Template:True Nation InfoboxThe Greater Sakagami-Lowuks Entente (Usually just called The Entente) is the largest nation within the Small Magellanic Cloud, occupying over ninety percent of it. It is a constitutional aristocracy lead by the Sakagami House, a human noble family originating in the Milky Way.
The nation, while small, has a significant amount of assets, connections, and soft-power in the Local Universe. In recent years, the nation has gained a reputation as one of the best places to do banking. With this reputation also came its reputation of being the place for slightly dubious banking practices as well.
The wealth created by this is largely concentrated in the ruling class, Making the nation one of the wealthiest nations per capita, while simultaneously having a lower quality of life than nearby nations such as the Confederacy of Borealis.
Government
The Entente is a Semi-Federal Constitutional Aristocracy of occupying most of the SMC, and has sovereignty over very small portions of The Milky Way. The nation has historically scored highly on the democracy index but has since declined to below-average levels since the Sakagami House took power in 96021 CE.
The government is regulated by limited checks and balances to prevent any one aspect of the government or Sakagami House to gain significantly more power than any other. The constitution of the nation is designed to prevent the country from fragmenting, the House from fragmenting, or the common people rebelling.
Government Aspects
It is divided into five aspects. Each aspect controls an area of the government and operates largely independently from each other. with one exception
- The Aristocracy
- This is the Sakagami House itself.
- The Executive
- This is the Prime Minister and most of the Law Enforcement.
- The Navy
- This is the military.
- The Parliament
- This makes most of the laws.
- The Bureau of Affairs
- This is the hand of the Head of the Sakagami Family. It is used as law enforcement and defense of the Family's rule.
The Executive and Aristocracy both have the power to veto acts or decisions made by the Parliament. They also have the power to "reset" the Navy (this is intended to remove all corruption from it, although this has never been used).
The Bureau of Affairs is entirely unable to operate without the approval of the Head of the Sakagami House. It is intended to prevent the parliament or executive from taking too much power from the Aristocracy. Many critics of the branch call it the "anti-democracy bureau."
The parliament has 25000 seats, each filled with a representative from the 25000 districts in the nation. The parliament not only servers as the primary legislative body, but also is the entity in charge of appointing generals in the military as well as diplomacy. While legislative actions it makes can be vetoed, with a seventy-five percent agreement, it is able to overturn vetoes of the Prime Minister, and with eighty percent it can overturn even the Aristocracy. This stipulation was added to make the idea of living under an aristocracy more palatable to the average citizen of the Entente.
Assets and Possessions
The Aristocracy's Possessions
Since the Aristocracy is officially a component of the government of the Entente, all of their possessions are considered to be possessed by the Entente itself. This is crown territory/assets, rather than government territories.
The Sakagami House
The Sakagami House controls several nebulae and several clusters within the Milky Way. These possessions were seized by the Sakagamis while they were warring with the Takanashis, another noble family from the Milky Way. The government of the Confederacy allowed for these territories to be a part of the Entente if they agreed to pay a regular tribute for these galaxies until the year 100500 CE.
The Legion
The Legion controls the most out of any member of the Aristocracy. They have control five dwarf galaxies in their direct control, dozens of Nebulae within Triangulum and The Milky Way, and over 40 star clusters scattered across the cosmos.
Non-physical possessions include things like stocks, bonds, and other shares in various large corporations. However, these are not a significant investment compared to it's other holdings.
The Ailgin House
As the smallest of the houses, it comes as no surprise that this house controls the least amount of assets in total. They control very few assets compared to the average government or even the average septillionaire.
Sovereign Territory
This territory is territory that is not owned by a specific house, rather, it is owned by the government itself. This is most of the SMC and stars within ten kilo-light-years of the galaxy. The territory itself is, like with every capitalist society, is owned privately for the most part.
