The Grand Kingdom of Phibeta (WIP)

The Grand Kingdom of Phibeta

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The Kingdom of Phibeta is a huge, safe nation, remarkable for its daily referendums, frequent executions, and suspicion of poets. The devout population of 412 million Phibetans have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The medium-sized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Education, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Weston. The average income tax rate is 34.6%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The Phibetan economy, worth 24.0 trillion Pounds a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Trout Farming, Beef-Based Agriculture, and Cheese Exports. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 58,263 Pounds, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Political hopefuls must announce their intentions decades in advance to accommodate extensive background checks, murderers frequently escape punishment by claiming they were protecting their honour, CEOs and corporate executives are frequently found striking for better stock options, and only the brainiest citizens become academics. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Phibeta's national animal is the Golden Eagle, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to toxic air pollution.

Etymology

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Phibeta was one of the original tribes of Animasianova, which formed the kingdom in the early 1200s with King Windfreed the Great. The term the Phitannia Isles was given as Phibeta grew to be the dominant kingdom.

History

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Early History

In the first and second centuries, the tribes of the Phibetan continent were in a state of war with each other with many kings and queens duking it out for control of the lands. It wouldn’t be until 1203 when King Windfreed the Great united the tribes to form the Kingdom of Phibeta.

The small hamlets surrounding the capital of Weston grew into small towns, with various lords and ladies ruling over their serfs answering to the king in this feudal system. It wasn’t until 1301, nearly one hundred years since the founding of the kingdom that the lords and ladies formed a government within the kingdom after the brutal rule of Queen Madison with the document Populus Carta downplaying the role of the monarch and creating a parliament of lords and ladies. It wouldn’t be until the reign of King Alfonso II that the Populus Carta would apply to the commoners, abolishing the system of serfdom for good.

The War of The Lions

After a brief uninterrupted peace, a quarrel began with the youngest son of King Reginald Lionheart, Prince Eddward and the eldest son, Prince Jerald. This quarrel created a break up within the family and a war for power after the death of King Reginald in 1367. Power kept going back and forth between the two princes, until one day when Eddward III was exiled by Prince Hamlin after the battle of Fortrod. He married Lady Eileen to form the house of Brudor, putting an end to the war of the lions, and the beginning of a new age of prosperity.

The Brudor Era

During this great time, People from across the kingdom sing their praises of their new king, Hamlin IV and his successor King Hamlin V, who was infamous for the many wives he had and his brutality towards them. In the end, he had three children. Princess Loana, Princess Cathrine, and Prince Clarence. The youngest son Prince Clarence inherited the throne when Hamlin died in 1393. Of course, his reign was not without problems. A drought struck the heartlands of the kingdom resulting in a decade-long famine that killed thousands of citizens. A plague spread from eastern ships that killed thousands more. To make matters worse, a war started with a neighboring kingdom in the Northlands that cost the kingdom most of its coffers. The eldest princess, Loana, had quite enough of his brother’s incompetence, sending an army she raised to overthrow the king. This succeeded in 1412 and was then crowned queen.

Under her reign, she quickly modernized the navy from its small caravels to large galleons, fly boats, and eventually the creation of the Man-o-War. She declared war on neighboring kingdoms to the north to secure itself from the plague, much to the disdain of the courtesans. All of these expenses meant that taxes were raised on all peoples, even the nobles would have to scrounge about. It was extremely horrible, there was a peasant revolt every two months. But that would come ahead though when Loana died in 1443. Her sister would be coronated in the same year. Under her reign, the famine years were finally over, and the plague seemed to have stopped spreading. Catherine began reorganizing the armies, with victory after victory on the field. In 1460, peace was agreed upon by the monarchs of the Northlands kingdoms. Finally, peace and prosperity was here. Poets and bards sang their praises to the queen, and the queen shared the riches of her coffers with her people, and they too were happy. It didn’t last long however wherein 1500, Queen Catherine died a childless monarch. The Brudor age was over.

