Renaming & Cultural Protocol update for Trigunia

[Wu Han]

I don't want to distract from the ongoing discussion, nor do I have much of a strong opinion on this particular retcon, but I do think that highly customized or original religions in the game should require, in their cultural protocol, a much higher degree of description.

In other words, if I were a new player in Trigunia/Nadiya, I think I would be a bit lost and unsure of how to understand the fact that a plurality of my population follows a religion that is based on "Eastern Orthodox with elements of Slavic mythology but with a strictly female leadership," if for no other reason than the fact that it contradicts an average individual's basic knowledge of real world Eastern Orthodoxy (i.e. paganism integrated, when the Eastern Orthodox Church officially condemns such practice as demonic; "matriarchy," however understood/practiced/defined, in a fundamentally patriarchal religion and organization, the leadership of which is strictly male, in a broader religion (Christianity) which is generally understood as endorsing patriarchal gender relations – with exceptions of course).

I think CPs need to reflect the roleplay developments and transformations undertaken by a current player or players, just as much as it needs to be informative to new players and players of other countries. I don't feel that such a small description of what is a massive reinterpretation of an established religious tradition does justice to either the work you have done to create this matriarchial, pagan take on Eastern Orthodoxy, nor future players who need to be aided in their interpretation. Those of us in Hobrazia have had to contend with a similar issue, wherein a major number of Hobrazians were said to have followed a fictional in-game religion which has seen very little in-game development.

I don't want to come across as hostile against in-game religion and religious reinterpretations, as I think they're interesting and add original flavour to our game world, but I simply think there needs to be a way to offer more information on how these religions/derivations should be understood in the context of future RP by someone less familiar with them.

Perhaps this is a matter to raise to moderation more generally. Anyways... yeah.

[Svetlana]

I distinctly recall you RPing that men didn't have rights in several sectors of society, including to vote or hold office or things like this.  And I distinctly remember you tying it to the rise of the matriarchist church, which didn't make any sense at the time, and it also never made sense that men wouldn't say anything about it.  And you also told me that majorities supported matriarchism in elections.

I don't question that Nadiya is a matriarchist society like modern societies are patriarchal.  I am questioning that it switched to matriarchalism from what I assume was "not matriarchalism" (and I know it was "not matriarchalism" because I remember Trigunia before you ever got there to introduce Matriarchalism out of wholecloth), and nobody protested it, because you put it on support for the matriarchalist church.  That's what I am questioning.

Historically speaking, Trigunia had experienced a century of hard Matriarchism during the first Utopianist era, or the Technocratic era as Polites refers to in the wiki of the nation, the OOC reason why I had implemented a matriarchy was because I fervently didn't want to use any male Russian politicians since they were frankly overused and didn't allign with my plans to trigger a divorce between the historical narrative that "Trigunia is bad hegemonic country" and more so redeem it into "Trigunia is a friendly and open nation", and by hard matriarchy I mean that back then men were banned from politics and the army all together, you could say that it was a gender apartheid back then but that was me experimenting with stuff as a new player. The 100 years of hard matriarchy were shattered, IC wise by the election of the KTP into power and subsequent dissolution of the matriarchy after a failed coup, the OOC reason was that a player had joined Trigunia at the same time that I had a second account in Valruzia and he told me about his plans for which I helped him achieve them since I was hitting a creative wall with Trigunia back then so the end of the matriarchy was more of an OOC agreement between me and him instead of an IC thing because I would've kept the show going if i had managed my creative flow better.

Ultimately, the players that joined after I left still acknowledged the impact of the matriarchy had on society especially since the government back then had attempted to enforce gender equality on all religious bodies (back then I had to back down for pushing it further but Polites picked it up which led to the Augustan Church adopting gender equality and electing its first Papez). When I rejoined Trigunia a second time and launched the corporate era arc, I picked up on the works done by those before me and built up on it to justify the restoration the hard matriarchy under the pretext of "national rejuvenation" and even when the corporate regime collapsed and Trigunia became a commonwealth, the matriarchal system endured under the name of the Second Utopianist era albeit a little more soft compared the one before it.

I'm once again saying that men were only prohibited from holding public offices higher than the post of mayor in only two breakaway states those being Vrosnok and Kozacchyna while the others didn't enforce such a thing, even the two Matriarchist republics didn't do any radical stuff like restrict men from different sectors of the country. Furthermore, the historical context of the rise of the Matriarchal Church of Nadiya coincided with failed coups and a general nostalgia to the Matriarchist eras that left major impacts on society and their views concerning the gender issue. While the MCN was trying to expand their influence, there were protests in Kozacchyna and Vrosnok with men often relying on their faith toward the Augustan Church as anchor for their cause, but they only organized small peaceful protests since openly opposing their governments this openly would make be linked to a pro-tsarist movement and shatter their public image.

