The Esheri Commonwealth

Governed by the twin virtues of Reason and Compassion, the rulers of the Commonwealth have solved the riddle of history, and remade themselves as the instruments of Principle. Slaves and ascetics, devoid of family or legacy, their high ranks flensed of base vices, these Jannisaries and Encyclopediests really do wholly dedicate themselves to the Common Good, to the rational ordering of the world, and to their twin virtues
The Commonwealth is the most compact of the three Great Powers, emanating out from their grand capitol on the Tykelian straights, spreading across two continents and stopped only by oceans, deserts, a grand mountain range and two armed frontiers. Within those bounds, the Clockwork Republic whirs with perfect efficiency, imposing a more uniform and objective government than can be found anywhere else in the universe.
Their military is impeccably drilled and supplied, their artillery the envy of the world. Far more hated by their enemies on the battlefield are their metaphysicians, aligning things just so to impose all their preferences on any campaign. The poor (or at least those legible to the state) are cared for by the Committee for Industry and Progress, their cybernetricians and coordinators ensuring that no one needlessly starve just as they keep careful track of all available free labour and an exacting census of every city. Religion is soft and modernist, the theologians of every major faith encouraged to critique their texts deeply and approach each other with an eye for syncretism, their preachers ideally a way to promote pro-social messages more than anything else.
What makes the Commonwealth really hated, however, is a basic matter of principle. The Esheri view particularity as a cardinal sin. Whatever limitations pragmatism might impose, let rampant they're quite clear that they would remake the world. And so their Jannisaries-the finest network of spies, coupists, saboteurs and professional revolutionaries the world has ever seen-are the source of paranoia in every crowned head. And so their Encyclopediests are cursed by every cult, guild and church for their unmatched hubris, working tirelessly to gather every scrap of lore and buried secret together for their grand synthesis.

Structure

The Commonwealth is governed by the most modern and efficient bureaucracy in history-the gains for which actually do more than make up for the near-religious obsession with taking minutes for any conversation involving three or more officials present.
To the extent that it's possible (and certainly in the case of all the great committees), civil servants are drawn from the Janissary Corp-or to put it another way, they rule the Commonwealth and recruit outside the ranks when they don't have a choice.
The highest authority is the Secretariat or Council of Vizeirs-Five officials who determine jurisdiction, form or abolish committees, raise armies, and so on. Aside from matters of war and peace and foreign affairs however, they actually possess fairly limited authority-the 'imperial committees' of General Enlightenment, Public Safety, and Industry and Progress are permanent institutions, with well established (and viciously defended) mandates. Beneath them are the edifices of state they've seen fit to create: academies, universities and orphanages; police and intelligence services; and the great offices of the cybernetricians and physiocrats.
Other influential but smaller and lesser known committees on Ethics, Metaphysics, Strategy, and so on generally serve as a form of working retirement for decorated officials, or the rare genius who can only work as a theoretician. Of more practical important, working groups for specific regions and issues either include or supervise the relevant governors and military commanders, depending on the context.
All governors and such are centrally appointed from academy graduates in good standing, but simple convenience and political concerns have ensured more than a few cities and regions just happen to be governed by the same families who have ruled them since they held official titles they could pass to their sons.
Law in the commonwealth is professional, dispassionate, and inquisitorial. Analysts and Magistrates work under the Committee of Public Safety, and work with the nations extensiveness security apparatus to ascertain the truth of any disputes between citizens or dangers to the common good. Torture has been strictly banned as ineffective and prone to negative externalities, but applied psychology and the amount of documentation available on any Citizen's life mean disputes of fact are rarely an issue (if they are, the problem usually gets kicked upstairs quite quickly and theurgery is deployed). Serious criminals in the Commonwealth rely on local corruption, extreme skill, or the practice of a plausible patsy to take the blame.
How to resolve the case is generally determined on the spot via reference to a vast assembly of hypothetical and historical cases the Committee has taken the time to determine the correct response to. Those who show themselves to be unreliable generally suffer loss of privileges and property, those who victimize others are generally required to make public show of restitution, and those who are seen as any sort of threat to public order are remanded to the Committee of General Enlightenment's asylums for rehabilitation. Cases with extenuating or novel circumstances can be and are kicked up the chain, generally to be considered by a panel of candidate Committeemen and -women. Should the circumstance reoccur, the full Committee will at some point take the time to determine a canonical response to them.
The death penalty, judicially speaking, is reserved for 'enemies of peace'-those whose continued existence necessarily poses a threat to the Commonwealth. This is usually assumed to be rebel figureheads and traitors, but the most common category of the damned are corrupt high officials-something seen as necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the state.

Public Agenda

The Commonwealth is quite open about its ideology (far too much so, if one listens to the intelligence services of the world). An end to arbitrary authority, to cruelty and want and waste, a world governed by reason and compassion. Rulers whose first duty really is to the public wellfare, and who live no better than the meanest beggar on their streets. The bits on the unification of the world are there as well, though diplomacy and tact ensure they generally aren't emphasized.
Officially speaking, religion is discouraged on the grounds of encouraging partiality and tribal distinctions, and on the more immediately practical grounds that anything with such great powers should be putting them towards the common good, not demanding worship and sacrifice (attempts to put this into practice have caused several of the Commonwealth's wars. The successes are a great part of the reason central Eshref is one of the world's breadbaskets). Still, it's a common joke that the two official virtues of Reason and Compassion have been personified and idealized to the point of gods.

