Author Topic: The Republic of Bergenstahl  (Read 5641 times)

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The Republic of Bergenstahl
« on: October 02, 2016, 03:50:20 PM »
        Located on the Dragon Isle, the continent to the north of Vytal, the Republic of Bergenstahl, is a heavily industrialized fortress-city.  Originating as a remnant of the oppressive regime that lost the Greyed War, Bergenstahl is a city-state constantly under siege by Grimm and the elements.  A paradoxical state emphasizing order and control at the expense of individuality and personal freedoms yet valuing ambition with a marked disdain for complacency, Bergenstahl maintains a very minimal, isolationist presence in international affairs as the stigma of its origin continues to follow it, and the Grimm presence ensures its focus remains on issues close to home.

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Bergenstahl's Location


Geography and Ecology
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        The Republic of Bergenstahl lies in the center of the Dragon Isle, closer towards the south and sitting in the mountain ranges just northwest of the continent’s eastern CCT relay station.  The land in this area is characterized by tall mountain ranges with expansive volcanic plains at their bases.  Several large magma chambers lie underneath the region, leading to many volcanoes.  However, many of these volcanoes are dormant or are actively tended to by Bergenstahlen geologists to mitigate the chances of violent eruption.
         While it has been ages since the last massive violent eruption in the region, volcanic particulates semi-regularly blanket the region, courtesy of geologists’ attempts to alleviate dangerous pressure buildups.  When the geologists eject the particulates from the volcanic vents, the particulates clog the air, and precipitation-seeding techniques used to flush the particulates from the air create hot, noxious sleet storms.
   The volcanic plains are dominated by rocky soil that is conducive to growing only weeds, wild grasses, and small shrubs, leading to little natural fauna apart from rodents and small, grazing animals.  Thus, Bergenstahl can be described as a windy cold desert region.
   In recent decades, toxic pollutants desecrate the environment as a result of Bergenstahl’s industrial processes.  Were the Bergenstahlens able to maintain their output without sacrificing their environment, they would, but the constant threat of Grimm has ensured that environmentalist concerns are always of least importance.


The City of Bergenstahl
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        Bergenstahl is formed from three regions.  The first is the oldest, and is known as “the Old City.”  Built into the mountains that separate the cold desert plains from the ocean coast, the Old city was the location of Bergenstahl’s first settlement.  Much like the dwarven mountain halls of lore, Old Town bores deep into the mountains with a combination enormous grand halls and winding labyrinthine shafts and tunnels.  Though few people live in Old Town anymore, Old Town is still maintained and used as a military garrison and industrial installation.
        The second region is the “Port Sector” and is located on the coastline, connected via rail to the other regions.  Built by the oppressive regime to serve as the port servicing the Old City, the Port Sector is little more than a fortified port.  As the only region where foreign visitors are allowed in Bergenstahl, the Port Sector serves as the seat of international diplomatic relations in Bergenstahl.
        The third region is “New Bergenstahl,” built on the plains beneath the mountains and the Old City.  New Bergenstahl city is a collection of interconnected residential, commercial, and industrial hives, appearing as monolithic towers linked by railways and skybridges.  Impossibly tall spires and exhaust-belching smokestacks stretch into the bleak sky while the same buildings feature countless levels of basements and sub-basements that bore deep into the earth and form great subterranean halls, bunkers, and shelters.  New Bergenstahl contains an outer and an inner wall.  While the outer wall protects the entire city, the inner wall separates the citizens and New Bergenstahl proper from the shanty towns and slums of the city’s many refugees.
        True to the needs dictated by the environment, Bergenstahlen buildings are visually harsh and oppressively utilitarian, with particular attention towards protection against Grimm and volcanic activity. Enormous heat sinks, thick blast doors, and ablative heat shields are standard on nearly all buildings, while durable shelters exist in many city sectors for use if the preventative measures fail.       