The Age of Colonization

After the death of Queen Cathrine, a prince from Isla Exilia came in to rule the country. He has been previously exiled from Phibeta after the exile of his father Eddward after the war of the lions. King Alfonso IV learned many great things from his time in exile. He learned of new worlds and great continents beyond their borders. King Alfonso raised funds for independent explorers and trading companies to set off to new untamed lands out there, and they were successful with the colonization of islands in the south found by the explorer William H. Cartune, as well as the Gilligan Isles.

In the 1620s, under King Jerald II, Phibeta and the two kingdoms in the northlands came together and agreed on the unification of their kingdoms. Under a new golden eagle and banner, the Great Union of the Kingdoms of Phitannia was born, still referred to as the Grand Kingdom of Phibeta. And thus was born the Phibetan empire that spreads throughout the Greater Dienstad region. The people of Phibeta have become well known for their love of art and culture, as well as the rediscovery of old art forms from other lands. Thus was born a renaissance of great art. The people of the empire lived very happy lives, and their protections guaranteed with the formal creation of the Phibetan Army, which not only fights for the monarch in times of war, but in times of peace maintains peace and stability. King Alfred I oversaw the next chapter of Phibetan democracy with the declaration of the Bill of Rights in 1739 which guarantees the rights of all Phibetan citizens, at home and across the empire.

In 1779, King William III, known as William the Good ruled his people just and fairly. An age of prosperity and peace for the Grand Kingdom, a union of all on the island of Great Phitannia. That didn’t last long though.

The Phibetan Civil War/The 1812 Revolution

Following the death of King William III after an assassination, an aggressive warlord from the county of Fizzlestomp, Lady Ragaland, claimed the throne for herself. Under her rule, the country fell into disrepair. Queen Ragaland raised taxes, the first highest in Phibetan history. It didn’t end there, the food grown on Phibetan soil was either exported out of the country or kept in the royal warehouses for the royal family to gorge themselves on. While the commoners were starving, barely getting by, the royals were feasting on the people’s crops. Parliament was not as powerful over the monarch, as she forced her rule and decrees downsizing the parliament. Her death in 1804 and then the death of her son King Alfred II in 1807 began a bloody civil war between his sons where the nation was divided into camps for Prince Alfred and Prince Matthew. Each prince set Weston on fire many times, claiming the throne of St. Partinsons palace for each other, Prince Matthew came out on top for 1 year as King Matthew IV before dying of dysentery, where his son Matthew would succeed him. The young king was the most terrible king of the Fizzlestonmp dynasty. He only cared for entertainment leisure and all other childish things while the commoners starved and suffered. Civil unrest continued and different lords and ladies fought to become the real successor of the throne, then along came Lord Salarus of Partoston who bribed the king to abdicate and give him full control of the country. Thus began the reign of the Great Pretender King, King Salarus.

King Salarus raised taxes to the highest point of destitution, even nobles lost their lands. It didn’t matter though, King Salarus dissolved parliament and had absolute power under the Oligarchy Decrees. He had imperial guards put down protests, had rivals imprisoned and exiled to Isla Exilia, and disavowed Cardinal teachings by having a harem of multiple wives for example. What made it worse is that a terrible famine and the worst winter in recorded Phibetan history created the worse humanitarian crisis of the time, over a million citizens died. And that is not adding to the international crises that were the Isotola Wars, and several saber-rattling incidents with other nations. This led to the 1812 revolution or the great coup d’etat of 1812.

An orphaned mudlark named Lizzie Hallack gathered her friends to play pranks and harass Salarus’ imperial guards. They too were poor and starving, so many figured that they were doing this because of that. Housewives and free men joined them, rioting in the streets, purging of Salarus’ aristocrat henchmen, and raiding of royal warehouses for food. This led of course to the death of the mudlark by the hands of imperial guards, the people began to storm St. Parington’s Palace, burning that to the ground, and imprisoned Salarus. After finding them on the streets of Whitington Falls, the true heirs to Phibeta, the Warmingham siblings, were given the throne beginning the longest reign of peace and prosperity lasting until 1912.

