains the driving principle of the trust, under the motto “Speed Limit 5kph On All Waterways” - a term which reflects both the desire to uphold respect for the delicate environment of the river and the natural stoic practicality of the Deltic character.

Across eight departments the trust employs just over 2,000 people, around 10% of the total workforce of the valley, from the Managing Director and head of the Delte community to riverbank prefects, rat catchers and pelicaneers (school crossing attendants). It also retains administrative oversight of other valley institutions, such as the Railways & Highways Corporation, the School Board, and the River Patrol. The DRT has a Senior Management Board - effectively the cabinet of governance - made up of the eight senior managers of each department along with the three members of the Executive Board: the Managing Director, the Chief Stoic Officer (head of The Stoic Council) and the Valley Treasurer (head of The Corn Exchange).

The Stoic Council

Acting as the second house, The Stoic Council holds oversight over the Delte River Trust as well as taking joint responsibility for legislation and law & order. The council is made up of multiple ‘stoa’ - town and village councils with elected representatives who meet monthly as the Stoic Council, at Tone House, on Glibb Street, Oswark - this gathering is commonly called The Stoa and is also attended by the Managing Director of the DRT and the Valley Treasurer, who are the other parties of the three-person Exectuive Board. There are parish, town and village elections every three years to the stoas in each jurisdiction, though these are not held simultaneously so that the make-up of the House is continually under review. There are 81 seats at The Stoa, made up from representatives of communities from all over the valley; there are no political parties and blind partisanship in the House is frowned upon, with members expected to remain dedicated to the interests of their community and to the wider valley with voting integrity. Voting habits are always monitored and reviewed to ensure allegiances & rivalries are not permanent, personal or self-interested.

Local justice is dispensed by the Stoa’s appointed magistrates at Town Assizes - there are six such sittings, one in each of the towns of the valley.

The Council is the oldest surviving institution in the Delte valley. Founded in 1668 by Dinka Tone, the daughter of republican Uncivil Wars rebel Garo Tone, to honour her assassinated father’s memory, it was later supported by members of The Looking Glass intellectual group and eventually headed up by the group’s stoic philosopher and artist Ervan Qualye (1668-1743), who was ‘Grand Stoic’ from 1701 through to his death in 1743. Dinka Tone founded the institution as The Stoic Society, and under Qualye the institute formed its Stoic Council in 1712 as the leadership group; the term Stoic Society fell out of common usage during the nineteenth century and during the establishment of the DRT in 1951 the organisation was modernised under the leadership of Quacha Dume to assume the role as the elected arm of the bicameral government. At this time, the insitute dropped ‘society’ in favour of the more widely used ‘council’; at the same time, the former office of Grand Stoic became Chief Stoic Officer.

The Chief Stoic Officer is appointed by the Council from amonst the 81 members by way of nomination and private ballot; ballots are only held when either the Chief Stoic Officer loses their seat in a local election, stands down or retires from post, or is defeated in a vote of no confidence. The post also holds the casting vote in cabinet meetings of the Delte River Trust, as one of three members of the Executive Board.

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International Relations

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The community of the Delte valley presently has no border disputes and does not engage internationally as a sovereign state. Outer Pruden maintains an historic claim on the valley as successor to former imperial masters The Salternland; however this is not a recognised claim in international law.

The Delte River Trust and by extension the community of Delte is allied closely to the Isle of Taxhavn, which provides much of the financial infrastructure for the valley, including clearing facilities for the Corn Exchange and more recently providing the Delte Mint, which no longer operates directly in the valley. Oswark is twinned with the island’s residential district of Romainring, and with all Deltic families owning second home apartments there, the district is colloquially known as Delthavn. There is a popular joke in the valley that the capital of the Delte community is St. Bernadine - the administrative capital of Taxhavn.

It is tradition that the outgoing Managing Director of the trust, on conclusion of their office, becomes the Ambassador to Taxhavn. The current amabassador is Orem Strothkin, who was MD in the valley 2008-2014. There is only one consulate in the valley, and that is Taxhavn House in Oswark which is notably located next to the Corn Exchange Building on Rivergate. The government of Taxhavn appoints a Chargé d'affaires to represent the state in the valley, and the position is presently held by Emanuele von Dach, who has been in post since 1998.