History
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        Bergenstahl began more than a century ago as a self-sustaining hard rock mining colony known as Bereich Siebenundvierzig (hence called “Area 47”).  Founded by the oppressive conformist regime, it was a starting point for the exploitation of the region’s natural resources.  Originally purely industrial in nature Area 47’s first inhabitants were engineers, skilled laborers, geologists, and scientists, except for a small military garrison to ward off Grimm.
        In the early years, life was tough, as the conformist regime was purely interested in Area 47’s industrial capacity, and so offered little support to the colonists beyond the requisite industrial infrastructure.  Faced with the general lack of arable soil, the noxious volcanic sleet storms, the toilsome life of an industrial worker, and the Grimm attacks drawn toward the resulting dissatisfaction with such a life, Area 47’s first inhabitants took shelter in the mountains and learned to attune their technology and and their society to the harsh landscape, building agricultural vaults, and developing atmospheric suits necessary to survive in the environment

        During the Greyed War, Area 47 continued its role as an almost purely industrial installation and produced materials for the Conformists’ war machine.  Even as other Regime bases across Remnant started to fall, the colonists continued to produce, unaware of the war’s progress apart from the few shreds of information brought with the few Regime refugees well-connected itself to discover the installation and seek refuge there.  For years, Area 47 remained isolated from the outside world, and though the colonists assumed from the eventual lack of contact that the Regime had lost the war, they remained too busy fighting off Grimm to take much advantage of their newfound independence.

        Area 47 was eventually discovered by Atlesian engineers sent to survey the Dragon Isle in preparation for the construction of the continent’s CCTS relay stations.  While the natural instinct of the Area 47’s inhabitants, as Regime remnants, was to take up arms against the Atlesians, the small military garrison and the constant threat of the Grimm made such hostile intent foolish.  On the other side, taking into account Area 47’s almost purely industrial war in the war, the Atlesians, weary from years of war and innumerable losses, decided to leave the installation alone.  Separated from the leadership of the Regime, the conformist culture, the Atlesians reasoned, would soon fade and return to mankind’s natural propensity towards individual freedom.
        In the following years, the Atlesians were, for the most part, right.  Since the fall of the Regime, Area 47, either to reintegrate into the international community abandoned the conformist culture of the Regime adopting the individualism and progressivism championed by the four kingdoms.  Contact with the outside world brought trade to Area 47, especially with the many villages and towns that sprung up around the Dragon Isle’s two CCT relay stations.  Through Grimm incursions continued, life in Area 47 - the continent’s Northern Bastion of civilization - seemed to improve, even if only a little.

        Unfortunate, the modest prosperity was not to last.  In the catastrophe known to Area 47’s inhabitants as “the Long Night,” Grimm hordes suddenly rampaged through the East, overrunning the towns and destroying the continent’s eastern CCT relay station.  Area 47, by virtue of its strong defensive position in the mountains weather the initial waves.  Cut off from the rest of Remnant, the people of Area 47 did their best to ride out the onslaught.  What they hadn’t prepared for, however, was the influx of refugees that fled the ravaged lowlands and sought safety in the Northern Bastion.  While many in Area 47 did not want to take in the refugees, citing limited food, seeing the refugees being slaughtered by the Grimm nonetheless resonated with the inhabitants and their own struggles against the Grimm.  So, Area 47 took in the refugees.
        With the influx of refugees, the installation’s food supply teetered on the brink of exhaustion and civil society collapsed as citizens fought among themselves for whatever limited resources they could get their hands on.  Most notably, the leaders of the city’s workers unions, mines, and manufacturing forges soon carved out small semi-feudal holdings.  As resources became scarcer and scarcer, the rivalries between these leaders eventually descended into the free-for-all conflict that was part gang war and part civil war.  Thus began the Guild Wars. 
         Soon, the military, having sealed the entrances to the mountain city through calculated cave-ins to keep out the Grimm, intervened.  However, despite being most well-armed and most well-organized of the factions, it simply could not defeat all the others by itself.