Pre-Sakagami History
The first recorded civilization in the SMC was called the "Syndicate of Stellar Entities." In other areas, such as the Dwarf Galaxies, only a handful of Stellar Ruins could be found, indicating that most civilizations within them never became more than Kardashev II. Later on, other civilizations rose and fell such as the Hand of God and The Triumvirate of M74, however, these also fell with time.
These civilizations developed in an empty universe. In their time, few other nearby galaxies had noteworthy entities. The despair at this notion is theorized to have caused the fall of the aforementioned Syndicate, the Info-Hazard which caused the downfall of the Hand of God, and the constant civil wars within the Triumvirate. Many Xeno-anthropologists often study the M74 galaxy as a way to see what isolation does to a civilization. It seems that being the only civilization in a large volume of space fosters disunity, existential crises, and a host of other things which often end even the most advanced of Kardeshev III civilizations.
In the ninth millennia, the Lowuks Entente came to be in a universe filled to the brim with other civilizations, even a handful of smaller ones in their own galaxy. They came to become a prosperous Kardashev III civilization in 14777 CE. The nigh constant galactic wars lead the Entente to keep mostly to itself, only opening its doors to refugees or even criminals if it had the space. Their reasoning being that a higher population would make them less of an easy target, especially if that population was filled with species from nearby nations
During the War of the Decamillenial Transition, one of the largest wars in and around the Local Group, the Entente fired upon any military vessel from other nations that entered their galaxy, including galaxies whose interests aligned with its own, not as an act of aggression, but to prevent themselves from getting dragged into a deadly war. Even so, they did have to participate in a small scale battle between it and an Expeditionary force from the Peleunsk Galaxy towards the end of the war.
Since then, it has mostly concentrated on retaining its sovereignty, refusing to join the Confederacy or Commonwealth ever since its establishment. The reason for this is simple xenophobia, they let in refugees only to make themselves stronger, only a handful of politicians did it for fully altruistic reasons. Even so, these refugees mostly lived on their own planets, rarely interacting with the Atlins.
During the Second Noble Crisis, a war which was entirely the fault of Human Nobility and several Alien Noble houses, the Entente was obligated to support the House Oberon with a treaty that was made over a millennia prior to the Crisis. While their participation was minimal, this did put them against some of the more powerful aristocracies in the known universe. They violated the treaty and pulled out right as the fight would have come to their own galaxy. While this damaged their reputation, the weakened nobles couldn't do anything about it.
After this, the nation closed itself off to almost all outsiders, only accepting those that carried with them schematics for advanced technologies from nearby nations. This allowed them to remain stable throughout the dozens of other conflicts or crises which would flare up in and around the Local Group.
It wasn't until the War of the Ancients, an almost all-encompassing war caused by the CoB's aggression with other nations, that the Entente had to fight a war in their own territory. It was little more than fighting off the Celestial Plague, but this was a lot to do for a mere one-galaxy civilization. They had to hire mercenaries specializing in the plague to kill it off. However, this threw the nation into a recession, as its comparatively fragile economy at the time was mostly cut off from the rest of the universe. This would stall technological advancement, lower the nation's soft power and hard power, and increased tensions as billions of protests sprang up within the galaxy.
Around the same time, The Sakagami House came to control the now-sterilized Dwarf Galaxies around the SMC. The House would often lend support in exchange for favors by the government rather than interest. On December 11th, 196021, the debt to the Sakagamis became so large that the only payment they would accept is becoming the new ruling nobles of the Entente. They reluctantly agreed on the condition that there would be a constitution in addition to some restrictions on the power of the House.
History
This is what created the Saka-Lowuks Entente as it is called today. After the Sakagamis came to power, little has changed for the average citizen. While the economic figures have improved significantly, wealth distribution is obviously lopsided towards only a few individuals.
The nation is currently in a period of economic growth as hundreds of organizations are taking out loans to build up their militaries and paramilitaries in response to The Exhumation, an event which has started a cold war with distant nations ruled by AI's.