Aetree IV

Aetree IV is the host to one of the less notable member-states of the Gallente Federation. It is located in the low security portion of Sinq Laison. Aetree IV's largest population centre is the Delta city of Voxam, and many use the planet name and the city name interchangeably, though this is not strictly accurate.

Geography, Climate, Biome

The city of Voxam is divided unevenly in half between swamp and marsh, with small sections of mire dotting between the two; the North, North-East, Centre, and North-West portions of Voxam are overwhelmingly marshlands, whereas the South-West and South portion is swamp. A river bisects the city at an angle, going from North West to South. An ocean borders the Eastern edge of the city.

The marshlands tend to be chilly, with sparse bushes, much standing water, bio-luminescent algae, and the occasional megawillow. It rains frequently; fog is not uncommon. The temperature varies widely during the year; the wind is strong, and tends to stay at 8 meters per second; and the nights tend to be below freezing. The water depth varies from 39 to 182 cm in the wet months. The marshes support low-growing plants like grasses and sedges. Many inhabitants fish in the waters to supplement their diet. Turtles are not protected by local legislation, but few residents capture them or consume them. Birds, frogs, opossums, deer, and muskrats who run wild are not so lucky.

The swamplands tend to be hot, humid, and buggy. Here many trees rise from tepid pools and moss and glowing algae cover standing water. While glowing algae is a unifying commonality between all of Voxam districts, it's especially thick in the swamp districts. At night, the light pollution in this district from the algae (referred to as camak,) is such that it obscures more distant stars in the sky. Camak doubles as Voxam's main source of sustenance: while it is considered bland, it holds almost all the nutrients an average adult needs in almost perfect proportions, so many native recipes include it in some way or another. Algae "flour" is a popular ingredient. Camak is not found as abundantly in other climates and biomes on Aetree IV, if at all.

The Undercity

The city of Voxam, as it is located on marsh and swamp lands, has a history of sinking into the mud. There is no confirmed date for when this phenomenon started, but no architecture has ever been built on proper foundation, so it is possible that the city has been sinking since its first settlers. Not much is known about the city under the city, as it is notoriously dangerous to navigate and prone to collapsing. Inspection of higher levels suggests that structures have been continually built upon as they have sunk into the mud, though Outercity academics engage in active debate regarding that possibility or the possibility that topside Innercity huts are only the tips of massive preexisting superstructures. Estimations for the Undercity depth start at 1 kilometer, and no known expedition has embarked yet.

Governance

Information about Voxam's governmental structure is hard to obtain, as all but one of Voxam's public organs are on a strictly paper-based recording system. The best public Federal assessment suggests that Voxam is a formal combination of ochlocracy, noocracy, and Xeer, though exactly what is what and which is which is unclear. The age of majority in Voxam is 15.

Three distinct powers are recognised: the mayoral administration, the city council, and the city police.

Voxam Mayoral Administration

The title of mayor is a misnomer and is often a result of poor translation: the title in taradiddle is Wasit, which translates more accurately into arbiter. The position of mayor holds no formal power. The singular responsibility of the mayor is to arbitrate between the city council and the city police, ostensibly on behalf of the masses. Federal public records are unclear as to how a mayor is selected, nor how and when one is dispensed, but the records do note that the amount of mayors who have died to unnatural causes is greatly elevated from public officials in other comparable roles in different member-states.

Voxam City Council

The Voxam City Council, as per Federal public assessments, is most closely understood as a noocracy. When a city council member dies, the city is called to a vote; innercity Voxam has only once been recorded by the Federation at being below 100% turnout for these votes. An elected council member serves a life term, and though there is no nomination process - a campaign is technically open for all, and all candidates are "write ins" - a supermajority of innercity voters select a single candidate. This candidate usually holds some fame in outercity circles for creative achievements.

The Voxam City Council draft and vote on civil and criminal law.

Voxam City Police

The Voxam City Police, led by the Chief of Police, ostensibly enforce the law created by the Voxam City Council. However, in practice, the police as a collective force have the governmentally enshrined power to pick and choose what laws will or won't be enforced as a whole. This gives them a polycentric legal domain shared by the city council and can result in feuds that require mayoral intervention to settle.

As the city of Voxam has no apparent formal judicial system, the powers of sentencing and punishment also fall under the domain of the Voxam City Police. Seniority on the force does not dictate promotions nor job placement, but it is respected informally as a metric of good judgement. Sentencing tends to be more compensatory than punitive and largely determined by precedence. As a result, neither Voxam nor the whole of Aetree IV has a prison.