         Eventually, the Guild Wars ended when a cadre of young up-and-coming individuals from across the warring guilds began to gain influence.  Seeking to unite the population, the cadre revisited aspects of the old Regime’s conformist culture.  By stressing unity and shared self-sacrifice, along with portraying the city’s descent into chaos as the result of years of complacent and corrupt leaders and the influx of thankless, thieving refugees, the cadre appealed to the basest emotions and simplest fears of Area 47’s people, riding the resulting wave of nationalistic populism to swell in numbers to the point of being able to either absorb many of the Guild Wars’s factions or eradicate them outright.
        The cadre, now named the Bergenstahl Unity Congress (BUC), came to control every aspect of Area 47’s society.  It distributed medicines to the people, portraying them as nutritional supplements designed to stave off hunger and deliver synthesized nutrients as a food substitute.  With internal peace secured, the BUC mobilized Area 47’s population to fight the Grimm that remained outside the installation’s mountain walls.  Through much sacrifice, the Grimm were pushed back, and the BUC was able to create out a small, fortified domain amidst the multitudes of destroyed and deserted settlements that surrounded the eastern relay station.

        The BUC quickly re-ordered society according to its vision of a structured, industrious, and harmonious society.  Renaming Area 47 “Bergenstahl,” after the region’s informal name, the BUC reorganized the collection of competing guilds and unions into a system of rigid, super-stratified pseudo-castes that emphasized order, hierarchy, and control.  The BUC then sought to reconnect with the rest of the world, using the slow airship and nautical ship travel to contact the Kingdoms after the loss of the eastern relay station.

         By the time, Bergenstahl reestablished contact with the world’s powers on the other continents, it had completely relapsed into a totalitarian society as a means of ensuring order and stability in the face of the ever-present Grimm threat.  While many denounced Bergenstahl for its choice of social structure, it was nonetheless apparent that its defensively-militarized existence secured from the Grimm the eastern flank of the still-surviving communities centered around the western CCT relay station.  Though whispers abounded that Atlas wished to launch a campaign to reclaim the eastern CCT relay station while at the same time conquering and de-establishing Bergenstahl, purging the last known vestiges of the Regime from Remnant, Atlas’s difficulty in reclaiming the neighboring CCT station on its own continent meant that any such plans never materialized.  With further crises elsewhere in Remnant, such as the Faunus Rights Revolution, Bergenstahl, which had since elected to close itself off from the rest of Remnant except to engage in some international trade, faded into obscurity far from the public eye of other nations and became little more than the occasional political boogeyman used to rally people against any perceived sign, real or fabricated, of a resurgent conformist movement.



Government
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        Bergenstahl is best described as an oligarchic meritocratic dictatorship structured as a federation of worker unions, guilds, and bureaus, formally called “Abteilungs.”  Government power is based around the 10 Abteilungs. 
        The leaders of each Abteilung together form an executive body, called “the Directory,” that wields near-absolute authority over all of Bergenstahl’s affairs.  The Directory is a council of equals, and as such, there is no formal hierarchy within it, with only informal hierarchies of personality, political acumen, and exercisable power existing.
        Each Abteilung manages its own affairs, and within the bounds of general Bergenstahlen law, each Abteilung regulates how the Bergenstahlens affiliated with it conduct business.  The Abteilungs are independent of one another, except where the Directory mandates otherwise.
        The Abteilungs’ leadership structure varies from Abteilung to Abteilung, but generally, leadership is chosen through both a direct and indirect democracy in which lower-level members directly elect mid-level members, who then directly elect upper-level members.

        Outside the formal government structure is Bergenstahl’s single political party - the Bergenstahl Unity Congress.  Representatives elected from all levels of society and from all Abteilungs represent the interests of their constituencies at BUC events.  As Bergenstahl’s sole party, the totalitarian BUC is all-encompassing and omnipresent in its power.  At the top of the party hierarchy is the Standing Committee, which comprises of the Premier, Vice-Premier, and General-Secretary, and four others.  These seven party members determine the overall direction of the party and its objectives. 
        The party creates a network of contacts and method of alliance-building that affects the official government structure and helps bridge the Abteilungs.  Indeed, many of the leading members of Bergenstahl’s Abteilungs are also leading members of the party.  Because the Directory’s members are officially all of equal standing, party ranking particularly helps determine the hierarchy of the Direktorium members.
        Officially, the BUC does not control any government institution, but this varies with institution.  For example, the propaganda and academia Abteilungs tends to be dominated by the BUC while the military, mining, and manufacturing Abteilungs tend to passively resist BUC control, with the military even having a tradition of autonomy from the party apparatus.


