The Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System - An As-Yet Incomplete Guide

“With everything that we have accomplished, who would think that a mere sixty years ago we were on the brink of extinction? The task seems vast in scale, yet we came together and proved that we Nimbans still had a place in the world, whatever world that might be! We came up against utter adversity and said ‘No! We shall not fade unseen and unremembered into the darkness! We will not merely survive; we will stand and thrive!’”
‘The Ignition Address’, Jade Birch, First Minister for Governance of the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System and Ninth of the Former Citizens of the Nimbus System

The Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System (NWFCNS), formerly known as the Colony of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System, commonly shortened to the Nexus Wardship or the Wardship and occasionally shortened to Nimbus (especially by those foreign to the country), is a nation founded by a group of beings originally from another universe. It is located on the subcontinent between the Free Communist Union and Stolen Idol. It currently is made up of two cities, connected by an underground rail tunnel, and the land that they control, and has no borders with any other nation.

Geography

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Politics

Significant alterations have been made to the Nimban political system since its inception. By a process of adaptation, driven by successive Ministers for Governance eliminating perceived problems with the political system through the creation of new legislation, a system unique to the nation has developed.

The Nimban government is made up of two institutions: the Ministerial Offices and House of the Assembly.

The House of the Assembly

The process behind the House of the Assembly has remained generally unchanged since its inception. Members meet regularly to debate individual items of legislation. Every half an hour after the debate's beginning, a vote is called to determine whether the members of the Assembly wish to bring the legislation to a vote: a lower threshold of votes required for the vote to go ahead is set each time so as to prevent legislation from being indefinitely blocked. If it is decided to do so, the legislation is voted upon: if a majority votes for it it becomes law, while if the opposite is true it is dismissed.

The process of election to the House of the Assembly has, however, shifted over the decades. A Single Transferable Vote system is still in place but voting now takes place in three rounds. Anyone who wishes to run for membership of the Assembly is given a small sum of money by the state to use for campaigning; no personal resources may be used for this purpose, levelling the playing field somewhat between poorer and richer citizens wanting to attempt to gain office. If a candidate passes through the first round of voting, they are given a larger sum; passing through the second round means that the candidate may draw upon an amount of money larger than that. Constituencies do exist; a citizen may only run in a constituency if they were born there or have significant links to it, such as having residency there.

One significant feature of the House of the Assembly is that no political parties are allowed within it: members are instead expected to vote according to their own beliefs and those of their constituents. The state funding of individual campaigns and the use of STV means that two major reasons for parties to exist in the first place are eliminated, however, meaning that few illegal attempts to create such entities occur.

The Ministerial Offices

Foreign Relations

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Demographics

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Economy

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Currency

The currency of the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System is simply known as the 'coin' to most; its official name is 'Universal Standard Coinage' and has a rounded 'U' as its symbol. The currency was based on that used in the Nimbans' home universe.

Universal Standard Currency has five denominations of legal tender; the coin of lowest value is worth a single unit while each denomination above that is worth ten times the value of the previous one.

Each denomination of coin uses the same designs; the 'U' symbol for the coin takes up one side, while the other features the flag of the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System. The difference between denominations' appearance is instead in colour and size; coins of higher denominations both are progressively slightly larger than those of the denomination below and differently coloured to any other denomination. This simple design, however, has unfortunately resulted in exposure to forgery; the Minister for Justice, Ella Clements, and the Minister for the Economy, Alex Newman, are currently working together with experts to develop a solution.

Education

“A government's first priority should be the education of those whom it is tasked with serving. It is through education, after all, that the people who make up a society are shaped. Education is genesis; any other area of policy is mere adjustment.”
Speech at the Foundation Debates, Simon Baker, politician and political theorist

Military

The Nimban military is heavily based on the structure of that of the Nexus Force from their home universe. It is divided into four 'Factions' - the Sentinels, the Assembly, the Venture League and the Paradox - each one of which is based on a different philosophy and plays a different role in battles. Each Faction is headed by a Faction Leader; they in turn answer to the Minister for Warfare, Adam Chamberlain.

The Sentinels - 'Valour and Fortitude'

The Sentinels form the core of the New Nexus Force, acting as heavy infantry fighters. They place heavy emphasis on martial proficiency and honourable conduct.

