PmWiki | Waylight / Midya

Midya

At the height of expansion, Cascadians had annexed a number of agriculturally rich lands to their south; around 1750, they rebelled to form their own federation. It was the first major war that the Cascadian lost after federating, and to this day Midyans call their former masters "Midya's hat" -- to some historians this was the beginning of the end of Cascadian hegemony.

Either way, Midya is the Slipstream's breadbasket; frequent rains and good soil make the territory very suitable for food crops, and the forests on the northern edges are rich in the sort of fauna that doesn't require a stomp suit to hunt. It is entirely possible that Midyan forests and grasslands contain more alpine life than even the Gray Plateau does.

The land's agricultural prosperity has allowed Midyans to be fairly isolationist, and not put much effort into industrial pursuit; despite this, they have a strong military and a volunteer militia system that encompasses most any Midyan who feels like shooting at things -- that is, pretty much anyone with at least one working eye. Midyans love their launchers and claim to have invented most of the common launcher technologies, and pyroarm ammo is cheaper here than anywhere else in the Slipstream.

Midya is a federation of provinces modeled loosely on the Cascadian system, although they call them counties and insist that it's actually the other way round as to who came up with the political system; Land Helicon is politically connected with the Midyan federation as a "free associated canton". Midya is an indirect democracy, granting the vote to anyone who works on a farm or who owns any amount of land.

The somewhat intolerant variant of Jovism prevalent in Midya has caused the canton to become a de facto theocracy a few times in its history, but there is constant ebb and flow on the matter; even during more progressive times, non-Jovists should keep their faith to themselves.

 (Stereotype: Midwest)