Social Structure
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        Just as Bergentahl’s government is based on the Abteilung system, the city’s social structure is also built around the Abteilung system.  In this regard, the Abteilung system is a meritocratic hyper-stratified pseudo-caste system that sorts citizens by skillset, temperament, and type of contribution to society.  The sorting is done via a rigorous examination administered after completion of schooling at the age of 21, factoring in the citizen’s performance on the actual examination as well as school performance.
        Each Abteilung is divided into 5 cohorts, with each cohort being subdivided into 5 standard ratings and 1 special political rating.  The cohorts and ratings form a social ladder into which citizen has a place based on his/her performance and contribution to society.  The Abteilung caste system is so omnipresent in daily life that a Bergenstahlen citizen’s political affiliation, career aspirations, social status, and social relations are all one in the same and defined by the Abteilung caste system.
        Despite technically being a classless society, Bergenstahlen society can be roughly divided into four broad groups: the upper class (the first two cohorts), the middle class (the middle cohort), the lower class (the last two cohorts), and the Unwelcome (refugee non-citizens).  In Bergenstahl, one’s rank means everything, so it is extremely uncommon, almost taboo, for individuals between social classes to associate in a non-professional setting
        However, unlike in a true caste system, citizens are allowed to move between Abteilungs, through ludicrously difficult aptitude tests, and up and down the social ladder within an Abteilung, through increased performance according to the various standards of each Abteilung.  Furthermore, a person’s ranking and caste have absolutely no bearing on his/her child’s future ranking and caste, as all children are collectively raised by the state away from their families, and are left to achieve solely on his or her own merits.
        While the majority of people in Bergenstahl are human, there is a sizeable Faunus population.  The Faunus are fully integrated into society, as Bergenstahl is a post-racial society with a single classification type: citizen vs. non-citizen.  As long as a person is willing to contribute and dedicate him/herself to the wellbeing of the state, all are equally welcome.