Name: Sentinel
Unit Type: Heavy infantryman
Armament: ‘Pacifier’ assault rifle, ‘Sentinel Shield MKIII’ folding personal ballistic shield, electrified combat knife
Equipment: Tactical HUD helmet, ‘Juggernaut’-type bullet-resistant exo-suit
Development Trivia: The Sentinels of old fought in battle lines of overlapping heavy shields, unleashing a hail of bullets upon their foes. No longer. After being cut to pieces by explosives at the beginning of the Novan Civil War, Nimban strategists and military designers rethought the Sentinel’s equipment, cutting down the size and weight of the Sentinel Shield and giving it the ability to fold into a more compact form together with fitting servomechanisms to the body armour to enhance mobility. The new Sentinels, maintaining their fireteam units but now always operating in these smaller groups instead of ever forming a single line, are now being deployed in the Novan Civil War, providing a powerful infantry force to push back the Novan Protectorate forces.

The Assembly - 'War-winning Innovation'

The Assembly are the intellectuals of the Nimban military, designing and maintaining most of the military hardware of the other factions; they also play a supporting role on the battlefield. They prize creativity and ingenuity.

Name: Guardian
Unit Type: Close support infantryman
Armament: ‘Medigun v1.1.2’ multi-substance, multi-use syringe with pistol subsystem, ‘Arbiter’ CIWS quadcopter (equipped with autonomous anti-missile Gatling gun turret and 360° thermal imaging camera), small shoulder-mounted explosive drone-launching coilgun
Equipment: ‘Medigun’ phials (medicines, painkillers and nanorobot solutions), one-handed ‘Arbiter’ remote controller, sacrificial explosive coilgun-launched drones, ‘Paladin’-type bullet-resistant exo-suit with back-mounted storage for medical supplies, battery and autoloader
Development Trivia: The Assembly close support troops, recently named ‘Guardians’, have always been the other part of the Nimban infantry, each one assigned to protect a fireteam of four Sentinels. They also cut their teeth during the first part of the Novan Civil War; their previous hand-held drone launchers proved utterly ineffective as point defence mechanisms, in part causing the massive losses seen during this early phase of the war. As such, this function was given over to ‘Arbiter’ drones with autonomous weapons systems; the opportunity was taken to simultaneously rework the drone launcher into a shoulder-mounted mechanism for increased stability. At a similar time, a popular modification of the syringe multi-tool combining it with the standard-issue pistol sidearm was made official, turning it into the ‘Medigun’. With the Sentinel ‘Juggernaut’ exo-suit being adapted to its ‘Paladin’ form with extra carrying capacity, battery pack and an auto-loading mechanism for the Medigun and drone launcher, a far more well-rounded and complete combat medic and support soldier now deploys into Krypton Nova.

Name: Eradicator

Unit Type: Coilgun precision missile launcher truck
Armament: Six coilgun launcher pod turrets, each one containing 19 ‘Javelin’ guided missiles (anti-armour/anti-air kinetic or anti-personnel explosive varieties)
Crew: One driver, one mechanic, two missile operators
Development Trivia: The Assembly’s Eradicator is the only element of the Nimban military that has not undergone any development since the beginning of the Novan Civil War; it has fulfilled its role as ultra-long range anti-armour artillery very effectively (each missile, according to what statistics Assembly officers could pull together, has a 0.64 tank destruction rate) and performs its secondary tasks of enemy aircraft elimination and area bombardment well. It retains its place in the fight.

The Assembly also operates the battleships of the Nimban navy.

The Venture League - 'The Outriders'

The Venture League pilot the fastest, most agile vehicles on land, in the air and on the sea that the Wardship can produce. They value daring and quick wits.

Name: Dragoon

Unit Type: Fast-moving anti-tank/battlefield control 4WD armoured buggy
Armament: Short range ‘Dart’ kinetic energy penetrator-launching coilgun and minigun turret, two remotely-operated deploying minigun turrets
Crew: One driver, one weapon operator
Development Trivia: The Dragoon’s weaponry remains essentially unchanged from its previous version, the only difference being that designers got rid of the frontal ram after it proved utterly pointless in combat, adding to the vehicle’s weight without any real utility. It did, however, undergo a very significant modification: after it proved too difficult for a single pilot to both operate the Dragoon’s weapon systems and drive the thing in the heat of battle, the cockpit was enlarged and the role split between a driver, who would control the vehicle and deploy its remotely-operated minigun turrets, and a weapon operator, controlling the turret on which the vehicle’s coilgun and onboard minigun were mounted with the help of an on-weapon camera. This appears to have greatly increased the Dragoon’s efficiency on the battlefield.