During that time, parliament was reestablished with a fresh election, with the first royal decrees of the monarchs to allow the suffrage of all free men and women in 1816, the first time women could vote in elections in Phibeta. The House of Lords and Ladies begin creating a new act of succession so the civil wars would never happen again.

The Steampunk Revolution

Revolutions are not merely fought with blood and sword, but rather through ingenuity and technological advancement.

At the start of the Reign of the Three Monarch Siblings, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. By the time of the Peninsula War in 1861, Phibeta had fully industrialized. Sir Robert Carlton invented the steam engine in 1831 and in 1833 opened the first rail line from Ironhaven to Appleby, connecting the two towns for the first time. What usually took a day to get to one or the other now only took 3 hours by train. Not only was this used for transportation, but the steam engine helped pump water out of mines faster and helped move machinery much better than the water wheel. Factories and cotton mills that were present during the 18th century no longer needed to be next to a river to function. Not only was it popular on land, but on sea as well when Edward Pillsburough brought the steam engine on to a sailing boat on Richheart Lake and successfully sailed it across the pond. It would be in 1845 when Tullio Mascolo improved on the steamship idea and created the naval ship, HMS Creeton, the first steam frigate of the Phibetan Royal Navy. It was an age ruled by steam, in which Phibetan author, Oscar Woodrow, began to coin the term Steampunk Revolution in his essays on the modern era.

Not only was it a technological revolution, but an agricultural revolution was also taking place. To prevent the famines that have plagued the country in the past decades, the three monarchs began to grant incentives and royal charters to fund farms to find ways to keep Phibeta fed with their growing population. What returned were better tools and equipment, crop rotation, selective breeding of livestock, and better storage facilities to keep the surplus of any harvest to last until next winter. That is not to mention how new train lines that were being built throughout the country sent harvests to markets all over Phibeta. The citizens began to stop worrying about the seasons as much as they used to with produce being available for all seasons.

With the rise of better farming techniques, many children of farmers felt that they weren’t needed on the farm any longer. It didn’t help that many large landowners were buying up the lands they were on. It was this, that many children of farmers who were 14 years old or sometimes younger left the farms and began to live in towns for better work which began the rise of cities all across Phibeta. It is true that many of these new city dwellers lived in slums and in poverty, but that was something the upper classes can exploit. Various children were incentivized to work in factories and mines for pay (though lower than their adult counterparts) but more often than not, were treated like slaves, which parliament made illegal in the 1830s. There was no way to protect these children, for many in the House of Commons and the House of Lords disavowed the teachings of Sir Nathaniel of Shiledfried, one of the four Cardinal Heroes of the past.

The rapid growth in population and the disparagement of wealth between the rich and poorer classes kickstarted a wave of reform in the country. In 1855, years following the Faghih Orphanage Scandal (where orphaned girls are taken into his factory as slaves and trafficked to rich nobles), the Child Labor Act was passed which limited the working age of people to 14 years of age, and the National Policing Act was passed to enforce these new laws. The Parliament Reform Acts were also passed to limit the powers of the House of Lords, redistributed the number of MPs per population, and abolished rotten boroughs. Under the premiership of Mr. Louis Partaridge, the empire has grown significantly. His policies of protection of the weak, especially of children were praised by Conservatives as a return to the Cardinal teachings, and progressives including the Liberals praised it for uplifting the poor and downtrodden of society. A pseudo-welfare system was established which was being paid for by the wealthy lords and ladies which also fueled the military and research budgets. It was the most prosperous age Phibeta has ever achieved.