Culture
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        While the official culture promoted by the government’s propaganda apparatus is one of unity, community, perseverance, self-improvement, and self-sacrifice, in reality there are three distinct major cultures in Bergenstahl.
        The first culture is that belonging to the overwhelming majority of citizens, namely those of the bottom three cohorts.  Of the three culture systems, this is the one most similar to the culture promoted by the government and is based on the notion that the original colonists of Area 47 needed to selflessly unite in order to form a community strong enough to endure the harsh environment and frequent Grimm attacks.  Emphasizing meritocracy, conformity, and social harmony, this culture teaches citizens to be industrious and obedient followers of the ostensibly infallible social hierarchy.  Furthermore, emotion is reviled as dangerous subversives to mankind’s rationality and logical perfection, both making mankind weak and allowing them to be preyed upon by the dark creatures of Grimm.  Individuals are treated as mere instances of the great societal machine, and with the help of the powerful emotion-suppressing ReinenGeist drugs, the suppression of emotion and individualism grinds citizens into utterly faceless anonymity.  As long as one abides by the chain of command and performs well in his allotted place, he/she will advance in society. 
        The second culture is the culture of the upper class.  Though not explicitly endorsing individualism, culture here emphasizes personal ambition and constant self-improvement.  Citizens in this culture are not required to use ReinenGeist and are taught to be utterly single-minded and relentless in their attempt to climb the social hierarchy.  While in the lower classes, perfection is a state to be maintained, in the upper class culture, perfection is an endless journey.  This culture originates from the notion that the original colonists of Area 47 more than just survived their terrible conditions, but instead refused to bow their heads and thrived, overcoming adversity with the furious wrath of a mortal eternally defiant against cruel and capricious gods.  Taking this lesson to heart, the citizens have embraced a sort of extreme Social Darwinism and made Realpolitiks the name of the game, turning the upper-class in a snake pit filled with hyper-ambitious perfectionists constantly seeking to outdo one another and with no qualms about betraying each other.
        The third culture is not precisely a Bergenstahlen culture, as it is the one embraced by of the Unwelcome refugee-non-citizens who dwell in the hinterlands between the massive hives-towers and beyond the inner wall.  Cut off from mainstream Bergenstahlen society, the refugees, looked down upon by Bergenstahlens as the freeloading, lazy vermin of the earth, hold on to their original cultures.  Cherishing their individualism, they look to their family and friends as the source of their strength and attempt to survive knowing that such personal relationships will always be there for them to fall back on.
        Nonetheless, Bergenstahl’s state of almost perpetual total war against the Grimm somewhat unites the three cultures.  People in Bergenstahl are grim and lacking in humor.  Taking nothing for granted, they are stoic and always conscious of the possibility that the city-state may fall as Grimm finally breach its defenses.  Bergenstahlens dismiss both past traditions as unnecessary anchors and grand overarching visions of the future as fragile luxuries that almost always shatter when confronted with harsh reality.  Focusing on realism and practicality, they are self-reliant and place a premium on empiricism, though not to the degree that it precludes deductive and inductive reasoning. 
        Even with this bleak and cynical rationalism, occasionally, small threads of unreasoned hope shine through in individuals on a personal level, suggesting that for all the strength of the emotion drugs and the government’s/party’s monolithic totalitarianism, in at least some, a flicker of mankind’s original innocent spirit remains.


ReinenGeist and IEx7
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        ReinenGeist is a family of powerful psychotropic drugs that is used by the majority of Bergenstahlen citizens and firmly binds them to the austere culture advocated by the BUC.  Developing upon the minor psychotropic effects of the original health supplements and drugs distributed by the BUC shortly after the Guild Wars, Reinen Geist and its derivations are notable for suppressing select neuroreceptors and neurotransmitters, thus subduing most emotions while possibly amplifying others.  For the most part, emotions described as contributing to social and interpersonal discord are abolished, allowing for a more harmonious, obedient society.  This also has the effect of reducing Bergenstahl’s negative emotion signature, making it appear less as a beacon of such emotion to Grimm than a city of its size would otherwise appear.
        Unfortunately, because individuality is heavily tied to one’s emotional health, ReinenGeist has the secondary effect of suppressing semblances - the expression of one’s soul and individuality - to the point of their existence being almost completely forgotten among the lower classes.  However, the erasure of individuality via ReinenGeist creates a sort of emotional tabula rasa from which the government constructs its value systems and emotional cues as a sort of model for the emotionally blank citizens to follow.  With emotional brainwashing, artificial semblances can develop, giving Bergenstahl’s leadership a measure of control into the otherwise random or genetically-passed semblances of the city’s citizens.

        IEx7 is another family of biochemicals derived from the original health supplements and drugs.  However, unlike ReinenGeist, IEx7 focuses on the user’s physical performance.  Rarely consumed by the general public, IEx7 enhances the production of certain hormones and provides more effective oxygen-binding proteins as well electron receptors for use in anaerobic respiration, among other metabolic functions, making it well-suited for citizens working in more physical labor-intensive and dangerous jobs.  Furthermore, the Aleph variant is notable for containing the stabilizer agents necessary for the function of a number of synthetic stimulants including the military Abteilung’s specialized ReinenGeist derivative, and is particularly essential for the function of the aggression enhancers used by the professional soldiers.


