Imperium Romanum

Imperium Romanum is a particular example of a country that begun its history by pretending to be something... only to, somewhere along the way, cease pretending and really become it. It is also a country that shows that Hell is paved with good intentions. Its history is a history of compromises that turned rotten, of temporary measures that became permanent, and of children no longer remembering the policies and fears of their parents.
It is counted amongst the most important members of the Unity in Diversity due to its resurged paganic faith that is seen as a most precious element of local culture. This faction is also ready to protect the... quirks of the Imperium Romanum in exchange of its most vital support to the UiD forces throughout the Human Space.

Structure

Imperium Romanum can be described as an attempt to restore Roman Empire in its most pure, Roman form – without Greek and, in most cases, Christian influences. By recreating the political system of Roman Republic in its best possible form, while retaining some means of central, imperial power, believed to be required to be able to face onslaught of enemies of Imperium Romanum. The end result is a patchwork of elements elements from all periods of Roman history.
The supreme leader of Imperium Romanum is Imperator himself. He is believed to be a nearly divine being (making IR a partially despotic monarchy), with Imperator being a supreme commander of all armed forces, a benevolent 'fatherly' figure and a symbol of unity, not to mention somebody able to assume temporary dictatorship in terms of crisis. In times of peace (with 'crisis' being in most cases war against some local enemy) his power is 'limited' to apointing prime ministers (dubbed consuls), being able to revoke them and few other, minor things.
Beneath him is Senate. Formed by several thousand most influential or popular people in the Imperium Romanum, including more than few hundred patriarchs (practically speaking oligarchs with family history dating back to settling the colony of Nova Roma) and lots of plebeians (which means various upstarts). It has the power to overrule most of Imperator's decisions, while also dealing with governing matters and being local version of both supreme court (that is theoretically a separate organisation, however formed mostly from senators) and legislature.
The state is, however, heavily militarized, with all administrative and senatorial positions available only to people who served for at least thirty years in various armed forces, making it practically closed veteran caste. The only exception being patriarchs, who, however, in most cases also go through military service if only to avoid standing out among their peers. The planetary governors are separated between those appointed by Imperator (in most cases – the frontlines) and Senate.
This doesn't stop the Senate from furiously fighting against the military over the control of the Imperium. This remains a relatively stable element of the imperial politics.

Public Agenda

After the early zeal with which Imperium Romanum expanded disappeared (following the end of Unification Wars) the chief public agenda of IR is, strictly speaking, survival. Forced to divide its own star sector with a multitude of smaller countries it would, of course, gladly conquered them, however their stubborn defense and being a target of repetitive Neocrusades made its elites learn a bit of respect to their opponents.