The Extra-Territorial Survey

In historic times when not under the yoke of imperial conquerors, the valleys often competed for dominance and dominion between themselves, and even included the Kingdom of Delte for a brief forty years in the fifteenth century under Aroth I and his descendents. In modern times all the valleys bar the Delte valley have been abandoned, both to the south-west and north-east of the Delte, for a variety of reasons - economic collapse, environmental disaster, or simply because - for example in the case of the Tryne and Areld valleys - their topography has proven too rugged and difficult for effective yuman settlement. Today these valleys are known as The Grey Areas, and they lie unclaimed by any community. The Delte River Trust takes an administrative role in monitoring activity within these valleys with a small department, the Extra-Territorial Survey, who are responsible for exploring, documenting and reporting any settlement or other activity. The valleys were, during the industrial era of The Honourable North Pacific Company, connected by railway; this line is now largely disused - to the north-east of Oswark it has been removed entirely and tunnels blocked to prevent access from the contaminated Smite Valley and beyond. To the south-west the railway is maintained all the way to its terminus at Greys, in the last of the valleys, the Shinney, but a train service to the wild backwater town of Greys runs only once a week, outward on a Monday and back on Wednesdays, with virtually no passengers and a highly suspicious conductor. Greys is a gateway to the wider North Pacific region, but is very much a frontier town that few self-respecting Delts are fond of visiting. Often the only passengers are Surveyors - staff of the Extra-Territorial Survey.

Secret Service

The adventures of Deltic secret agent Merlin Mostoe, by his own admission, are so unbelievably… adventurous… that they warrant a whole article about the man, the myth, the legend: in his own words.

Of course there wouldn’t be a Secret Service if its details were shared in a national factbook, but since there is a Director of Security, and he doesn’t officially have anyone in his department, one can only assume there is a service which is being kept secret relating to the security of the valley. Allegedly the Director of Security has the callsign DoS; and unless they are doing all the security all on their own, his/her operatives have the call signs MM2 to n, to however many operatives - who don’t exist, you understand - and are known as the ‘double-Ms’. This is a reference to the only on-the-record secret agent for the Delte River Trust, and prior to that for The Six Towns Association, the near-mythical Merlin Mostoe (1912-2014; active approx 1936-1990), who claims to have saved the world on several occasions in his famously lurid memoirs; MM1, so the legend goes, is Merlin himself, and the callsign has been retired from service. According to lore and widely denied by DoS, each of the double-Ms has responsibility for a different sector of security services; for example, it is said, MM2 is responsible for intelligence-gathering in The North Pacific region, MM5 for domestic intelligence, MM6 for coastal surveillance, MM9 for escape and evasion operations, MM19 for administration and numbering, and the most recent addition, MM23, responsible for social media intelligence. It is alleged by theorists of the black arts of espionage that MM6 is the most prized role in the department as it mostly involves fishing.

Military

Though there is no standing army, no air force, and no equipped navy, the community of the Delte valley has not entirely ignored defensive arrangements in case of future conflicts or external threats - having privately agreed within the corridors of the Delte River Trust that fighting for autonomy might be preferable to giving it up in some imagined future. To that end, Commander Attita Quaggins has assembled a crack team of accountants, Python & Java hackers and tabletop wargamers to plan for strategic defensive manoeuvres in the case of hostile actions. Central Command is based at Oswark Barracks - which is out the back of The Brewery on Aughtshambles Lane and consists of three offices with appropriate toilet and kitchen facilities, a brewing room converted to a gymnasium converted to a games room, a mostly empty store ostentatiously triple-locked and labelled ‘magazine’, and an old barrel-yard which Commander Quaggins and her 10-person team occasionally use as a somewhat shambolic drill ground. Uniforms are not exactly optional - more preferred - and bought online from a discount military surplus store in the ZZZR. There are small, apparently unused military camps at Aldund Bar near the coast and up in the wetlands outside Quathskelough. Volunteers from the local villages have been enlisted to perform occasional security checks and get a free companion dog, of the gigantic webbed-footed Delte Otterhound variety, to look impressive when on inspection duty. What the facilities are for remains a closely guarded secret known only to Central Command and the executive management team of the Delte River Trust.