Even then, some menist organizations were founded and suspended during the Second Trigunian War before being quickly restored and hijacked by the parties or the NEC and their confederal successors to dilute and soften their rethorics. This ultimately led to them gaining some minor concessions such as the central government cracking down on Kozacchyna and Vrosnok by forcing them to allow men in their governments or the constitution adopting explicitly the mention of gender equality, but since women make up 52% of the population and hold most of the power, the menist movement were effectively handicapped since their main demands aren't considered as important by most of the electorate.

[Doc]

Well, thank you for the clarification. It's good to know that I am not completely insane. I get enough of that amateur pathologizing of what I say in this community as it is.

I suppose all things taken together, Trigunia is not now what it once was. It is important as a community, I think to recognize the RP which has been done. I didn't have a similarly high bar to cross when I wanted to add Redn as a minority language in Kalistan. I'm not saying its the same thing, but permitting some or all of this to become canon would I think recognize what is by now established, even if some do not like HOW it was established, and denying it would involve retconning a lot of stuff and I think retconning is not the preferred method.

Again, just a player with no power to say yes or no, but that's my two cents. I also echo Wu Han's statement that you should endeavor to help new players who want to look at Trigunia/Nadiya from a Real World perspective and say "that doesn't make sense," to help them get their heads around how an explicitly patriarchal religion like the IGE of eastern orthodox Christianity can and does include some paganism and has a MAJOR sect that is explicitly anti-patriarchal, ie. matriarchal. That would be very helpful.

[Zanz]

Similar to Mbites, this is my opinion as a player and not necessarily the opinion of the full team.

Thank you for putting the request in Svet. I'm going to try to keep it short because I started with trying to write a summary and THEN a more detailed section and already it was big, so I'm keeping just the summary and will expound on questions as we go. I think others have raised good concerns and very good questions up to now, as well, and I haven't tried to address them here at all, either.

Long story short I was pleasantly surprised at how much of what you're proposing is not too extreme - however the fact that it's not too extreme makes me think that you and I still have a significant distance on what is *really* ICly happening in Trigunia/Nadiya, versus what I had hoped could be explained as simply unreliable IC information. Now that we're trying to make an OOC statement of fact, we really need to get to the bottom of what is actually true in Trigunia/Nadiya versus what is not.

Things I think need to change in the CP before I would support:

1. Overview
   • I don't see why the previous overview needs to change at all. It was much more robust and gave some historical context for how and why certain populations are there.
     
2. "Nova Baegukyan"
   • Nova Baegukyan (NB from hereon) appears to be your invention. If a new player came to Trigunia/Nadiya (T/N from hereon) and wanted to know what language to use to represent NB, what should they use? Is this a real life language? How should it be classified in the Guo-Wolf classification? T/N has two lingua franca already - why would refugees from Baeguk not learn these languages (in an already very language-rich environment, surely that would be practical?) - it's not like they were isolated and made to remain unassimilated, the whole point of your RP as far as I can tell is making everyone Nadiyan - what would be the impetus for refugees from Baeguk and their descendants to create their own pidgin? I also will be frank that I just don't like the name - "Baegukyan" is not a language - Kyo is. I am assuming the bulk of refugees from Baeguk would have been Kyo people - Why would these people and their language be named in such a way? Tldr: I think it's fine for some linguistic mixing to occur between Rodshyan and Kyo in the refugee community in T/N, but for that to end up meaning a totally new ethnic group and language feels unlikely to me. I'd prefer the ethnicity and language both to be called "Kyo".
     
3. Language
   • This is one of my biggest concerns with the CP as you present it - if we approve this CP change, I would start flagging future use of Kyo/NB language on official documents as OOC CP violations. I've always been on the edge about it anyway - the Kyo language is not on Trigunia's existing CP - but I have always given you benefit of the doubt that your use of it was an official government policy of affirmative action (I've read Martin, too). This proposed CP makes clear that OOCly Kyo/NB is not an official language in T/N, so I can only therefore interpret use of Kyo/NB to be out of fit with the CP (both the old and the proposed). I think you have two options here: 1) update the languages section to be more specific about linguistic distribution, and make Kyo/NB a large enough distribution to warrant use on official documents. The issue here is that I will almost certainly oppose any number you propose, for reasons I outlined above in the NB section OR 2) leave the Language section as is and stop using Kyo/NB on IC stuff. I prefer the latter.
     
4. Religion
   • The proposed increase from 0% to 40% for the Matriarchal church is just too much. Very similar to language above, I gave the benefit of the doubt in your RP and made the OOC conclusion that when you wrote on 17 Jan 2025 that the church had grown from 3 million to 30 million relative to your post on 14 Jan 2025 (4 real life days between posts means a max of 2 in game years), surely that must have been IC propaganda that was not actually true OOC. It is clear to me from the 40% request that you mean that to be literally true. I simply can't approve of that. I realize you have continued to RP with the church in the intervening time, and I realize now obviously that I should have broached this earlier with you, and I apologize for my error in that - but the point of CP approvals like this is to ensure we *don't* let unrealistic RP change the long term character of a nation, and this is just flat out unrealistic.
     
