Zamastan

Imperial Republic of Zamastan Zamah St'an
Flag of Zamastan Flag
Motto: Long Live the Republic
Anthem: Ode to the Mount
Capital	Tofino
Official languages	English, French, Spanish, Native Zamah St’an
Recognised national languages	English
Ethnic groups (2016)	43% Skithan-Zamastan 37% English-Zamastan 15% Black 5% Other
Demonym(s)	Zamastanian
Government	Democratic Republic
• President	Zacharias Castovia
Establishment
• Republic of Zamah St’an	1804
• Republic of Zamastan	1844
• Imperial Republic of Zamastan	1911
Area
• Total	359,499 km2 (138,803 sq mi)
Population
• 2016 estimate	102, 300,000
• 2014 census	99,843,038
• Density	277.72/km2 (719.3/sq mi)
HDI (2016)	0.91 very high
Currency	Zamastan ziapet (ZPT)
Date format	mm-dd-yyyy
Driving side	right
Calling code	+225
Internet TLD	.za

The Imperial Republic of Zamastan, simply called Zamastan, is a democratic republic in the International Democratic Union. Zamastan became an important player on the world stage in the 19th and 20th centuries, assisting Allied forces in the Second World War, standing as a capitalist state among a growing communist presence, and as the founding nation of the United Crown Alliance, which at its peak contained 63 nations across the world. The nation has at times also been a member of MUTO and the International Democratic Union before the foundation of the UCA. Events within that alliance caused the leadership of Zamastan to return to the IDU, along with the nations of Vulkaria, Novachronos, Gladysynthia, and Cadair. Zamastan has advanced rapidly in the fields of technology, while maintaining the steady economic gains of mining, logging, and fishing. Zamastan is known for its rich history, stunning natural beauty, and rich living tolerances.

Etymology

Zamastan is pronounced Zah-mah-Stan, and comes from the 16th century Skith words Zaihma St’an, meaning ‘land touching sky’ and ‘extensive shores’. The standard way to refer to a citizen of Zamastan is as a "Zamastanian."

History

Skith Discovery and Colonization

Percy Armillio discovers Zamah St'an

The islands that would come to be known as Zamastan was discovered in 1704 by Percy Armillio, a Skithan national and explorer who stumbled upon the land inadvertently during one of his expeditions on behalf of the Skithan Empire. The Empire was a major world power at the time and was in the process of expanding its imperialist ambitions to the New World where they had already established multiple colonies in the Pacific Ocean. When he came across the previously unknown landmass, Armillio's intended destination had been Doris, another island in the Pacific located south of Zamastan, which the Skithan had already begun colonizing some five years previously. Aboard his ship traveling with him were a crew of approximately 100 men brought along to assist Armillio upon landing in Doris as well as an additional hundred African slaves. The captive African men were sent over from the Skithan mainland with the intended task of performing slave labor to assist in the construction of the colony on Doris.

Slave Labor

Upon reaching this island and immediately realizing it was not his intended destination, Armillio became curious and ordered all crew to round up the captives and disembark the vessel with him as they set out on a brief exploration of the land. About fifty men accompanied Armillio as rudimentary maps were drawn up as accurately as possible while the other fifty held the slave laborers at gunpoint and ordered them to begin collecting any resources available. Cranberry and strawberry bushes, rocks embedded with iron and silver vessels, and wheat parses were just some of the commodities that were gathered and hauled back to the ship day after day after day. The Africans captives performing these tasks were sometimes not fed for weeks and when they were, extremely small portions were all the Skithan afforded them. They were given water on such a frequency so as to just barely keep them from becoming too dehydrated to perform the constant, back-breaking labor they were subjected to. Conditions were miserable and desperate; on occasion the slaves would be made to fight one another to the death by their captors with the winner receiving a minuscule amount of extra food or water. The Skithan found these "slave fights" entertaining and would make wagers among themselves as to who would win. Sometimes even the victor, after being coerced into killing one of his own with the promise of a slightly fuller stomach, would be denied his "prize" anyway and left to starve just the same.