Assets

As one of (if not the) foremost powers in the world, the Commonwealth has more wealth and manpower available than it's possible for a single mind to properly imagine. More than two hundred million souls live under it, with modern industry and applied sorcery (and not small amount of subtle encouragement) leading them to be the most urbanized mass in the world.
The Commonwealth's army isn't the largest or the best equipped, but it' hardly small or poor-and it's certainly the best drilled and maintains the largest peactime mobilization. It's spy networks and intelligence services are second to none, and while they tend to be directed more towards public works and urban planning than spectacular rituals (generally), its magical reserves are nothing to sneer at.
As with any great power worth its name, it maintains an expansive network of protectorates and client states, as well as close alliances with several middle powers its drawn into its sphere or uses as deniable proxies.

History

There's a certain story-a myth, really-that the Committee of General Enlightenment likes to promote in songs and theatrical productions and grand, inspiring pieces of public art-
-It's not entirely true, strictly speaking-no one says it is. The Encyclopedia has a full volume devoted to the revolution, and no one with any interest in rank or policy is allowed the luxury of comfortable mythology-
-But for public edification and entertainment, mythology and morality tales are far more suitable then sociology and econometrics. And so there's a story.
There was once a grand empire, ruled from a vast and magnificent palace city. Ancient beyond reckoning, its Padishah's will was carried out by the Jannisaries-slave-soldiers without rights or property, raised and educated to have no loyalty but to their emperor, living lives beyond dreams of avarice as long as they enjoyed his favor, dying torturous deaths if they did not.
For uncounted ages, this grand empire ruled the known world (or warred with barbaric hordes, or was held together by grit and skill against constant rebellion). The best Padishah's were noble, vigorous warriors (or half-savage conquerors), refined men of culture (drug-addled decadents) and pious men (zealous fanatics). But they were, fundamentally, nothing but mere, mortal men, no matter how hallowed and blessed they were declared.
Absolutism necessitates tyranny, as crowned head after crowned head realized that they could only trust the loyalty of the truly corrupt and bought, or the truly brutalized and cowed. A prophecy which fulfilled itself (or the empire's doom written in the stars). Coups and factions became facts of life, just the same the purges that followed them. Local governors went to war rather than walking back to their death in the capital. Things fell apart.
The Jannisaries were no less corrupt by now, of course. But in them lay the seeds of salvation. The original conspirators are anonymous and forgotten, as was there wish, but they undertook the necessary actions to remake the corp into something more noble than an emperor's extortionists and murderers-they bound themselves to a higher loyalty, but principles more sacred than any king on earth or god in the heavans.
To call it a revolution makes it sound messier than it was-it was planned with clockwork perfection, and by the time the Vizers very publicly disproved the notion that they were merely the Padishah's advisers, all that was left was campaigns on the periphery against the governates the aristocracy and a few old princes had fled to.
And when that vast palace-city was smitten with divine wrath, and a host or archons descended from on high to avenge themselves on the regicides? In the new calendar, that is the beginning of Year 0.
Some 80 years later, the Commonwealth is very close to polishing away any trace of what came before. Synthetic astrology and appropriated divinity has remade the Esheri heartland into something like a planners paradise, and every major city has been architected along ideal lines. The governing class still consists of slaves-entrance into the Academy requires forsaking all of ones heritage and legacy, to better serve the whole of the world.

Demography and Population

The Commonwealth is a cosmopolitan state-Eshref was never exactly a homogenus nation, and 80 years of steady expansion have only increased the level of diversity.
The Alaiye people dominate the Commonwealth's heartleands and make up just under 40% of the population-though, this long after the rise of the Commonwealth their culture has been either wiped out or integrated into it. The temples and charitable institutions that were the foundation of the old Alaiye elite were seen as too closely tied to the old empire, and so thoroughly (and 80 years later, seemingly more or less successfully) suppressed, while the new institution of universal, ,mandatory education ensured that the newly modernized and standardized language would win out over the old vernaculars. The end result is that the substantial expatriate communities that remain tend to consider themselves the last bastions of true Alaiye culture-something that a properly raised Citizen would smugly allow them, and that everyone else is like to take as fighting words.

Foreign Relations

As one of the world's Great Powers, Commonwealth foreign policy is an inextricable part of their Great Game, a constant interplay of influence peddling, subterfuge, sabotage and proxy wars. Relations with the Empire and Republic are thus, as can be expected, frosty. While peace currently reins-and international trade is vital to all three economies-no one really expects it to last forever.
The Commonwealth's two most noteworthy clients are the Gallean Directorate (supported in large part as a dagger ready to plunge down the Illyric throat), and the Yazaki Empire (a navy that came with a state attached, to be unkind. Though their own colonial empire provides a much needed way to contest Celmean interests).
The Directorate famously regular coups and imperial brutality are seen as a criminal waste by many on the Secretariat, but military pragmatism requires the Jannisary's be deployed to shore up the system rather than overthrow it. (and despite occasional outbursts of suicidal patriotism, the vast majority of relevant Directors and Marshalls know how necessary their 'sister republic' is)
The Yazaki are significantly more distant, and orders of magnitude more stable. Ossified, if one listens to radical Jannisaries, and dangerously brittle. Though that may just be distate for working with a monarchy. Still, Esheri help against Celmean infiltration is welcomed, and the 'imperial advisers' governing the country are by all accounts sincere in their pursuit of enlightenment.

"Duty Unending, for the Good of All."

Type

Geopolitical, Empire

Alternative Names

Eshref, Alaiya, The Clockwork Republic

Demonym

Citizen (legally), Esheri (de facto)

Government System

Technocracy

Power Structure

Unitary state

Economic System

Command/Planned economy

Currency

The Standard Lira

Legislative Body

The Secretariat and Committees of State

Judicial Body

The Analysts, Mediators and Adjudicators (under the Committee of Public Safety)

Notable Members

• Academic Hira
• Encyclopedist Hayy

Related Ethnicities

• Alaiye