Hermitage Island Fellowship
The Hermitage Island Fellowship (HIF), also known simply as the Hermitage Islands or the Fellowship, is a small nation comprised of several independent Rostran city-states located in Western B cube, each claiming an individual natural or artificial island system at its home territory.
Demography and Population
The Hermitage Island Fellowship is overwhelmingly Rostran (specifically Low Rostran) and Civil Ovinex in ethnicity, though a few rare High Rostrans have chosen to emigrate from the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy to the Hermitage Islands. The relative isolation imposed upon the Hermitage Islands by the deep waters of the Western Tesseract means that few other people have the opportunity to visit the nation.
Military
The Hermitage Islands lack their own centralized military force, instead relying on their strong alliance with the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy for foreign defense. The relative dearth of open commissures and the might of the RACMF across the inflection layer are strong deterrents against foreign adventurism in either direction. Small island militias handle local defense, though these are typically not well-equipped enough to repel modern military threats. Some communities hire mercenaries or even consort with Avarix Corps branches in the region to further protect their interests.
Technological Level
Most of the Hermitage Islands' technology is imported from the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy, though some has been quietly stolen from visiting Navigator's Guild and Manifold Conservation Society craft. The only area of technological expertise where the Hermitage Island Fellowship excels compared to other powers within the Manifold is in the construction and upkeep of floating cities; while advanced in terms of aquaponics and aquaculture in general, the HIF lacks the advanced educational infrastructure to surpass the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy in this area of science.
Foreign Relations
Being of a somewhat isolationist bent, the Hermitage Island Fellowship possesses little in the way of ongoing foreign relations with powers other than the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy. Occasional visits by researches from the Manifold Conservation Society, Cobalt Rostran resource-gathering missions, and well-concealed arrangements with the Avarix Corps represent the few contacts that the HIF has with the outside world. While the leaders of the HIF prefer the status quo in this regard, this limited exposure to other nations within the Manifold has left most residents of the nation with a skewed perception of humans and verdials, leading to open disdain and hostility amongst the public for the cultures of these other humanoid species. Outsiders often perceive Hermitage Islanders to be arrogant, insular, and callous towards anyone not of their idyllic island homes.
Laws
The Hermitage Island Fellowship has a political system strongly influenced by traditional Low Rostran values. A relative lack of social pressure from the outside means that - for better or for worse - the greatest extremes of Low Rostran culture are made manifest in the laws of the Fellowship islands.
Certain taboos relating to conduct at sea (i.e. the treatment of bodies to prevent the creation of Ixulova Tun) are codified into law, as the HIF is a nearly entirely seaborne culture. Stippling cages were never formally abolished as punishments for crimes not rising to the level of execution, occupying a space in Fellowship jurisprudence analagous to that of the Voxelian practice of punitive spectacles. A period of all-encompassing public servitude can be imposed in lieu of a stay in the brig, and a combination of high maximum sentences and nepotistic connections within the state can result in conditions for convicts amounting to state slavery or press-ganging. The municipality of Still Atoll is infamous for applying these punishments in great length to crimes as simple as tresspassing, creating a massive underclass of de-facto slaves.
As a collection of island and semi-itinerant flotilla municipalities, the Hermitage Island Fellowship has a very business- and trade-friendly legal system. Tariffs are comparatively low and trade in most goods faces little to no regulation. The law of the Fellowship treats no material as strategic, no substance as illegal, and no good as more liable to tax or duty than any other. The one exception is with regard to hazardous materials, such as explosives and toxic gasses; the law requires permits to handle them and appropriate cargo bullseyes to be applied to the package and any vessels involved in the movement. Local governments may impose their own regulations above and beyond those of the state, but are often constrained by a desire to attract business. For these reasons, the Fellowship is regarded as a tax haven and smuggler's paradise by outside observers, such as the Petalcap Vale Customs Authority, but enjoys an outsized influence on the Manifold Sky economy despite its geographical isolation.
Trade & Transport
The HIF has extensive nautical trade networks for the direct exchange of commodities. The Western B/Rostral C skystation is primarily a trade hub, though it also serves a weather forecasting and inter-tesseract communications role. Ports in and around Fellowship territory are taxed and regulated but little (see Laws) and are often used to get goods (legitimate or otherwise) into MartMart International's trade network.
Infrastructure
In the parts of Western B where no landmasses exist to support Rostran habitation, large sea-going vessels known as ship-districts are attached to one another and anchored in shallows to create floating cities. Water treatment and distillation is handled by massive solar stills, which use the power of solar heat to "sweat" seawater into its constituent freshwater and minerals, though rain water collection is also a large contributor to freshwater reserves. In shallow regions of the cube, artificial shoals have been constructed to provide additional living and growing areas, providing habitats for mangroves. Commissure transit stations to Western C, E, and G are being constructed underwater in HIF territory in the hopes that these state-controlled waystations will open new and lucrative trade opportunities in the adjacent cubes.
Founding Date
9898 AR
Type
Political, Confederation
Alternative Names
Hermitage Islands
Predecessor Organization
Demonym
Hermitage Islander, Hermit
Government System
Tribalism
Power Structure
Thalassocracy
Economic System
Market economy
Currency
The Hermitage Islands use the Rostran Sea Ducat, though Navigator's Guild Credits are also accepted everywhere.
Major Exports
The Hermitage Islands are large-scale exporters of fish and other aquacultural products, such as seaweed and various unique vegetable species from the ocean floor. The only notable mineral export from the HIF is salt, which is removed from volumes of seawater via the "still islands": solar stills built to cover small atolls with dammed inlets or aboard specialized ship-districts in floating cities. Still Atoll is the largest and most notable of these still islands, but the use of forced labor (see Laws) and brutal working conditions harm that island's reputation, often requiring salt from Still Atoll be passed through shell companies for sale in ethics-conscious foreign markets.
Major Imports
As the Western B cube is limited in terms of dry land, with all the mineral and agricultural products attendant thereto, the Hermitage Island Fellowship imports large amounts of lumber, glass, metals, and fruit from the adjacent Rostran Archipelago Confederacy.
Legislative Body
Every year, on the equinoxes and solstices, the chiefs of the various islands join the decks of their state-issue presidential ocean liners to create a temporary Floatilla of State in neutral waters, where long-term legislative issues are handled. In situations where urgent action is needed, however, this tradition is abandoned in favor of RadNet communication, with secretaries encrypting the words of each representative chief so that foreign agents in local airspace cannot listen in without great difficulty.
Judicial Body
Each member city-state has it's own law enforcement and judicial branches, with trials usually settled via a jury and panel of judges established in a public forum.
Official State Religion
Location
Official Languages
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
Related Ethnicities
Comments