The Age of Imperialism

With the expansion of Phibeta’s might and wealth, what other thing is there to do than to colonize and exploit the vast lands of the world. There was already opportunity everywhere in the various territories that the Phibetan East Trading Company operated in Xofrautan, which was a loose confederation of prince states. A rebellion in the company occurred in 1819 and proper members of the Phibetan army quelled the rebels. Following the dissolution of the PETC in 1849, Queen Diane I was given the title, Empress of Xofrautan. The Phibetan royal navy continues to build up its’ warship collection that can not be beaten on the waves, and settlements on Dillydale and The Cartune Isles became formal colonies (barring a revolution on the Isles in the 1770s, ending in total failure for the rebellion and reassertion of power). The Cardinal faith that has been rekindled during the early Steampunk Revolution has nurtured the idea of right against wrong. In the 1850s, Phibeta was beginning to assert its dominance in the region. Members of Parliament began supporting self-determination in nations like Katase and raised concern when Abetton annexed the Sugar Isles, with sights on conquering the entire continent of Meridional.

Things went ahead when war broke out with long strings of victory, but terrible military conduct. It wasn’t until the infamous Charge of The Light Brigade at the Battle of Kirin Valley, that military reform has begun, starting with the snap election of 1861, when the Liberal MP Myra Bello became the first female prime minister of Phibeta. By the war's end, Phibeta claimed victory and began to assert its dominance via its colony of the Cartune Isles. Sanctions, demilitarization, and annexation of a few small islands that Abetton owned. The empire just kept on growing and its power grew as well. In due time, better steamship technology and medical technology meant that Phibeta began a frenzy of colonization around Greater Dienstad. A few wars here and there kept Phibeta in the greatest position of power, especially during the Vizein Wars in Xuanzhang when Phibeta was granted a legation in the city of Castrano. Meanwhile, in 1870, Myra Bello became the first prime minister to lead a government for the third consecutive term, the first longest premiership and government.

In 1864, Phibeta faced its first constitutional crisis since the time of the Phibetan Civil War of the 1780s. A book written by the author Priestess, Mother Mary Buchenshiller, called “Freedom in Darkness” questioned whether or not in modern industrialized society, the aristocracy should hold significant power. She argued that even though the Populus Carta protected their ancient rights to religion and freedom, these rights were being trampled by the upper class (considering the fact her family was imprisoned by the archbishop of Drumchapel for being too radical). This began a wave of revolutionary thinking that had trickled down into the House of Commons. Prime Minister Myra Bello was prompted to pass a bill on Parliamentary Reforms, replacing the House of Lords and Ladies with an elected senate. Most of the Lords and Ladies were not okay with this, with the house rejecting the bills on multiple occasions. But the Conservative Lords took it one step too far. They would hold their own revolution to decrease the power of the Commoner’s Court (which they called the House of Commons) led by Lord Wellsy Karentoad, Count of Acrhbend, and the Archbishop of Drumchapel, Father Bellschmidt Goldhearst. This rebellion failed after the monarchs intervened with their household cavalry and themselves on the front, not before causing significant damage to the House of Commons, and the government estates (including the PM’s Residence, 20 Upton Street). King Yohannes II decreed that an attack on the honourable houses is an attack on the Kingdom and thus the highest case of treason. Lord Karentoad and Father Goldhearst were sentenced to death, while the lords, ladies, and all Cardinal members involved were stripped of all titles and disgraced from the faith. After a house reshuffle, the Second Parliament Reform Act was passed which once again decreased the power of the House of Peers to checkers of the laws passed by the Commons. The role of the church in government has been reduced to an observer role, in which the Archbishop of Drumchapel can still attend cabinet meetings.