King Almaraz II of Skith was thrilled to hear Percy Armillio's news of the newly discovered island upon his return to the Empire's mainland. Armillio had returned with significantly less slaves than he had departed with due to countless of them succumbing to either starvation, dehydration, exposure, or just simply being executed by the Skith men for any number of reasons. But what he did bring back was a ship full of valuable commodities gathered from the island, which he requested the King see for himself, going on to inform him that the place was almost completely uninhabited save for small clusters of primitive natives and abundant with a variety of resources that would prove quite profitable to the Empire. It was also said that the location of this new land would give them a larger and more strategic base of operations for their expanding sphere of influence in the Pacific and Western North America. It did not take long for King Almaraz II to begin planning the colonization of Armillio's discovery and within six years by 1710, he had set sail towards Zamastan once again with another, even larger crew this time around. Upon arriving once again, Percy Armillio and his men began searching the island systematically for the native peoples they had caught brief glimpses of on their previous voyage. Upon locating the unsuspecting indigenous tribes, the Skithan would feign friendliness at first, attempting to gain their trust with the intention of luring any additional natives who may have seen the invaders coming from the shore and retreated into the jungles out into the open. Once exposed, the plan was to take the entire population captive and put them to work alongside their long-suffering African laborers; this would exponentially increase the amount of resources that could be harvested and shipped back to Skith. As with the Africans, any of the native islanders who resisted or could not perform the endless labor to the satisfaction of the Skithan were shot without hesitation as were any with disabilities that prevented them from working, as they were seen to be of no usefulness.

Insurections

Throughout the rest of the century, the Skith Empire continued exploiting the indigenous peoples as well as Africans purchased in the slave market, using them at first to harvest the many natural resources the island offered and eventually to begin constructing towns and roads to connect these towns. The laborers themselves were not permitted to reside in the towns they had been forced to build; these were reserved for Skith men and their families as more and more sailed to Zamastan from Skith. King Almaraz II desired the colony to consist of his own countrymen; the plan was to use the natives and Africans to construct the infrastructure for the colony and subsequently to exterminate the entirety of them. This would hypothetically guarantee that the colony would consist solely of pure-blooded Skithan settlers, who were viewed as far superior to the "primitive" natives. Through the late 1700s numerous revolts were attempted by the slaves; the Africans and natives did not necessarily trust one another but realized their chances of freedom were far better if they were united in the effort.

Revolution of 1804 (Zamastan War of Independence)

On July 17th, 1802, an African slave named Tomias Hapson and a Skithan hand master named Avi Taures, who had developed friendships with the slaves he watched over, raided a munitions depot in the primary settlement of Tofino. After a battle that lasted for several hours, over 300 Skithan soldiers and settlers were killed, and the slave army took over the port. Tomias Hapson and Avi Taures recruited several thousand slaves, along with abolitionist white and native colonists, and began a purge in the city to kill all slave owners and Skithan military and colonial personnel. For nearly 11 months, the rebels went on a hunt for colonialists who remained loyal to the crown, and on October 2nd, 1803, a mob killed the mayor and his family while they attempted to reach a departing ship in the port of Maple Bay.

The next week as news reached Skith, King Almaraz had issued an order for Hapson and Taures to be executed by any capable man on the island and announced that a reward of over 50,000 shinnels would be given to anyone able to complete the task. He was well aware of the favorable treatment Taures had been giving to the slave laborers on the colony and had also heard rumors about the makeshift army he was assembling in preparation for a rebellion against the Skith crown. In response to this, the King decided to ship approximately 5,000 more Skithan Army soldiers to the colony with the sole mission of suppressing this rebellion should it come to fruition. At the same time, Tomias Hapson was continuing his campaign to rally up supporters for his cause as tension in Zamah St'an rose to a boiling point.