Name: Corsair
Unit Type: Multirole VTOL combat/reconnaissance aircraft
Armament: One underbelly-mounted long range ‘Javelin’ guided missile-launching coilgun turret, two in-wing automated rotary cannon turrets
Equipment: LIDAR and high-resolution cameras built into nose
Crew: One pilot
Development Trivia: The results of deployment onto the Krypton Novan battlefield were clear in terms of what the Corsair needed: more dakka. While the plane performed well in collecting and relaying real-time battlefield information for the rest of the Nimban combined forces and performing surgical ground strikes, it proved less capable in air-to-air combat; the single coilgun was useful but the plane had no other weaponry, nor did it have any real defence against incoming missiles. The design, in short, became seen as one of the biggest failures of Nimban military engineering; to remedy this, the Corsairs have now been fitted with twin automated rotary autocannons mounted on turrets built into the wings, each one capable of shifting to above and below its respective wing. Venture League pilots see this as a significant improvement and now feel less worried about not being blown out of the sky - not that most of them, based on the typical personality of members of the Venture League, were too worried to begin with.

The Paradox - 'Strength from our Foes'

The Paradox are the espionage arm of the Nimban military, infiltrating the enemy, feeding information about them back to their own forces and then causing chaos in their ranks on the battlefield. They believe in pragmatism and resourcefulness.

Typically, the Paradox operate on two levels of infiltration: countries of general interest to the Wardship are only sent a few agents who will attempt to join up in the normal way, requiring significantly better forging of documents and other identification, while the surge in recruitment and thus the loosening of procedure as a result of the beginning of war means that the Paradox are able to saturate enemy armies with operatives upon a conflict being announced. It is then every agent's job to reach as high a position in the enemy military as possible; focus is placed particularly on involving agents in engineering and research and development roles so as to steal enemy technology and improve upon or even create entirely new Nimban war machines, along with enemy espionage programmes, enabling action to be taken against any spies inside the Wardship's institutions. Wherever they are assigned, members of the Paradox always maintain contact with a group of fellow agents so as to maintain Nimban spirit and reduce defections.

During battle, the Paradox's involvement can be minimal or utterly pivotal depending on whether the Faction Leaders feel that victory will be decisive. If this is not the case, Paradox agents simply attempt to fight as inefficiently as possible without arousing suspicion; if, however, the time is felt to be right for action, they instead turn on their supposed comrades and totally sabotage the enemy army. It is a common joke inside the Paradox, in fact, that their ultimate goal is to be able to pervade an enemy force to such an extent that they could win a war simply by walking away from them.

Aside from its explicitly military role, the Paradox also operates as a more general intelligence organisation, placing agents in foreign institutions to feed information back to the Wardship and, if need be, subtly nudge them into line with Nimban geopolitical strategy.

Culture

“This marriage of self-actualisation and communal dedication is deeply engrained in the collective Nimban psyche, the human ideal of the ‘activist-intellectual’ held as implicitly, if not explicitly, sacred.”
‘In Search of 'the Nimban'’, Marcus Streng, cultural sociologist

Much of the culture of the Nimban people remains exactly the same as the culture held by the people of the universe from which they emerged sixty years ago. The ability of the people of this universe to manipulate reality by use of Imagination resulted in significant emphasis being placed both on mental acuity, since the limitations of Imagination are those of the user's thought, and creativity, due to the fact that, precisely because of these limitations, those who can think outside the box gain an advantage.

As a nation, the people of the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System value diversity and creativity above all else. Every child moving through the Nimban school system is taught that their ultimate goal in life is to flourish and pursue the full extent of their own potential as a person, regardless of what they decide that potential is; this freedom of purpose develops an individualistic and diverse people but also an inclusive one, the skills of each member of society being valued as much as every other's. To be called 'weird' is to be complemented and 'weirdness' is considered a powerful social asset. Enhanced flexibility of thought, ability to visualise and imaginative capability are somewhat preferred culturally above other positive deviations from the norm due to perceived links to the Nimban origin universe as well as enhancing one's ability to further develop one's unique skillset and ideas.

