Licentia

Licentia is a confederation of mostly-autonomous communes with a structure based upon some combination of anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism. Originally founded by Zero, it was designed to provide a safe refuge for infected and build a more just world, although it does have a small minority of non-infected members.

Structure

Licentia is the name of the overall body connecting the communes that Zero (and more recently, others) have founded. It is designed to be as decentralized as possible.

Affiliate: Any individual who is a "member" of Licentia. Becoming one of these is relatively simple, but except in emergency situations with a huge influx of new members, there is a vetting process. Drug convictions are generally ignored, but those with convictions for murder, domestic violence, or hate crimes are almost always turned away.

Voters: Any affiliate who can vote. Note that this is a very literal "ability" as someone's right to vote cannot be taken away as a punishment. Voters and affiliates have the same rights and voters may be assigned to vote in a group of affiliates interest (for example, a parent voting on behalf of her younger children). The minimum voting age in Licentia is 16. New affiliates, or people moving to other neighborhoods, must reside in their new neighborhood for three months prior to becoming voters unless "at large" (living off-site), a rule in place to prevent moving in order to swing a vote.

Neighborhood: A group of affiliates that live in the general vicinity of some portion of a commune. Neighborhoods usually have less than 500 members, because they vote in a group. Neighborhoods technically hold the most governing power and can declare themselves alcohol-free, single gender, non-smoking, etc. Most communes have at least one "at large" neighborhood that is made up of people who are affiliated with a commune but do not live on site. Each neighborhood can put forward a directly elected delegate to represent them in a commune-wide governing system, if there is one, and these delegates can be recalled at any time.

Committee: An elected (or less commonly, appointed) group of specialists who work on a commune-level to handle specialized tasks, such as developing an education system, maintaining the electrical grid, handling finances, planning for sustainable growth, etc. As with delegates, committee members can be recalled. The line between some committees and some workers is blurred, but generally speaking, committees are generally used for planning for the future rather than day-to-day tasks, and usually have an advisory role instead of actual political power.

Commune: A collection of neighborhoods. Some of these have their own governing body made up of neighborhood delegates. Food and necessities are distributed on a commune scale.

Association: Sometimes closely located communes will work closely together. This is the case with Ap Anish and Taqfleck, as both are located in Southern California and many people who work in Ap Anish live in Taqfleck.

Public Agenda

Officially, Licentia is a "socialist organization guided by anarchist principles." Zero pushes hard for respect for individual liberties and taking care of people regardless of ability to work, even at the cost of giving up the political power she needs to enforce these ideas personally. Indeed, most of Licentia's universal rules are rules designed to limit any possible abuse of power and to keep the entity aligned with socialist values.
Licentia engages in what can best be described as political education and propaganda in order to spread these ideas to affiliates, many of whom are very new to socialist concepts. Licentia has a literature distribution system and a media oversight committee to these ends. With that being said, freedom of speech is valued in Licentia, but it is seen as a responsibility to be taken seriously. One of Licentia's universal rules is that communes must not allow hate speech, nor can they accept affiliates of white nationalist groups unless willing to deradicalize.

Assets

Most of Licentia's assets belong to its member communes, but there are a few exceptions, most notably the military and related assets.
Licentia underwent a massive engineering project to build a desalination plant on California's coast in 2017. This plant is a central asset and provides water to Taqfleck, Ap Anish, and Dibana. Licentia also has a transportation system connecting some of its communes together.

Territories

Technically speaking all land held by Licentia is held by local communes, so Licentia's territory is the territory of its individual members.

Religion

Religious expression is protected speech in Licentia provided it does not become hate speech. Religious organizations wishing to stockpile assets for their exclusive use in excess of $10,000 (as determined by current market value of the closest region outside of Licentia) must be registered and submit monthly reports of the value of their assets.
The stockpiling of food as required of members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints has been a point of debate within Licentia. The current ruling is that members of said church are allowed to stockpile but must do with money earned outside of Licentian economic activity.
As much of Licentia is densely populated, religious exemptions for vaccination is never granted for children attending school, daycare, or assisted living. Those who do not work at/attend school, assisted living, or daycare may be granted exemptions but only if they are a member of a religion with greater than 10,000 members that was founded prior to 1990. These unusually strict rules were passed due to numerous outbreaks in Taqfleck, as many of its members are from regions of Southern California where vaccination rates are low. Religious exemptions from organ/tissue donation are accepted, but such people are also not applicable to receive said donations (unless they are a minor).

