Thames Republic

Thames Republic
Flag
Capital and largest city	London 51°30′N 0°7′W
National language	English
Regional and minority languages	Welsh Cornish Irish British Sign Language
Demonym	Thamer
Government	Direct democracy
• Prime Minister	Lance O'Connor
Currency	UNIT (U€) (UNT)
Time zone	UTC
Date format	dd/mm/yyyy
Calling code	+44
Internet TLD	.tr

The Thames Republic is an independent country in Northwest Europe. It comprises the area of Greater London, as well as most of former South England and West England. The country is bordered at the north by the Southern Exclusion Zone, forming a "no man's land" between it and Great Britain. It is a member of the European Defence Alliance (EDA) and the Northwest European Trade Union (NETU).

The Republic was formed in 2052 at the conclusion of the London Revolution. It is now considered to be a world superpower despite its small size; owing to its specialisation in science and technology. In opposition to the former British government, the country is a direct democracy built on socialist, technocratic, and egalitarian principles, and strongly regulates corporations that intend to do business within its borders to avoid a repeat of the past.

Etymology

The Thames Republic is named after the River Thames, which is the most prominent river within the Republic's borders, cutting directly through its capital, the city of London. The name was decided by popular vote a week after the installation of the new government, winning over other alternatives such as the "Republic of London". Despite the name’s prevalence, many citizens, especially those in southern and southwestern regions, argue against the name, claiming it insufficiently represents them; it continues to be controversial, even to the modern day.

History

The Thames Republic was initially formed in 2052 after the London Revolution, a secessionist civil war against the former United Kingdom driven by the insurgent group Blackbird, which was ignited by the prior secession of Scotland and Wales from the union. The seat of corporate dominance in the UK, Helios Tower in central London, was destroyed by revolutionaries, scattering Helios forces and pushing PMC troops out of the city.

After seizing control of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, a new constitution was drafted, outlining the framework for the Republic's socialist, technocratic government. Subsequently, Taylor D. Kirby, the present leader of Blackbird, was installed as interim Prime Minister. The next week, a general election was held, where Prime Minister Kirby received a resounding majority and officially became the first PM of the Thames Republic.

Politics

As a direct democracy, all citizens in the Republic have both a stake in electing government officials, as well as forming and passing policy. For this reason, an education in politics is part of school curriculums as well as citizenship tests. An efficient, provably cryptographically secure and anonymous electronic system is used for voting.

Voting is mandatory, and legally required unless exempted, and lawmaking is not restricted to politicians. Any sufficiently large group of citizens can propose legislation, which is then voted on in the same manner. The current Prime Minister is Lance O'Connor, whose campaign goals promise to implement stronger regulations against megacorporations and bolster trade sanctions on Great Britain.

As a point of great international controversy, the Thames Republic is one of the only non-signatories to the Dimensional Security Accords, and possesses its own Department for Exophysics which pre-dates Raven. Because of this, Raven conducts extremely close surveillance of the government. Despite its independence, the DfE manages to provide an effective, if not even more effective, level of anomaly defence for the Republic than Raven would.

Privacy

The Thames Republic operates a national ID system on a de jure temporary, de facto permanent basis, as the legislation that enables it to operate has been renewed, both by court order (every half year) and parliament (every year), as long as the espionage threat level remains above a certain level. Thames IDs are semi-anonymised; they can be used to prove citizenship, residency, and date of birth, but identity cannot be extracted from them. Similarly, their use is linked to biometrics that are stored on the card chip and cannot be extracted. IDs are used in place of Oyster cards to access free public transport for residents; non-residents must use Oyster cards or purchase tickets.

Security

The Thames Republic consolidated its loyal branches of MI5, MI6, and the MoD into one entity known as the State Defence Section (SDS), which now operates as its unified state security arm. The Department for Exophysics deals with matters of exosecurity, though it relegates most military action to SDS personnel, and has a close working relationship with it. Though initially highly militarised after the London Revolution and the First Incursion, the Thames government began to slowly move towards demilitarisation as tensions with Great Britain cooled. It is today one of humanity’s least surveilled places to live, with strong personal rights for citizens.

Despite demilitarisation efforts, there are still many facets of the Thames Republic that reflects the wider world's exosecurity stance. For example, entropic radiation scanners feature at most train stations, airports, and spaceports; all police officers also carry firearms, and militarised, exosuited patrols are common in high-risk areas. This still remains at a far lesser level than almost all other places on Earth.

Economy

The economy of the Republic is centrally planned, through a non-sapient algorithm operating in a bunker below Chancery Lane with comprehensive government oversight. As one of the newest members of the EU, the Republic uses Euros as its currency, and has fully adopted the Metric system.

The Republic's economy is primarily driven by state-owned industry in the science and technology sectors. Its state research organisation - the Thames National Laboratories - is involved in all sectors of high-end scientific research. It also serves as the headquarters for the non-profit TransForm, humanity's largest manufacturer of biomods; as well as InterTeck, a large worker-owned computing and telecommunications cooperative.

Private, foreign corporations, especially megacorps, are heavily restricted in how they can operate in the Thames Republic. Namely, they are prohibited by employing private military forces or other military security teams on Thames sovereign soil, and are required to provide the government a full record of their finances for transactions conducted in the Republic. Violations can, and have, resulted in the ejection of entire corporations from the country.

While the Thames Republic operates several commercial spaceports, including the largest Heathrow Spaceport, it does not possess its own industrial spaceflight infrastructure or state space program. Instead, it partners with the European Space Agency and Pacific Launch to provide its industrial and interstellar launch capability. It avoids the usual lock-in associated with purchasing launch capability from massive megacorporations like Paradigm, while at the same time avoiding the overwhelming expense of maintaining its own infrastructure.

Trade

Due to the Republic's non-signatory status to the Dimensional Security Accords, there are severe restrictions on what categories of technology signatories are permitted to export to it. Quantum computers, some types of radio hardware, equipment relevant to the scientific field of exophysics, and weapons classed Category X or higher are banned. However, the Republic produces its own alternatives (except weapons) domestically, and often freely exports them.