Capturing the Governor's Residence

On September 3rd, 1804, the Zamastan War of Independence officially marked its turning point with Hapson and a division of about 50 of his loyal soldiers (a diverse group consisting of native Zamah St'an and African slaves as well as national soldiers who shared Taures' ideals) initiating a surprise midnight attack on the Governor's Mansion in the capital of Tofino. Chico Pisano, who was appointed by King Almaraz as his replacement as Governor of the colony, had recently taken up residence there. Hapson and Taures's men, who had come to be known as the National Liberation Front, surrounded the building and strategically made their way towards Pisano's living quarters after breaking their way into the massive residence. Having been provided with substantial weaponry via the many Skithan soldiers who had defected to the NLF, Taures's group of guerilla fighters were surprisingly well-equipped for the operation and even more importantly, most had intense passion for their cause. Not only were the Skithan fighters motivated by the moral disagreements they had with the occupation of Zamastan, but also because it was widely known that soldiers for the Kingdom were not treated much differently than mere peasants back in their homeland. Once they had outlived their usefulness in times of war, they were given lowly jobs back in Skith and given little to no recognition or compensation for risking their lives in the name of their country. Many believed they would be better off assisting Hapson and Taures in their cause and earning the colony its independence, which in turn would create a place where they could create a more desirable society for themselves.

Hapson's decision to conduct the assault on the Governor's Mansion in the middle of the night paid off for the NLF, as they were met with relatively light resistance from Governor Pisano's bodyguards, all of whom were armed and told to be ready for war to break out but were not anticipating the first target to be Governor Pisano. Some were half-asleep as Hapson and his men made their way from hallway to hallway, room to room in search of Pisano; the guards were taken out with very light losses to Hapson's forces with one two of his men sustaining moderate but not life-threatening injuries. Once the NLF team reached Pisano's living quarters and broke the door down after hearing movement inside, they encountered an almost trembling Governor who had managed to arm himself after hearing the commotion throughout the residence. He froze for a moment as he eyed the dozen or so men who stood in his doorway, all with their weapons aimed squarely at him. He made a last-ditch effort to raise his weapon and fire but was gunned down and killed before he was able to fire a single round in their direction.

Skith Abandons the Colonies

Hapson and his men had completed their first major objective; removing the only Skith politician in power in Zamastan and giving their cause the momentum that it needed going forward. Three weeks later, the King of Skith ordered a halt on all shipments and settlement travel to and from the island colonies, and the Free State of Zamah St'an was established on October 28th, 1804 with Tomias Hapson as the de-facto President, Avi Taures as the Chief of Trade and Commerce, and an abolitionist named Henry Tiller as the General of Armed Forces.

Unification of the Colonies

Conquering Neighboring Provinces

Besides the massive construction projects of Tofino and the Maple Canal, Taures' tactics and ambitions also led the way for many brand-new projects. He ordered long stretches of weather-proof roads built, stretching in all directions from Tofino, the lakeside settlement of Emerald, and the southern stretching islands to the port of Point Tarin. This system of highways and bridges led to massive migrations of people to erect new metropolitan areas around Zamastan’s borders. Water canals, sewage systems, and aqueducts were established, bringing fresh water from lakes and mountains and into towns and cities.

Capture of Alanis

Then, military conquests and protective missions were carried out by Henry Tiller and Luis Percia, a man whom President Hapson had met during his rebellion. Percia was a shorter, but bulky man from the northern gulf city of White Rock. The military excursions went into the remaining settlements across the archipelago, such as Alanis in the east. In 1840, Alanis and the surrounding towns struck an agreement with Zamah St'an, joining the nation and stretching its borders to two shores, the Pacific on the West, South, and East.