Education

There are two forms of education in Licentia.

Standard Schooling

Licentia's Standard Schooling is roughly equivalent to the United States' K-12 education. It is mandatory for children up until the age of 16. The standards used are similar to those used in California public schools, and indeed, Licentia has worked out a deal with California so that those who finish its education program are considered to have a GED.
Efforts are being made to include second and third level education in Standard Schooling, but as a significant number of people want this to be done in a way that one can acquire a degree that is recognized in the workforce outside of Licentia, it is still being organized.

Community Enrichment

Community Enrichment courses do not need to be held against a standard towards attaining a GED that is recognized outside of Licentia. As such, they are much less regulated and much more formal. Those who wish to teach a CE course needs to provide a short "sample" to experts in the field, and upon completing this (designed to stop someone from spreading misinformation either maliciously or accidentally) will have the course promoted via newspapers and Licentient internal webpages/notice boards.
CE classes could be one-off lectures, open-ended forums, yearlong courses, hands-on activities, or online videos. In practice these are usually one-off classes for a specific skill, such as cooking meat safely, and are often run by laborers aimed towards helping new members of Licentia figure out what sort of work they want to get involved in. There is an informal "guild" of educators who provide college-level courses in Licentia, some of which are involved in developing degrees that could become part of Standard Schooling, others more interested in getting a few people together every weekend to yammer on about Marxism for a few hours.

Infrastructure

Most of Licentia's infrastructure is on a local level and owned by its members. However, there is an overarching online directory of its members. Although Zero was originally against such a directory, she was ultimately overruled in favor of efficiency, proper rationing of food in times of shortage, and concerns about public safety.

Founding Date

July 2018

Type

Political, Confederation

Training Level

Trained

Demonym

Licentient (official), Licentian (more commonly used)

Government System

Democracy, Direct

Power Structure

Confederation

Economic System

Mixed economy

Currency

There is no official internal currency, but some regions of Licentia use labor vouchers. When interfacing with other external economies, Licentia will use whatever the local currency for that economy is -- for example, if members of Taqfleck are selling candles in California to raise money for Licentia's fuel costs, that would be done with USD.
People who make money outside of Licentia are subject to a heavy income tax -- usually 65%, but it can vary greatly depending on living circumstances -- which goes towards purchasing the goods it currently needs to stay functional as well as invest towards its goal of being completely independent from capitalist society. Per Licentia's bylaws, 80% of this tax must go into the commune it came from, with the remaining 20% going to communes that are in need of investment or to maintain Licentia's skeletal "government." Generally speaking, affiliates do not earn any sort of salary or labor vouchers, although communes/Licentia occasionally hires independent contractors for specialized work it cannot do in-house.
Some communes produce their own goods, which are usually traded externally to fill that commune's financial resources, or to Worldforge in exchange for other goods and investment.

Major Imports

Licentia attempts to vertically control production as much as possible, with the ultimate goal of becoming completely self-sustaining. However, it has not reached this stage yet. Common imports include:

• Paper
• Fuel for military vehicles

Related Ranks & Titles

• Chief Delegate
• Commander of Champions
• Delegate
• subsergeant

Related Professions

• Guards

Controlled Territories

• Aiger
• Ap Anish
• Ap Anish Exotic Animal Refuge
• Ass-Faced Monkfish, Monastery of the
• Dallas Outskirts
• Decen Desal
• Gadsden
• Goldman
• Salthill
• Salvo
• Seaview Hotel
• Taqfleck

Organization Vehicles

• Tramfleck

Notable Members

• Bao
• Cipher
• Erin Turner
• Ethan
• Jang-mi Kang
• Jang-mi Kang the Elder
• Jellylegs
• Kelly
• Kuneho
• Perla
• Priscilla
• Shithead
• Tanya
• Tyler
• Watchdog
• William