In 1880, Empire Day was declared on April 10, the birthday of His Majesty, King Yohannes II, but a year later Yohannes died of old age. By then, there was progress made to social equality. 1871 was the year the first youth parliament was created to properly represent children in government. New major reforms have been enacted to elevate the poor out of poverty. Modern hospitals and fire services were popping out in every city and in towns and villages, public clinics and fire brigades were formed. The expanding cities have been a breeding ground for disease and pandemics. After the Radsburg Street Cholera Outbreak of 1876, there had been a major push for sanitation reform. The first proper and separate sewer systems began to be implemented in 1876, and the first sanitation corps was formed in 1877 to clean the streets of garbage and muck that people have so callously left out. Cardinal teachings have proclaimed Phibeta to be a beacon of society over all others, which led to a wave of mass immigration to the country, and other territories within the empire.

After 1881, the year King Yohannes II died, the kingdom continued to be ruled over by its co-monarchs, King William and Queen Diane, both of which have never produced heirs, which didn’t really matter to them because they were excited over the new inventions of the era. One amazing invention that has shifted Phibeta was the advent of the steam power airship. These airships were invented in Wobbington Fields by renowned inventor, Stephen Hudson, who after serving in the Peninsula War of 1861, wanted to find a way to make air travel possible, as well as use the military balloons of the day to good use after their usage in war. In 1884, after over 20 years of development, the first airship was launched, traveling from Wobbington to Southlock in just a manner of hours, when previously it took at least 4 days by train.

The first Southern route took place from Southlock to the colonial town of Rosemary Village on the Cartune Isles in 1885. Adjustments were made and what used to take a week by steamship now only took 3 days to travel across the empire. This made the empire even more viable. The late 19th Century continued to be a golden age for the Phibetan Empire. Phibeta continued to acquire new lands, built the strongest navy in the world, and continued to build a strong economy. In 1898, King William died, and thus Queen Diane ruled alone. In 1899, at the dawn of the new century, The Royal Society of Culture issued the creation of the Great Phibetan Exhibition and Fair, as a celebration of the 100 years of progress Phibeta made, from the early dark age to the golden age of the empire. The celebration lasted throughout the year 1900 and took place in Weston. The success of the event was credited to the pride of Phibetan Nationalism, which the Conservative Party leader, Ms. Emily Grey proclaimed as “the beginning of the Pax Phitannia”.

Before that would happen though, another constitutional crisis occurred in 1902, this time whether or not the aristocracy are to keep the wealth of Phibeta all for themselves. Prime Minister Jessie Rodgers of the Liberals wanted to bring in a plethora of reforms including a national insurance scheme, veteran pensions, free university tuition, public projects, arts funding, national park creation, and housing projects, some of the earliest forms yet to be seen later in the 20th century. All of this would be paid for by the aristocracy through the introduction of the Land Tax, where the value of one's land would be the basis of their annual tax rate, scraping the national income tax that was used for so long. The House of Peers of course had to stomp their foot down again. Fierce arguments begin between the two houses even after two snap elections were called to acknowledge the popularity of the so-called "People's Budget. The opposition in the conservative House of Lords was fierce, but fortunately, it didn't end up like the 1864 constitutional crisis. Queen Diane, still with gumption left in her life had stood down the House of Peers, threatening to replace many of the conservative lords with more liberal lords so that they would be outvoted every time, the first time a monarch publicly took a more active (and aggressive) role in politics. Not wanting to create a deeper rift in the constitutional crisis, the Lords and Ladies stepped down and allowed the bill to pass. Once again, the House of Commons was determined as the ruling legislative body.

The Great War

In 1912, Queen Diane II died without an heir ending the Second House of Waringham. Unlike the turbulent times of the late 18th Century, the House of Lords and Ladies have previously signed the Act of Succession in 1814, which laid the foundation for electing a new ruling house if the previous house had not produced an heir, or the house abdicates. After two weeks of deliberation, the House of Brisdor was elected by the House of Lords and Ladies to be the new ruling dynasty with Lord Matthew Price Johnson Brisdor, the Marquess of Beakdale becoming King Matthew VI. It wouldn’t be long before the empire collapsed, but to many, it seemed like Millenium away. It was indeed the age where Phibeta was a world power, where the world was calm for Phibeta would surely involve itself in foreign affairs. That age of the Pax Phitannia was not to last, however.