Crucially, however, this diversity is not typically seen as an end in itself but as a means to an end. The ethical standards held in the Wardship - indeed, throughout the world - are multiplicitous but the majority are altruistic to some extent and, indeed, more so in the Wardship than in most places due to ethics being a compulsory part of the curriculum. So goes the logic: if helping others is a good thing and one's unique potential is what allows one to do good, then one's unique potential is best expressed in helping others. The result is a diversity that not only exists within the bounds of unity but is actively served by it and indeed serves to reinforce it, since the specialisation that Nimban diversity encourages enforces the need for teamwork. It also encourages dedication to one's community and others in general. On the former point, Nimban communities are known for being involved and vibrant places and Nimban politics for placing heavy emphasis on discourse between those of different views; on the latter, experiencing a constant willingness to help others from those around one also tends to produce a level of trust and openness - some would even say naivety - in social matters that is uncommon in most places.

These aspects of common Nimban values do, of course, have negative consequences. Most notably, individuals who lack resilience or tie success to self-esteem often suffer even more extensively than in other places as a result of their own failures. While others' general willingness to provide support in this situation serves to compensate to a degree, particularly overzealous individuals doing so might even exacerbate the problem by attempting to help without fully comprehending the unique psychological factors at play. Another common problem has been noted in terms of immigrants to the Wardship or those who otherwise become involved with its people, who have a tendency to either absolutely flourish in the new social environment, finding it liberating, or to be utterly overwhelmed by a culture that takes openness and trust as the rule rather than the exception. Similarly, perceptions of Nimbans overseas vary from 'highly intelligent and accepting' to 'overbearing and self-righteous'.

Language

The Nimban spoken language, known as 'Universal', was (as the name might suggest) spoken throughout the settled areas of the Nimbans' home universe. It is eerily similar to the language called 'English' to the extent that it is practically the same; as such it shares English's rich and vibrant nature, meaning that a great many literary works have been composed in Universal. Unfortunately, most of these were sadly lost to the people of the Wardship upon being cut off from their home universe; what has survived is generally half-remembered and fragmented, though a programme has been announced by the current Minister for Culture, Eva Archer, to gather as much as is possible from the memories of the general citizenry before those able to remember such texts pass away and place it both in digital databases and on the newly invented fireproof paper for analysis and potential reconstruction by the nation's foremost literary minds.

Universal has two written forms: Higher Universal and Common Universal. The Common script utilises the Latin alphabet; its flowing nature makes it useful for quick, informal writing. For formal purposes, such as legal contracts, publishing and governance, the Higher script is instead used. It is also written from left to right and uses English punctuation; however, the Higher script differs from Common in that it utilises rigid, box-based lettering, limiting ambiguity at the cost of speed, and that it is sometimes reversed for artistic purposes. The letters that make up words in this script are joined on the left- and right-hand sides.

Sport

The people of the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System are about as keen on their sport as any other nation. The current most popular Nimban sport is foot racing, a combination of parkour and athletics brought from their own universe in which a group of people race from one point to another using any possible route that does not contravene the law and does not use any form of extra-human transportation. It is practiced both informally among groups of friends and formally in an annual competition in which anyone may participate, including those from outside the Wardship. This event is seen as the sporting pinnacle of the year and is filmed using camera drones to be broadcast across Nimban television networks; the Minister for Information and Media, Lola Sykes, and the Minister for Sport, Jacob Gibbons, are planning to secure rights to do so throughout other nations as well.

Foot racing, however, was not the most popular sport of the Nimbans' original universe; that honour instead goes to automobile racing. Powerful Imagination-fuelled cars and highly dangerous courses made this a huge spectator sport that drew crowds of thousands and universe-wide audiences of trillions. Unfortunately, almost all of the technology required to make this possible was made impossible by the nature of the universe that the founders of the Nimban nation arrived in; recently, however, rumours have been spreading that the Minister for Sport and the Minister for the Economy, Alex Newman, aided by the Minister for Information and Media, are working on a project to rejuvenate the stalling automobile industry by recreating the sport. How this might be done remains to be seen.

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With thanks to Ponderosa for creating the guide that this factbook is based on and to Krypton Nova for creating the factbook that inspired me to use it (and being an all-round great person).