The States of Tekniania

Tekniania is, by its constitution, the Articles of Union, a federal country. Substantial power is delegated to the subdivisions of it, called the States. Currently there are 243 of them, and we will try in this Factbook to give a generalised overview of how they function and what they do. It should be noted that no two States (always spelled with a capital S) are alike in how they work, and what they do. Some are practically independent countries, some are almost directly controlled by the federal government.

The Articles of Union are, yes, a constitution, but also a manual on what the relationship between the States and the federal government is. The original 15 States signed a singular Article, but every State that has joined since has signed its own, with unique exceptions and rules in every one, thus making the Articles of Union. When bound together, they are longer than the Bible by word count, at almost 3000 pages in the edition given out at schools. Mind you, these regularly need updating, since the amount of States ensures that pretty much always there’s a constitutional rework in process somewhere.

States usually comprise of one big island or several smaller islands, and most are about equal in population, though their sizes can vary massively. The largest, the United State of South Vakatale and Bola, is about the size of Thailand if you include all of the ocean it contains, but only has around 75000 people actually living there.

States, with the obvious variations, usually elect a State Council for several years. These, usually, allow political parties, unlike the General Council and are, usually, with proportional representation. These Councils then, usually, elect a First Minister to chair it and head the executive branch of the State, as well as to be C-in-C of the State Guard.

These Councils then have their local Departments, which are basically little cousins of the Departments of the General Council, except for the more unique ones, such as the Departments of Peace, Space, or Immigration.

Several notable things are delegated to the devolved governments, such as running the national health system and some schools (using the principle of: he who builds it, takes care of it), as well as local police, the coast guard, nature conservation, etc.

A controversial thing left for them to decide on is the use of corporal punishment in all its forms. Granted, most States have chosen to ban it as a concept, but there remain holdouts. Of those that choose not to ban it entirely, most only allow it to be used sparsely and with several State permits necessary, usually for crimes that fines just wouldn’t cover but taking up jail space for them is useless, such as body snatching or insurance fraud on a small scale. Only around 10 States allow its use in schools.

In recent years, this has become a major constitutional issue, with an attempt made to ban it fully in schools across the Allied States by the General Council, but the required supermajority for changes to all Articles of Union (75%) was not reached because of concerns about violating the rights of States too much.

Another notable thing about the States: all of them are free to leave the Union whenever they so choose. This has been a clause pretty much copy and pasted into every Article of Union from the original, and has so far been triggered three times, each time creating an independent country. How it is triggered is up to the State, but it usually involves a referendum with a 2/3ds majority voting to leave. No State is forced to join and no State is forced to stay.

Telling where a State’s powers start and end is a matter of immense political debate, with no clear answer ever found, sometimes because their Article of Union is written vaguely, either on purpose or on accident. A recent incident was when, in the State of Muavesi, 4 tram lines in the capital were run by the State, but the 5th, built by the federal government, was administrated by it, meaning that 1/5th of all the trams there were run on a separate system because of how their Article of Union was written.

Another quirk of the self-determination system of State governments is that they sometimes end up as monarchies. Some, before joining the Allied States, had a chief of the local tribe who was the head of state, a role passed down to their firstborn, and so this system was occasionally kept. These local monarchs, however, tend to have little power, mostly being figureheads that sometimes pop up to do some ceremonies.

Squashing legislative bugs like these is the job of the Department of National Cohesion. They communicate between Tekniania City and the States, review new Articles of Union and stress test them, arbitrate whenever a new argument comes up about who gets to do what where and ensure that States’ voices are heard in the General Council. For that reason, their representatives ascend to the GC’s pulpit the most.