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Law & Order

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Law and order in the valley is made up of three departments: the Town Assizes, overseen by the Chief Justice and responsible for trial and sentencing; the River Patrol, overseen by the Chief Inspector and responsible for policing; and the Auld Triangle, which is both a place - the valley’s prison - and the name of the prison service, overseen by the Head Gaoler. The Town Assizes are administered by the Stoic Council, who appoint local magistrates at each of the six Assizes, and the Chief Justice who is head of the magistrates group and sits in judgement on the most serious trials, which, when a custodial sentence is a possible outcome, will always be held at the Oswark Assizes. The magistrates and the Chief Justice help to shape the law and determine approaches to sentencing, and sit regularly in counsel with both the Stoic Council and the Delte River Trust.

The DRT abolished the death penalty for regular criminal acts in 1951, one of its first judicial acts after succeeding the Six Towns Association. It subsequently abolished the death penalty for high treason in war and war-crimes in 1980. Prior to that, there had been no practical application of capital punishment since 1866, and the death penalty had been seen as an outsider resort for more than two centuries before that, since the introduction of stoic reason into the valley. In a recent Worldwide Press Freedom Index, the Delte valley ranked first place out of the eight valleys. Admittedly, the others are deserted.

In general, the legal and institutional framework in the valley is characterised by a high degree of transparency, accountability and integrity, and the perception and the occurrence of corruption are very low, and its standards of implementation and enforcement of anti-corruption legislation are considered very high by many international anti-corruption working groups. However, there are some isolated cases showing that some municipalities have abused their position in public procurement processes.

River Patrol

The River Patrol is the enforcement arm of local law & order, which has responsibility for the whole of the valley, not just the river itself. The Patrol has manned stations in each of the six towns; there are two patrol boats - the Issacqua (registered as RB-1) and the Ingray (RB-2) - both based at Oswark Locks with rotating two-man crews, while each patrol station outside of Oswark has a staff of between six (Marshlock Spa) and ten (Deltemouth) uniformed officers of varying rank, and a Skyrmion SUV for each parish donated by the government of Taxhavn; Oswark station, known as Tasolde House and based on the lock where the patrol boats are moored, has a total staff of fourteen ‘uniforms’ with the two boats and two further Skyrmion vehicles. The river patrol also has six rapid response officers using Delte-built Oldyear motorcycles, based in two-unit teams in Ughmirren, Oswark and Askirk. A criminal investigation department for serious crimes, a team of five lead by a detective inspector, is also based at Tasolde House in Oswark; this department is officially titled the Tasolde Room 5 Group based on their quarters within the building, or TR-5. Tasolde also quarters a small administrative department of eight non-uniform ‘civilians’ while each of the town stations has between one and three administrators in a similar capacity; the Mechanics Group of four skilled engineers who maintain the service of the Patrol’s various vehicles brings the total service employ to around 90 people or 1.8 per thousand of population.

The Auld Triangle

Medium to long-term detention of convicted criminals is the purview of the valley prison system, the Auld Triangle which runs a single prison of the same name at Auld, close to Nalga Falls about 5km outside Oswark, as well as a youth detention farm in Shingarter, near Deltemouth. The prison population is 0.00018% of the population of Delte, or 9 prisoners in the adult system. Presently that is an all-male population; and though it is possible to house females at the Auld Triangle, the last time there was a female inmate, through to 1997, she was housed at a secure farmstead near Rothwarrodton village. In total there is capacity for 16 prisoners at Auld Triangle, which has not been reached during the modern era; the women's farmstead can hold three internees and the youth farm has a capacity for four young offenders - presently there are none in custody. The valley's prison system is determinedly humane, rather than tough, with emphasis on rehabilitation. At 17%, the valley's re-conviction rate is among the lowest in the known world.

Emergency Services

The valley maintains six emergency services - the River Patrol (police), Saint Tyrbert’s Ambulance, the Fire Service, the Mountain & Marches Rescue Corps, the Coastguard and the Civil Defence Corps. Each service is made up of a small amount of ‘regulars’ - paid employees, who are employed by the Delte River Trust Home Affairs Office; and the service ‘irregulars’ - part-time trained volunteers who have special dispensation to leave their paid employment to answer emergency calls through the DRT Emergency Paging System. The Civil Defence Corps is entirely made up of volunteers and is responsible for a wide range of supporting roles in the case of larger emergencies, including search and rescue, first aid, driving, communications, flood response, emergency catering, evacuation and evacuation centres, civil emergency equipment maintenance, and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear monitoring. The CDC is commanded by the Chief Inspector of the River Patrol in cooperation with the military Chief of Staff.