Military
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        Bergenstahl is a militarized state, primarily due to its history and development as an industrial fortress city.  The military can be broadly divided into three groups: the conscripted forces, the professional forces, and the “Jäger" Korps.
        The conscripted forces make up the overwhelming bulk of the military and is formed from Bergenstahlens completing their 3 years of mandatory military service before they officially become adult citizens.  Such soldiers are Bergenstahl’s first and last line of defense against the Grimm.  Though sufficiently trained, conscripted forces lack the expertise of their more professional comrades and rely on both numbers and supporting combat automata to defeat Grimm by drowning them with the sheer volume of their fire.
        The professional forces, as their name suggests, are soldiers who completed their mandatory military service and opted to serve again, joining the military Abteilung as permanent members, even after retirement.  Due to its professional nature, the professional contingents are small but are given much more intense training.  Filling the role of shock troops, they learn advanced military tactics and strategy and are given aura training, namely in aura shield, heightened senses, and endurance techniques.  Furthermore, they regularly undergo ideological indoctrination and use psychotropic drugs and synthetic stimulants.  In particular, the Kämpfer soldiers take a ReinenGeist variation synthesized to quell their emotions in combat and solidify adherence to the command chain.  The heavily-altered IEx7 Aleph derivation they use improves metabolic functions in the body, with a further variation being used prior to entering combat to stimulate the adrenal glands and other steroid functions.  Combined, IEx7 keeps the soldiers in an enhanced fight-or-flight stress response frame of mind while ReinenGeist ensures the response is limited to purely “fight,” with no consideration of flight.  Under the exhortations of these stimulants, Kämpfer soldier are reliable soldiers and fanatically loyal and vicious warriors.
        The last distinctive group of soldiers in the Bergenstahlen military is known as the “Jäger Korps.”  Fulfilling the role of hunters in other nations, the Jäger Korps epitomize the total-war approach the Bergenstahlens have taken to fighting the Grimm.  Jägers display particular aptitude in using aura and semblances and are given training to develop these skills even further.  Tasked with leading military assaults on specific objectives in Grimm-held territory, Jägers, are given more latitude and are treated like special operations forces, with teams based on personal compatibility.  This suits their secondary purpose - that of the Bergenstahlen military's manhunters and assassins.  In this capacity, they are akin to the field operations division of military intelligence, and it is this secondary purpose that in recent years has become the more frequent purpose for the Bergenstahlen “Jäger" Korps.


Technology
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        Due to the volcanic and tectonic activity in the Bergenstahl region, the city-state relies very heavily on geothermal energy.  This is supplemented by some wind farms that take advantage of the windy cold desert climate, but the maintenance costs of wind farms, especially considering the frequency of artificially induced chemical rain and sleet around Bergenstahl, make wind power much less attractive than geothermal energy.
        Beyond that, Bergenstahl can be described as in the middle in the road as far as technological advancement goes - advanced in some areas, and underdeveloped and backwards in others.  Due to the city’s history, mining, metallurgical, materials science, and industrial operations optimization technology is advanced.  Similarly, advancements in chemistry, fed by the demand for more efficient chemicals to aid industrial production is also advanced.  The need for increasing the city’s limited crop yield and agricultural output led to advancements in biochemicals, particularly resulting in many strains of genetically-modified crops and biological supplements.
       In contrast to its highly developed technologies stemming from heavy industry, Bergenstahl’s technology falls behind in areas of light technology, particularly with regards to consumer electronics and household goods.  Given the austere preferences that arise from Bergenstahl’s almost-constant state of intense war (with the Grimm), the city-state tends to neglect development in such areas in favor of technologies that would provide tangible, immediate benefits towards the survival of the community.