In 1915, tension continued to rise between the powers of Greater Dienstad. Later that year, the entire region broke into conflict. From all over the empire, volunteer forces under the command of Field Marshal Andrew Diner were the first to be sent to the front lines. This was also the beginning of modern ariel warfare with the establishment of the Phibetan Royal Flying Corps (which grew out of the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers utilizing the new biplanes of the day).

[PLEASE NOTE: THIS SECTION IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE WHEN GD CREATES ITS OWN VERSION OF THE GREAT WAR]

Demographic

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Population

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Religion
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Government

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The Grand Kingdom of Phibeta is a unitary state under a constitutional monarchy. Queen Diane II is the current ruling monarch, and the current head of state in Phibeta as well as the head of state for many commonwealth nations. The Phibetan parliament is made up of the House of Commons and the House of Lords and Ladies (often referred to as the House of Peers).

The House of Commons is made up of members who represent a constituency that is determined by the population of certain cities and counties. Every five years, Members of Parliament (or MPs) are voted by party to represent the people in parliament in general elections. The party with the most seats in the house is considered the majority and oftentimes, the party leader is invited by the monarch to form a government in her name. The government is made up of MPs that are chosen by the prime minister to lead the different ministries. The other MPs (or backbenchers) debate on laws, policies, and vote on new laws and amendments.

The House of Lords and Ladies (often referred to the House of Peers) is made up of the nobility that rule over the different lands around the country, from large counties and cities, to small towns and villages. Some of these peers are life peers (baronets) who don't rule over land, but are granted a seat in the house by the monarch. They used to have the power to defeat any bill that passes through the House of Commons, but after a couple of constitutional crises of the 19th century, their role only includes inspecting new laws passing through the House of Commons before being approved by the monarch.

During the summer, when the regular parliament is out on recess, the Youth Parliament of Phibeta convenes to raise the voices of the youngest citizens, the children. The MYPs range from 9 years old to 15 years old. There are no political parties in this parliament, as it is agreed by the children to work as one to bring issues of importance to the regular parliament. They are lead by the Leader of Youth Parliament, who has meetings with the Prime Minister at 20 Upton Street to discuss all the issues that the Youth Parliament discussed.

The monarch's role in modern Phibeta is mostly ceremonial, as many of the absolute powers have been stripped from the monarchy or haven't been enforced since the late 18th century. The monarch signs bills into acts of parliament and serves as a symbol of stability.

Foreign Relations

Phibeta was once the greatest power of the 19th and 20th centuries, with one of the largest empires around. But after years of decline, dissolution of the empire, and the division of the Phitannian Isles, it is now relegated as a minor power. Phibeta is the host country of the Phibetan Commonwealth of Nations, which consists of former Phibetan overseas territories that function independently, but continues to view the Phibetan monarch as the head of state. Phibeta holds good foreign relations with most of the members of Greater Dienstad and still vies for influence in the region.

Economy

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Phibeta is one of the largest economies in the region. Many citizens live comfortably in nice homes, with good food, and plenty of leisure time, contributing to a thriving economy.

Phibeta is the largest exporter of ocean liners and gold.

Culture

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Phibetan Culture can be best described as old-fashioned and elegant. Many of its citizens choose to take public transit, walk, or cycle rather than driving a personal vehicle around town. Orchestral music is still one of the best forms of entertainment, with each town and city sponsoring their own orchestra organization, and this goes for concert band music as well, with even the smallest hamlet having their own bands.

Neighborhoods in the towns and cities have a quaint charm and history with thousands of buildings built before the Renaissance Era including many cathedrals and churches. The most common style of building in the major Phibetan urban centers are those of the Waringham Era (1814-1912) when Phibeta grew exponentially thanks to industrialization.

*Please note that magic existing in Phibeta is to branch out into FanT nations as well. Nations can choose and not choose to acknowledge the existence of magic.

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