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Education

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Education in the valley is administered by Oswark Grammar School on behalf of the Delte River Trust, including all levels of education up to and including adult and ‘third generation learning’ or 3GL for the over-60s; making the headmaster of the Grammar School the de facto minister for education. Twenty-seven primary schools, seven secondary schools and three tertiary colleges function under the department. The Grammar School also has a tertiary education programme. The education system consists of optional daycare programmes (for children under 7), a one-year "pre-school" (age seven), and an 10-year compulsory basic comprehensive school (age eight to age eighteen). Secondary general academic and vocational education are compulsory, whilst higher education and adult education are provided free for life.

Primary & Secondary Schools

Primary education is provided to children of age range eight-twelve; secondary from thirteen to eighteen. During the first seven years of common basic education, students are not selected, tracked, or streamed. There is also inclusive special education within the classroom and instructional efforts to minimize low achievement. After basic education, at fifteen students must choose to continue with secondary education in either an academic track or a vocational track, both of which usually take three years and award a ‘matureate’ - a qualification to continue to tertiary education. There are secondary schools in all of the six towns of the valley, with two in Oswark - the Grammar School and the Greencoat School, often called the Vocational High School. The school population at the last census was 2,132 in primary education, 3,198 in secondary with 916 in nursery and pre-school places and 961 in tertiary programmes.

Tertiary & Higher Education

Tertiary education is provided through four institutions - Oswark Grammar School Sixth Form, the tertiary department of The Fiddler School in Deltemouth, The Marches College in Marshlock Spa and Sullenden College; the 961 student population represents approximately 60% take-up by young people of their age group in free non-compulsory full-time education.

Tertiary institutions award ‘metriculate’ qualifications to continue onto higher education provided for free by the Delte River Trust, with approximately 35% take up from graduating metriculates. Of those, around 90% or just over 300 students are studying abroad, with places in the valley extremely limited. Most go to the University St. Bernadine or USB in Taxhavn. The valley itself offers two specialist higher education schools: The Statue-Maker School in Oswark and The Fiddler School in Deltemouth. The former offers a highly specialised four-year sculptural masters degree and has ten places per intake year; courses last four years. Usually there are 2-3 locals in each entry year with the majority being foreign students on the world-reknowned course. The Fiddler School is less narrow but still specialised, offering a variety of maritime studies from navigation to boat-building, marine logistics to marine biology and, of course, maritime history and folk art including fiddle-making and shanty-singing. The Fiddler School has a 200-student capacity in its HE campus and is approximately 60% subscribed by foreign students.

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Transportation

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Railways

See also: Delte Valley Railway

The valley is notionally served by three railway lines, all originally built during the industrial revolution by The Honourable North Pacific Company to serve the commercial interests of the valleys and to link them with the wider region. The Meridian Mainline Railway, constructed in the 1840s, is an electrified line carrying express ‘bullet trains’ from Outer Pruden in the north to major destinations south of the valleys, with a stop at Oswark station - most trains go straight through and passengers requiring to alight or board at Oswark are required to book special stopovers. The Meridian Mainline is maintained and operated by Great North Pacific Railways, GNPR, an entity commercially separate to the community of the valley. The Oswark-Greys line to the frontier town of Greys in the Shinney valley was part of the old Nine Valley Railway, from Greys in the south to the furthest northern valley of Areld. The line now terminates at Oswark, with northward routes blocked by the environmental disaster of the Great Big Smite Bay Contamination Scandal; with the southern valleys also abandoned, the railway is maintained only by the DRT’s Extra-Territorial Survey and rarely transports fare-paying passengers. The only passenger railway in full operation is the scenic Delte Valley Railway, constructed in the 1860s to connect Marshlock Spa in the north-west with Deltemouth in the south-east. The recently-electrified Delte Valley Railway is operated by the DRT through the Railways & Highways Corporation, running train services hourly in each direction. Power is supplied by the Nalga Falls Hydro-Electric station east of Oswark, and trains by Rolling Stock, a division of the Heavy Products corporation of Taxhavn. The railway has its main engineering depot at Deltemouth docks.