The Voxam City Police is divided into six major divisions, all headed by a Captain: the Liaisons division, the Patrol division, the Investigative division, the Administrative division, the Forensics division, and Internal Affairs.

The Voxam City Police is by far the largest government institution in Voxam, as well as the most populated, and the most well funded. Employee records estimate that employees of the department constitute 3% of the total Voxam City population.

Federation Relations

Voxam has been a member-state of the Federation since AD 23156, a year after the Gallente-Caldari war had begun. It was a late addition, compared to its neighbours on Aetree VIII who were member-states decades before. Negotiations to join had been ongoing for fifty years, after influential powers belonging to both Aetree IV and Esmes III had seen how Aetree VIII had profited and benefited from their further progressed upliftment process. Mayor Allie Taylor from Voxam was recorded saying, "What's the catch?" to the Esmes III representative from Semes, Esmes III's predominant nation-state, as an aside during the meetings.

The negotiations were hastened at the advent of the war in light of panics inside of major population centres in response to the military occupation. Even so, the State's military occupation of Sinq Laison prevented any Federal intervention. The Aetree and Esmes systems had an information blackout during this period. When the Federation reclaimed the region and these associated regions, the records note that the State's scorched earth campaign and associated raiding parties must have transformed the faces of the planets of these systems, as many population centres were outright missing, the remaining populations were severely diminished, and even some biomes were unrecognisable from their pre-occupation years. Aetree VIII remained as close to its pre-State origins as possible, and Federal records note that much of the technology gained during their upliftment process apparently helped preserve and protect; Aetree IV and Esmes III did not enjoy such advantages. Both systems and their associated member-states welcomed the Federation, and muted celebrations were held. The exact day the Federation retook Aetree is a member-state-wide holiday: February 17.

To this day, while Aetree IV has minimal power and influence on the Federal stage, the local government and the populace appears to feel warmly towards the Federation, and have always cooperated with Federal wishes and requests. The Voxam member-state appears to feel that the Federation is a benevolent saviour according to public speeches by officials and public displays of art.

Esmes III Relations

One of the first benefits the negotations with the Federation netted for Voxam was a spaceport directly in its centre. In the early pre-military-occupation days, the areas around this spaceport were bustling marketplaces. Early traders came from Esmes III, then early immigrants, then whole populations as Esmes III and Aetree IV interbred and intermingled in this central hub. The first diplomatic overtures between Esmes III and Aetree IV were between a Voxam mayor and a Semes priest, who were representing their respective peoples during the Federation negotiations. The pair fell in love, and spent the rest of their lives encouraging an intimate relationship between their peoples. During their services, Federal diplomats and negotiators noted that Semes and Voxam were deliberately altering their governments to match one another. Another Aetree IV holiday on July 22 celebrates the alliance between the two.

After the State military occupation and communications blackout with the Federation, Semes and Voxam appeared to be identical, and lost all of their obviously unique defining characteristics. Culturally, architecturally, governmentally: this led Federal officials at the time to redo all surveys in the area and cross-reference them with old records. The close Esmes III and Aetree IV relationship continued with no disruptions until the Sansha incursion in YC114 which left Esmes III a ghost planet.

Economy

Technology and Upliftment

Federal efforts to uplift Voxam have been largely unsuccessful. Hospitals in Innercity have closed every time after being plagued with low patient counts and high patient mistakes. Public transit efforts have failed; the muddy, unstable nature of the ground has sunk most efforts to create non-cobblestone roads or metros, and higher technology vehicles have found themselves stripped for parts or left unused, without maintenance for so long that they crumble. Outercity boasts the most recent failing effort to create and maintain a public transit system: an underfunded busing system will take a citizen around the Outercity circle, North to South, but the ride is reported to be bumpy and slow. For the moment, a ride is free. Inversely, Egonics Inc. marketing campaigns in Voxam have faced the most resistance from Outercity. Billboards in Outercity were egged, posters were torn down, and vendors were boycotted en mass during a YC114 ad campaign. Egonics Inc. reported massive losses and cancelled their outreach efforts.

Voxam City governmental institutions have often lead Voxam in the adoption of new technology; the Voxam City Police is the most modern of all these institutions, boasting a direct deposit payment system, a force of speeders, and a passable forensics department. Employees of the police department are trained to use computers and information technologies, even if the training will surpass what the department has available on a daily basis. The Voxam City Council is in talks to install a helicopter system for the Voxam City Police, according to offworld contractors.