Industry, Trade, and Economy
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        Bergenstahl features a communist command economy, with virtually all of its industries, capital, and means of production being state owned, guaranteeing that in times of emergency, the government can muster whatever resources it needs to ensure the city’s survival.  In furtherance of this, Bergenstahl maintains its own monetary system that is completely isolated from the world currency market, ensuring that the BUC maintains complete control over monetary policy.  All points of exchange between Bergenstahl’s own currency and foreign currencies are closely mediated by Die Eisenbank, a state-owned bank that is tasked with specifically dealing with international trade accounts
        Owing to its roots as a mining facility, Bergenstahl’s primary industries are mining, metal production, and heavy industry.  As a byproduct on the city’s focus on heavy industry, Bergenstahl’s chemical industry is also rather developed.
        Because of the ecology of Bergenstahl, the city-state’s agriculture industry is comparatively weak.  Nonetheless, agriculture is considered particularly important to the city because of Bergenstahl’s history of vulnerability to food shortages.  Using every resource and technology available, Bergenstahl boosts its weak agricultural output through highly-controlled agri-vaults, bio-engineered crops, and extensive chemical fertilizers.  Even then, Bergenstahl relies on international trade to supplement domestic food production.
       With regards to international trade, one of Bergenstahl’s few area of participation in the international community, the majority of trade is between Bergenstahl and the still-surviving settlements on the Dragon Isles.  In particular, because of Bergensthal’s limited naval capability and the paramount importance placed on securing the city-state’s food supplies, most imported foodstuffs come from the continent’s western region.  Most non-food imports, such as various personal goods and luxuries, come from overseas, passing through Port Sector.
       Furthermore, Die Eisenbank has an office in each of the four kingdoms, and from these overseas offices, it engages in more traditional investment banking activities, such as providing corporate loans and underwriting securities.  The bank, reflecting its country of origin, has a reputation as being cold, methodical, and impersonal in its approach to business.  With decisionmaking dictated purely by esoteric risk analysis algorithms, the bank is unyielding in its enforcement of debt covenants and unforgiving in collection.  However, because Die Eisenbank is state-owned, it offers a particularly deep capital pool, compared to private banks, making it attractive to clients who do not want to have to deal with creditor consortiums to finance ambitious projects.


« Last Edit: August 07, 2017, 03:43:56 AM by FunkyMonkey »

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Re: The Republic of Bergenstahl
« Reply #1 on: October 02, 2016, 03:50:41 PM »
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Re: The Republic of Bergenstahl
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2016, 03:50:52 PM »
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Re: The Republic of Bergenstahl
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2016, 03:51:03 PM »
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Re: The Republic of Bergenstahl
« Reply #4 on: October 02, 2016, 03:51:14 PM »
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Re: The Republic of Bergenstahl
« Reply #5 on: October 02, 2016, 03:51:29 PM »
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Re: The Republic of Bergenstahl
« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2016, 05:23:10 PM »
You know what's fun? Proving Gus wrong.

Quote from: IRC
[04:56:07] <@Vox_> Gus.
[04:56:13] <@Vox_> I'm going to review Burgerstand.
[04:56:37] <@DrGustave> I don't believe you're telling the truth
[04:56:43] <@Vox_> I'm going to Voxreview it. Not because it's stupid enough for a Voxreview. Because I'm going to make you READ the Voxreview, which will only point out potential problems.
[04:56:56] <@Vox_> And hopefully there will be enough pictures for your short attention span.
[04:57:05] <@DrGustave> I don't believe that will come to fruition



Quote
Toxic runoff from the city’s industrial facilities, as well as particulates left from weapons testing pollute and scar the land, creating a hostile environment in which strange and fierce creatures prey upon one another relentlessly.

Following up from later...

Quote
The First utilizes any and every weapon available to them, including exotic chemicals, radioactive munitions, and complex dust derivatives.



Quote from: IRC
[04:50:23] <@DrGustave> But the devil is always in the details

[04:51:00] <+FunkyMonkey4> do I look like the kind of guy that would stick devil in the details
[04:51:04] <+FunkyMonkey4> do I look like a Vox to you

[04:51:02] <+Kellenredx> Hidden in there is probably "Has millions of nuclear weapons to use"



Oh, not millions, but you've pretty much snuck in the details to hint at nuclear weapons.



Your swipe at me was also noted, and means I get to avoid being NICE about this.

Voxreview the whole thing? Don't be silly.



The not-nice option is handing things back to Gus.



And one last image for the sake of Gus's attention span.