Roads

The main road route from Deltemouth in the south to Marshlock Spa in the north is Valley Road, the T-5572 on the regional road network system, classified as a tertiary-level (T) route within that system. The road connects five of the six towns of the valley, excluding Ughmirren. Below tertiary roads there is a network of minor two-lane and narrow roads, single lane routes and extensive unpaved tracks, all of which are maintained by the Railways & Highways Corporation. The corporation is presently completing consultation on a by-pass route for the T-5572 around the outskirts of Oswark, with the current Valley Road running through the centre of town and liable to traffic build-up in the town at rush hours. Public bus services in the valley are operated by Omnibus & Stagecoach, a DRT transport franchise akin to Delte Valley Railway under the umbrella of the Railways & Highway Corporation. O&S have their headquarters in Oswark with depots in Deltemouth and Ughmirren. The bus fleet is supplied by manufacturers Spittal Omnibus, another division of Heavy Products in Taxhavn.

There are two regional main routes that pass through the valley - the Pacific Coastway, Route 557 on the road network system that runs through the valley at the coastal end, Deltemouth Wash; and the E1 regional Great Septenward Expressway, which in the valley is referred to as Shine Street as it was built over the route of an ancient roadway of that name. Junction 487 of the E1 is located at Kilny Cross, northwest of Oswark, the only on-off point for the valley; all the signposts for the exit were removed in the seventies during a period of fervent isolationism - they have not been replaced and it is at least seventy km to the next turn for those that miss it. To further disguise the exits, large murals of rural scenes, on fixed wheeled frames, are usually set across the ramp entrances, making them invisble to all but the most careful observer. Known as Ange’s Bush, they were commissioned by DRT managing director of the time Ange Hawser, and are maintained to this day though wheeled back to reveal the exits if a welcome visitor is expected. Plans to permanently open the junction and build a service station at Kilny Cross have been discussed at the Trust, with no clear concensus on whether to proceed with such an anti-provincialist agenda.

Per capita vehicle ownership in the valley by registration with the Delte Valley Vehicle Licensing Office, DVVLO, is a moderate 335 per 1,000 of population, with 16,350 vehicles registered in the valley - this includes cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles.

Rivers & Canals

Up to and through the early industrial revolution the River Delte was the main thoroughfare for commercial transportation, with the navigable reach expanded via lock systems and canal connections, including the Delte & Smite Ship Canal connecting the two rivers near their southern ends to provide access from Oswark and the Delte valley to the larger, deeper port at Smite-on-Sea. As road and rail expanded during the later half of the industrial revolution the waterways declined in commercial use and are now largely restricted to leisure boating and tourism. The Delte River Trust manages the waterways directly including maintenance of the locks. There are a number of independent boat builders on the river, constructing both narrow- and wide-beam canal boats and barges, most for leisure and accommodation purposes. River cruises occur up and down the river from moorings and marinas at various sites. The largest and most familiar river cruiser is the Oswark-based R.V. Sunning, built in 1901 in Taxhavn as a passenger steamer, now converted to motor power.

Sea & Air

The port at Deltemouth is a commercial dock that largely supports the import and export trade of the valley, and has been enlarged and deepened in the early twenty-first century to accommodate larger shipping, particularly with the abandonment of Smite-on-Sea in the next valley, which had been the largest deep-water port of the nine valleys and the historic entry point for the commercial shipping trade of The Honourable North Pacific Company. After the ruin of Smite, Deltemouth became the sole entry for the Delte valley from the Pacific and was upgraded by the emergent financial power of Taxhavn, seeking to replace The Company as the dominant trade partner in the area. Today Deltemouth port is the ‘goods inward’ hub for the valley. Passenger transportation by sea is limited to a once-weekly 64-hour car ferry crossing to St. Bernadine in Taxhavn, and the twice-weekly 3-hour hovercraft link to Portsea, a small scenic island outside of the Smite Bay contamination zone that is wholly claimed by Taxhavn but seems to be solely utilised by Deltic holidaymakers.