History

Earliest history of Imperium Romanum is today a subject of rather... intensive propaganda and censorship efforts on behest of Imperium Romanum' security forces. However, unlike countries like The Technocracy or Fourth Reich, here we do possess a surviving records from other states in the region, that allow to reconstruct the early history of Roman Empire with a fairly decent level of accuracy.
Long, long time a go, a certain billionaire bought a planet that, according to early cartography survey, possessed several large inland seas, with climate similar to this from Earth's Mediterrean Sea. The reason for it was a fascination of said billionaire with Roman Empire, whom he wanted to recreate, creating world's biggest open air museum.
Of course noone said anything about abandoning advanced technology. Settlers created several arcologies decorated in Roman style, andassembled their culture to better reflect what they perceived as Roman mindset (including traditional, early Roman conservatism, personal freedom, certain form of patriotism and so on). Outside of Arcologies lied lands that were sculpted to look like Roman lands, including reconstructions of cities like Pompeii, aqueducts, baths, whole fields where robotic 'dolls' could reenact various historical battles in their natural scale, and so on. The idea was to make the planet into a massive tourist destination.
Over time, the growing number of people wanted to settle it. Owner of Nova Roma – a certain billionaire who titled himself Imperator – was picky with accepting, prefering, as he saw them, 'strong' and 'honest' people. With surprising amounts of former soldiers and mariners from Solar Commonwealth army and fleet included. What's more, the patriarchs that helped in settling Nova Roma and ruled its economy, soon began investing in orbital industry. After all, mining asteroids didn't influenced rural and scenic lands surrounding the arcologies.
All of this – accidentally – created a powerful basis for war industry and military, that turned out to be most useful during the Unification Wars. Soon after collapse of local Commonwealth presence, Nova Roma was invaded by one of its neighbours, taken over by a totalitarian regime that wanted to control Nova Roma industry, seeing it as a great starting point of their conquests.
That's how a spiral towards present situation began. After several years long campaign, the invader was defeated. Imperator of that time – the settler of the planet, already very old – didn't want to forcefully mindsculpt its inhabitants, which was deemed as only viable way of pacifying resistance of formerly totalitarian planet, where entire population was sculpted to be practically fanatic believers of their ideology. Imperator as a believer in civil liberty didn't want to do it. Many oligarchs and army commanders thought otherwise.
In the end, the compromise was settled – rotten as most of them in politics. Rather than sculpt them into Romans, they were sculpted into some sort of a middleground between their totalitarian and pretotalitarian sculpture... and occupied. With totalitarian part including more or less 'loyalty' or at least conformism towards those who ruled them, but with most of their culture left intact. Soon the emperor died, and more wars happened. Some of the planets were occupied as well, some more – his descendant had less moral qualms – sculpted into Romans... or not. As trying to sculpt the inhabitants of already conquered and occupied planet would mean facing global revolution, the status of occupation remained – at least wars end and the risk of the mass revolt will be acceptable.
Soon a completely new generation ruled Nova Roma. One, for which the current situation was normal. Dreams of tourism were long gone, what once began as tourist attraction started to be believe as something real. Occupied (albeit not very brutally) and exploited worlds stayed that way. After all, it was their own fault. It was them, who attacked Nova Roma.
Soon new wars begun. This time, waged not to defend themselves, but to conquer. Dream to protect themselves changed into dream of true Imperium, one that could rival the first one, the one that was discussed on every level fo education in details. One that every inhabitant knew, and those more ambitious coveted. Slippery slope is terrible, because noone notices it before its too late... and those that do, are ridiculed.
Sculpts were 'improved'. Tendency towards religious indifference with small Christian influence (with roman rituals done in front of the tourists or, later, as a tradition) were replaced with belief in completely new religion, deemed properly 'Roman'. The slavery – firstly as an intendentured workers working out their debts, then as natural status of those, who weren't Roman, for example citizens of the conquered worlds – were introduced. Each succesive generation was even more Roman in truth rather than in fiction.
In the end, the other countries of the sector began cooperating against the Imperium Romanum. A number of neocrusades, restorations of order and wars of liberation finally stopped the expansion of the SPQR. Political and military stalemate reigns supreme... at least for now.

Demography and Population

Demography

General Description

Imperium Romanum is inhabited by about forty-seven billion humans. There are some major cities, however save for the capital they rarely reach the level when they could be considered megacities. Majority of the SPQR's population lives in small cities or even villages (and manors) that are considered to be the best way to live.
Imperium Romanum is counted among the countries whose approach to cybernetics and AIs is rather extreme. AIs are more or less tolerated, however the cybernetics are not considered to be a thing that a Roman should do. Human purism is a rather widespread philosophy.
The free population is divided between honestiores and humiliores. Honestiores are the wealthy elite of good origin. They occupy the upper echelons of the society, including military and the Senate. They are not expected to do any other work save for governmental one, making them be essentially reliant on ownership of properties (and workers) to work for them. Humiliores are the lower strata of society, their influence over government vastly limited.

Humans and Variants

All true Romans are humans. 85% of the Imperium Romanum are baseline humans. The remaining 15% are Variants, all of them slaves by definition. This number includes 4% of cathumans, 4% of fairyhumans, 4% of wolfhumans, 2% of aquahumans, and 1% of various others.

Transhumans and Aliens

Imperium Romanum refuses to cooperate (or even tolerate) both transhumans and aliens alike. It's culture sees the former as a perversion of human form, while the latter are simply insidious and 'alien'. They are not allowed to visit Imperium Romanum worlds, and trying to do so would probably end with blood.

Population

Gender and Relationships

Imperium Romanum is reactionary and patriarchal to the point where it becomes just plain wrong. Their attempt to recreate traditional Roman mores has succeeded... but the effect is one of the more backwards countries in the Human Space.

Gender Roles

Imperium Romanum is extremely patriarchal. Perfect woman is one that governs the house when her husband is away and supports him unconditionally where he is around. Plus one that gives birth to as many children as possible. She is also expected to be absolutely faithful, though once again it doesn't work both ways. Women that work are almost unheard of, save for the poor plebeians that simply don't have another option.