In the northern island conglomeration, an area that the Skith Empire had steered away from colonizing due to dense forest and swamp-like biomes, fishing settlements were seldom crossed through and only settled by a few ten thousand families. For the extensive and prospective promise of trading and military posts, President Hapson ordered Tiller and Percia to annex the northern islands. By 1842, Zamah St'an had gained control of the whole archepeligo, with road systems leading extensively from the capital of Tofino, to the eastern coastal city of Providence, to the northernmost settlement of Tarial.

Tomias Hapson

Building of the Maple Canal

In 1804, Chief of Trade Taures authorized the building a canal and Augusto Yago Rivera, a Skith national who had overseen such projects in his homeland in the past, was set to take the lead on the ambitious endeavor. Prior to this time, any ships heading to Zamastan from across the Pacific had to navigate their way around the island to reach the main port cities, the most important of these being Arinals, one of the first towns built on the island as well as the colony's main economic hub. Arinals was located on the southern coast; this canal would allow trade vessels to sail straight through the island rather than traveling around it, and this would significantly save both resources and time. Thus, upon arriving in Zamastan, Augusto Yago Rivera was provided with hundreds of workers from the Chief of Trade and under his direction they began work on what would become known as the Maple Canal upon its completion in 1821.

Foreign Relations

With the newly completed Maple Canal providing easier access to the main port in Arinals, trading of Zamastan's goods and resources became an even more lucrative industry, boosting the already powerful Empire's global influence. With Zamastan itself becoming more and more populated with towns, roads, and other crucial infrastructure, King Almaraz II decided to send one of his most loyal men, Benito Franco, as Ambassador of the country. Franco was the son of a native Zamastan mother and a Skith father who happened to be of relation to Almaraz, having been conceived during the forced reproduction program instituted by the King years before. He had been born in the colony and had been loyal to Skith interests on the island for his entire life, thus earning the trust of respect of both the King and other top officials across the Pacific colonies. He was given the title of Ambassador in 1837 and the position placed the reestablishment of relationships with Zamastan, allowing for an economic boom in the young nation.

Assassination

On October 28th, 1844, President Hapson and members of his cabinet arrived by carriage at the capital house in Tofino. A crowd of onlookers surrounded the convoy as they pulled to the steps but were quickly pushed back to the sides by National Guardsmen. As Tomias Hapson stepped out of the carriage, he decided to stop and shake hands in the crowd to the right of the pathway. After about twenty seconds of greeting the masses, a man stepped forward and extended his hand to fire a pistol seven times into Hapson's chest and neck. As the president collapsed and guards and bystanders alike tackled the gunman, chaos ensued and the crowd began to run in a stampede. The president was rushed inside the capital house, where he was attended to by the house surgeon. However, the president had bled out on the short rush up the steps from the place he was shot and was pronounced dead at 1:29 PM. The assassin, a man named Reginald Isser had been crushed to death in the stampede, along with another 14 bystanders and a guardsman. Notes found in his rundown neighborhood home gave details into his motive. Isser had believed that the government of Zamah St'an was approaching that of a dictatorship, with Hapson taking control as a freed slave and staying in power for 40 years. In fact, Hapson's assassination happened to fall on the 40-year anniversary of the founding of Zamah St'an as a nation. In the wake of the killing, Avi Taures took the position of President. A month of national mourning was put into effect.

Constitution

Though the nation mourned for the death of their leader, the new and hastily created administration under President Taures decided to draft an official documented constitution to outline governing processes in order to avoid a totalitarian government. In 1845, almost one year after Taures took office, the official Constitution of Zamah St'an was published. Among other things, it highlighted basic rights given to citizens, the formation of government, the length between presidential elections (which would be held every two years), and the formation of law setting standards for the newly established Congress and Senate.

The first National elections were held on September 22nd, 1846 across Zamah St'an. Of the roughly 16 million citizens who voted across the country, more than 12 million chose for Avi Taures to reinstate a second term as president, and local governments were also established by the elections. An interesting event also took place: the referendum to simplify the nation's name from the traditional Zamah St'an to Zamastan. This moment was considered the beginning of democracy in the country.