There has traditionally been no air traffic into or out of the Delte valley apart from a long-range helicopter flight (approximately 900 miles) to major North Pacific centres or to Taxhavn itself, though there is no official helicopter port and Oswark’s Racquette-22 Tennis Club courts have traditionally served as the landing site for incoming choppers. All that is set to change with a proposed 2.5km airstrip at trillionaire Taitin Deluntte’s farmstead near Toroldyn, a few kilometres south of Oswark. Farmstead Airfield, as it will likely be known, will offer airport facilities for small private passenger jets, an immigration and customs hall and if Commander Attita Quaggins gets her way a military hangar with the valley’s first defensive tactical fighter plane - though this is considered wholly unnecessary in most quarters.

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Economy & Industry

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Taxation in the valley is managed by the River Trust's Customs & Revenues Office, the CRO. The Delte valley has a low tax burden for its citizens, with no capital gains tax, wealth tax, stamp duty, or inheritance tax and a top rate of income tax of 23%. A tax cap is in force: the maximum amount of tax payable by an individual is d₲200,000 or d₲400,000 for couples choosing to have their incomes jointly assessed. Personal income is assessed and taxed on a worldwide income basis rather than a remittance basis. This means that all income earned throughout the world is assessable for Deltic tax rather than only income earned in or brought into the valley. The standard rate of corporation tax for residents and non-residents is 0%. Retail business profits above d₲500,000 and banking business income are taxed at 10%, and rental (or other) income from land and buildings situated on the Delte valley is taxed at 20%.

Economic troubles caused by a collapse of the Deltic fishing industry in the early 2000s following the Great Big Smite Bay Contamination Scandal brought high unemployment rates of 10 to 15% by the mid-2000s. Unemployment decreased in the later 2000s, down to about 6% at the end of 2008. By June 2018 unemployment had declined to 1.1%. In December 2019 the unemployment reached a record low 0.9%.

The Delte valley Department for Enterprise manages the diversified economy in 12 key sectors. The largest sectors by GNP are agriculture with 27% and fisheries with 17% of GNP respectively, followed by technology and banking with 9% each. The 2013 census lists 20,937 total employed. The largest sectors by employment are medical and health, financial and business services, construction, retail and public administration. Manufacturing, focused on mining technology, vehicles and the food and drink industry, employs almost 1000 workers and contributes about 5% of gross domestic product. The sector also provides laser optics, industrial diamonds, electronics, plastics and aerospace precision engineering. Since 2000, the government has fostered new information technology and hydrostructure construction projects to attract new investment. Tourism makes very little contribution to the island's GDP but is considered an expanding sector. In 2020, 19% of the valley's income consisted of economic reparations from Prudenlund, corresponding to roughly 8% of GDP.

Trade takes place mostly with the Isle of Taxhavn. The valley is in customs union with the Isle, and related revenues are pooled and shared under a Common Purse Agreement.

Communications

Postal services are the responsibility of the Delte Post Office, which took over from the Honourable North Pacific Company Postal Division in 1973. The DPO is the effective department for management of communications in the valley. The main telephone provider in the Delte valley is Deltic Telecom, a sub-division of the DPO. The valley has two mobile operators: Deltic Telecom and Dantana.

Broadband internet services are available through three local providers: Wi-Delte, Taxhavn Computer Bureau (TCB) and Deltic Telecom. The valley does not have its own ITU country code, but is accessed via the Taxhavn country code (+5400) with its own extension (+5401), but it has its own telephone numbering system. Calls to the valley from Taxhavn are generally charged on local tariffs, usually free.

In 1996, the Delte River Trust obtained permission to use the .dte national top-level domain (TLD), and has ultimate responsibility for its use. The main is managed from day to day by TCB, a Taxhavn-based internet service provider. In December 2007, the Delte Post Office and its telecommunications subsidiary, Deltic Telecom, commissioned the laying of a new fibre-optic link that connects the valley to a worldwide fibre-optic network. In August 2021 it was reported that Taxhavn tech pioneer Zoé Streit's satellite internet service, TX-Star, had been granted a licence to operate from a ground station in the valley.

The Delte valley has three radio stations: Deltic Radio, Shine FM and the ship-based SS Skatalite.

There is no local television service, but local transmitters retransmit North Pacific digital broadcasts via the free-to-air digital terrestrial service Gratis. Plans for a local broadcast enterprise, under the auspices of the DPO, are likely to come to fruition in 2023.

Many television services are available by satellite, such as Heaven, CloudCast and FreeNet from the group of satellites at 28.2°-Oc, as well as services from a range of other satellites around the North Pacific such as the Viva satellites at 19.2°-Br and the Condor.