Relationships

Head of the family (always a man) has an absolute power over both his wife and his entire family. He can divorce at will (it doesn't go the other way around), he can even (though here his laws are a bit limited) kill or sell his children into slavery if so he wishes. The small 'problem' that seems to be plaguing the Imperium Romanum (especially the higher strata of its population) is unfaithfulness. "Using" your slaves if you have any is actually pretty common, and in many cases people who don't go that way are actually looked down upon as somehow 'not manly'.
Passive male homosexualism is also extremely looked down upon and essentially wiped out from the world via mentalsculpt treatments - at least from the free citizens. Other forms of homosexualism aren't typically looked down upon very much.

Personal Liberties

Slavery

Yes, and in fact rather expansive. Close to half of the population (25-60% per world) are slaves. Variants are slaves by definition, human slaves are typically descendants of the conquered but no assimilated populations or later captives. The Imperium Romanum isn't above capturing new slaves via military campaigns.
Slavery in Imperium Romanum is, in the way, quite similar to the ancient one. Slaves are a property, they can be sold and bought, and are fully subjected to their owner's whims (and if other free citizen does something to them, the punishment is typically a fine). On the other hand, being uneccesarrily cruel to your slaves is seen as a obvious sign of bad character and looked down upon by more 'civilized' citizens.
Slaves can also be liberated, though unlike the first Imperium it doesn't happen very often. The right of the owner to liberate their property doesn't expand to the Variants, who are seen as intrinsically undeserving of freedom.

Drugs

There is quite a big degree of hedonism around, especially among the imperial elite. However drugs that cause lasting effects that cannot be treated with modern medicine are looked down upon.

Weaponry

Ownership of weaponry by free citizens fully free, including machine guns and even anti-tank weapons. Ownership of even the most basic weapons by slaves is absolute forbidden (with small exception of slaves purposefully trained as bodyguards or soldiers and considered fully loyal).

Military

Navy

Imperial Navy is a powerful fighting force, using vast fleets of battleships and fast battleships as its main fighting force, exploiting their relative speed to outmaneuvre and logistically outlast their enemies. It also possesses a surprising ammount of voidcraft carriers, that however play secondary role.
With their society heavy militarization and religious identity, not to mention a certain reward policy (including receiving slaves and pillaged treasures from invaded worlds) both army and fleet are a very disciplined and motivated forces that – due to regularly waged war – is also very experienced.
On the other hand, a vast population of slaves means that the mobilizational ability of the Imperium Romanum are surprisingly small, causing regular problems with completing crews on newly constructed ships.

Ground Forces

Imperium Romanum ground forces – called, simply, Legiones Romanii – are a powerful fighting force, using relatively small but well disciplined and equipped forces of mechanized infantry and tanks, relying on mobility and shock value rather than on battles for attrition (that Imperium Romanum would, most likely, lose).
With their society heavy militarization and religious identity, not to mention a certain reward policy (including receiving slaves and pillaged treasures from invaded worlds) both army and fleet are a very disciplined and motivated forces that – due to regularly waged war – is also very experienced.
There is also an elite formation of the Imperium Romanum ground forces called the Praetorian Guard, composed almost entirely of heavy infantry and more biological-oriented enhanced.
On the other hand, a vast population of slaves means that the mobilizational ability of the Imperium Romanum are surprisingly small, causing regular problems during prolonged land battles.

Religion

Imperium Romanum believes in all gods that do not consider themselves to be the only existing gods. It is a roman paganism in its most quintessential form. All of the ancient Roman gods (Jupiter, Venus etc.) are all venerated via a number of 'preserved' ancient rites and some modern ones. The faith is more or less real and widespread, though most gods are seen as a slightly more omnipotent personifications of certain elements of the world.
Many 'false faiths' spread throughout the slave population. Especially the Catholic Church seems to be playing a long game by spreading Christianity among them, hoping that this could lead to a successful slave rebellion or even spread the religion among the elites. The actual numbers are unknown, however the number of Catholics among the general population is estimated to be reaching ten percent (almost all of them slaves).

Roma Aeterna Est

Imperium Romanum

Roma Aeterna Est.

Capital: Augustus Spire, Nova Roma.
Official Languages: Latin
Religion: Neopaganism.
Government: Despotic-Bureaucratic Monarchy
Faction: Unity in Diversity
Membership: Standard/Secondary Power
Current ruler: Imperator Gaius Scipio
Population: ~47 000 000 000
Currency: Sestertius

Type

Geopolitical, Empire

Alternative Names

S.P.Q.R, Roman Empire.

Demonym

Romans.