Currency

The official Voxam Planetary Credit are three centimeter by three centimeter embroidered cloth squares. These cloths are made from clothing-grade material, and so they are prone to staining and degradation. This has led Outercity residents to go on record criticising the local Voxam government for poorly-conceived frivolousness and wasting taxpayer money. Innercity has no recorded criticism, though this may be because, as the Federation has noted, Innercity does not tend to use legal tender for exchanges. The basic one Planetary Credit note, pictured, is a linen square. The five Credit is a polyester square. The twenty Credit is viscose. The fifty Credit is velvet, and the hundred Credit is silk. The production of the Credit is ongoing, as turnover is far higher than currencies made from more sustainable, maintainable materials.

Demographics

The whole of Voxam city ostensibly, according to Federal records, has a population of 20 million people. It has a surface area of 58,977.69 square kilometers, and a population density of 340 people per square kilometer.

Innercity Voxam is roughly 56,250 square kilometers with an ostensible population of 15.9 million, according to Federal records, at a population density of 320 people per square kilometer. Innercity's radius is 133.85 kilometers, whereas the whole of the city's radius is 137.05 kilometers. Outercity's area is roughly 2,727.69 square kilometers, with a population of 4.1 million, and a population density of roughly 1,500 people per square kilometer. The circular Outercity "band," or "wall," is only a little more than 3 kilometers from its border with Innercity to termination into the Aetree IV wilderness.

Put into perspective, Voxam's Innercity area is 21 to 1 of Outercity's area. There are nearly 4 times more people in the Innercity than the Outercity, but Outercity is almost 5 times more dense than Innercity.

The Federal census records that all Innercity occupants identify as Vox. Outercity consists of people who identify 30% Ethnic Gallente, 30% Caldari, 16.7% Intaki, 8.3% Mannar, 6.6% Minmatar, 5% True Amarr, 2.2% Vox, and 1.2% Jin-Mei. Other identities do not consist a single percentage point. Women appear to be 48% of the population according to the Federal census; men are 52%.

The Federal census notes that large portions of Outercity 'migrate' Innercity, as families abandon their previous identities and adopt the Vox identity. This decision is accompanied by a literal move to Innercity. There is negligible amounts of migration the opposite way; the Vox do not tend to switch identities. Vox who switch identities tend to number in the double digits for five year spans, and those who switch identities this way always move to Outercity.

Religion

The Outercity identities tend to stay true to the religion of their respective identity. The Ethnic Gallente tend to favour the Garoun Lunaries; the Caldari follow the Way; the Intaki participate in Ida; and so on. Outercity scholars observe that the religions of the Vox are many and tempestuous. They suggest that the Vox create, maintain, in fight, and destroy cults in place of "higher technology" forms of entertainment and recreation. This has, at times, generated friction between local populations and other populations, as well as with formalised power institutions.

The Vox spiritually tend to believe that the body and soul have no distinction. As a matter of culture, the Federation has seen the Vox treat the body and soul as being the same thing. While Federal records don't go into much detail about this habit of thought itself, it does go into great detail about the trouble this has caused various upliftment efforts in the medical area. The Vox have appreciated and accepted Federal medicine, but the practices do not take root, as this cultural thought prevents a deeper, nuanced understanding of Federation medicine approaches. Hospitals built in Innercity inevitably shut down. Hospitals in Outercity that treat Vox populations report constant problems with medication; the Vox will do things like take half doses, not take pills at all, take them all at once, or take their prescriptions but stop when they start feeling better. Ibuprofen and Paracetamol are used in Innercity Voxam. However, all sugar coated versions are banned across the entire planet.

Unlike other cultures that hold similar beliefs, the Vox are not hostile to the concept and practice of genetic engineering, body modifications, or augmentations. Their interpretation of the body/soul sees both as more malleable and less inviolable, and this has resulted in an honouring of certain medicine-related professions, such as the crafting of prothesistes. However, people with physical deformities, such as poor eyesight or missing limbs, bear a stigma unless they seek correction. Medical professionals from the Federation in Outercity have reported much frustration and impotence in soliciting these individuals to come out of concealment and seek treatment.

Culture

Media

The city of Voxam, the Federation notes, has both a greatly reduced media and a greatly reduced quality of media.