The Delte valley has multiple newspapers, the main one being the Oswark Parish Advertiser and others such as the Ughmirren Broadsheets, Marshlock Wetland Review and Deltemouth Tide Times, all owned by Delte Valley Newspapers, a division of the Taxhavn media company Weyermann Press. The Toddwardine Beastmarket Journal and News of The World (distribution 16,318) is a free weekly distributed to homes across the valley.

Utility Supplies

Renewable sources — from solar, wind and hydropower — provide effectively all of Delte's electricity and around 85% of the valley's total primary energy consumption, with most of the remainder consisting of imported oil products used in transportation and in the fishing fleet. A 2003 report from the University of St. Bernadine, Taxhavn suggested that the valley community could potentially convert from oil to hydrogen power by 2040. The largest hydroelectric power plant in the valley is at Nalga Falls, while Deltewash Tidal Plant is now 60% operational and will be the valley's largest hydroelectric generator by 2024. Offshore and highland windfarms presently contribute around 12% of the generating power of the valley.

With the electrification of the Delte Valley Railway in the first decade of 21st century supplied from Nalga Falls Power Station, conversion of homes to fully electric power to end the use of natural gas in heating and cooking is the next major step toward 100% renewable energy consumption. About 70% of the valley's homes and businesses are now running fully electric and full conversion is expected to be completed by mid-2024. Electricity in the valley is managed by The Utilities Board, TUB, an independent not-for-profit corporation that the DRT maintains oversight of.

Natural gas is imported from Taxhavn via the 900km Lorin-Bur Pipeline to the liquefaction refinery at Anneside, Deltemouth; from there it is transported via rail to liquid gas storage & regasification facilities close to Warkin. Gas is supplied and processed exclusively by BurGas of Taxhavn, who hold the licence to operate both plants at Anneside and Warkin, as well as the pipeline itself from its gas refinery in Taxhavn. BurGas is presently innovating floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) technology to replace the pipeline, however plans have been disrupted by the valley's move toward 100% renewable electricity and this may not come to fruition.

The Deltemouth Oil Refinery, also at Anneside, is the incoming port for delivery of petroleum and other industrial oils to the valley. The refinery is operated and maintained by TamOil of Tamarindia with various operators using the facility to store and distribute their product, used largely for shipping, fishing, sea and river boating and road vehicles. Approximately 45% of road vehicles are either fully or hybrid electric.

Agriculture & Fisheries

The agricultural sector is by far the biggest sector by GDP in the Deltic economy, with a contribution of 27.1% in 2021. Previously matched by fishing, which collapsed in the mid-2000s but is slowly recovering, and by manufacturing until the decline of the industrial sector in the 1930-40s, Deltic agriculture has remained a stable factor in the economy for generations. Products include sunflower oil, grain and sugar, meat and dairy, and nuts. The valley also produces natural honey and is one of the region's largest honey producers per capita, with an estimated 1.5% of its population (732 people) involved in honey production. Because the Delte valley is made up of highly fertile black soil, its agricultural industry has a huge potential. The agricultural industry in the valley is already highly profitable, with 40–60% profits, but according to analysts its outputs could still rise up to fourfold. The valley is a highly efficient producer of corn and a net corn exporter. In 2012 the valley signed a contract with Taxhavn, one of the world's largest traders of corn, to supply Taxhavn with 7,500 tonnes of corn annually at market price. In return, Taxhavn provides 95% of the agricultural technology for the valley. In 2014, the valley's total grain crop was estimated to be a record 16,000 metric tons. Recent developments being innovated in the valley include industrial-scale vermiculture and microbial fermentation for soil remediation.

Fisheries and related sectors is the second most important part of the Deltic economy representing an overall contribution to GDP of 17.1% in 2021. The fisheries sector directly employs around 1,100 people (600 in fishing and 500 in fish processing; approximately 5% of the valley's workforce), although it is estimated that a total of between 3,000 and 4,000 people (up to 20 per cent of the workforce) depend on the sector for their livelihood. Many of these jobs are provided by technological companies that manufacture equipment for fisheries firms and by companies engaged in the advanced processing of marine products or in biotechnical production. Cod remains the most important species harvested by Deltic fisheries, with a total catch of 23,207 tonnes in 2020.

Manufacturing