     I know you have stated you would be willing compromise on around 20-25% for the MCN - that's just not far enough for me. Generally speaking anything beyond 5%-10% ish has never been approved in CP updates - it's just too much in too short a time. It also just really doesn't make sense with the RP you've done - why did the church go from 3->30 million in 2 years, and then now it's flatlined at 49 million (40%) for nearly 100 years? If we went to 20% it would have actually shrank to 25 million! All of this is to highlight that the RP claim of 30 million just was never realistic and cannot really be used as support for the change. To approve, I'd need this to be around 5% as the OOC factual approved value. ICly the government could continue to say "50 million Trigunians attend MCN churches" and maybe that could even be true - plenty of people love to dance to the government tune when it helps them rise in status - but 50 million true believers in MCN in T/N isn't working for me. I think this would help enrich the RP in T/N, to be honest - you could then focus in on telling stories about who these conversos are, what role they play in society, and how others in society interact with them.
     
   • I am interested in your response to Wu Han's post. One of the reasons we have CPs is to help ensure that if you drop off the game next week, a player in T/N could pick up the RP you have done and know how to proceed with the country. How could someone who is not you know how to play the MCN?
     
5. Typos
   • Please correct "Rodashyan" to the correct "Rodshyan", "Kirivian" to the correct "Krivian".
     

[Svetlana]

I don't want to distract from the ongoing discussion, nor do I have much of a strong opinion on this particular retcon, but I do think that highly customized or original religions in the game should require, in their cultural protocol, a much higher degree of description.

In other words, if I were a new player in Trigunia/Nadiya, I think I would be a bit lost and unsure of how to understand the fact that a plurality of my population follows a religion that is based on "Eastern Orthodox with elements of Slavic mythology but with a strictly female leadership," if for no other reason than the fact that it contradicts an average individual's basic knowledge of real world Eastern Orthodoxy (i.e. paganism integrated, when the Eastern Orthodox Church officially condemns such practice as demonic; "matriarchy," however understood/practiced/defined, in a fundamentally patriarchal religion and organization, the leadership of which is strictly male, in a broader religion (Christianity) which is generally understood as endorsing patriarchal gender relations – with exceptions of course).

I think CPs need to reflect the roleplay developments and transformations undertaken by a current player or players, just as much as it needs to be informative to new players and players of other countries. I don't feel that such a small description of what is a massive reinterpretation of an established religious tradition does justice to either the work you have done to create this matriarchial, pagan take on Eastern Orthodoxy, nor future players who need to be aided in their interpretation. Those of us in Hobrazia have had to contend with a similar issue, wherein a major number of Hobrazians were said to have followed a fictional in-game religion which has seen very little in-game development.

I don't want to come across as hostile against in-game religion and religious reinterpretations, as I think they're interesting and add original flavour to our game world, but I simply think there needs to be a way to offer more information on how these religions/derivations should be understood in the context of future RP by someone less familiar with them.

Perhaps this is a matter to raise to moderation more generally. Anyways... yeah.

I totally understand the feelings, even I was confused when I learned that the Augustan Church in Trigunia/Nadiya was polytheistic as opposed to its the real life equivalent and diverged quite heavily from the Orthodox church since their leadership went from strictly patriarchal to somewhat religiously balanced? (I'm not sure on that one since Polites was the one that reformed the church and included the rule of a popelike leader for it).

Personally when I was establishing ideas for the MCN, I had strictly based it on the irl religious hierarchy in the Russian Orthodox church as in a matriarch elected by a Supreme Clerical Council that oversee local clerical councils in a decentralized manners. Tho I do admit that it would be confusing for new players to join T/N and know that the country's biggest churches are polytheistic and not similar to their IRL equivalents (which I assume most players will automatically think of the Russian Orthodox church and their satellites), so I did have in mind making the MCN abandon polytheism in favor of a more monotheistic style of worship but since I don't know that much about christian religious bodies I felt that it was safer to deal with it later once I gathered enough information about it.

I would have loved to add a more detailed description for the MCN but I'm not sure the mods would've loved seeing a cramped CP, tho I think we could resolve the issue through the use of a thread in which I explain the hierarchy of the MCN in a very detailed manner so that the CP isn't cramped.

[Svetlana]

Overview

• I don't see why the previous overview needs to change at all. It was much more robust and gave some historical context for how and why certain populations are there.

The OOC reason for why I changed the overview is mainly for the sake of simplicity when it comes to new players because simplifying the overview by mentioning that T/N is based on Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus would help players understand more easily what the nation is about and how to plan accordingly. Also the mention of regions would allow for more freedom when it comes to that aspect especially since those mentions states don't exist anymore. But I am fine with keeping the overview the same as it isn't that much of an issue to me personally.

"Nova Baegukyan"

• Nova Baegukyan (NB from hereon) appears to be your invention. If a new player came to Trigunia/Nadiya (T/N from hereon) and wanted to know what language to use to represent NB, what should they use? Is this a real life language? How should it be classified in the Guo-Wolf classification? T/N has two lingua franca already - why would refugees from Baeguk not learn these languages (in an already very language-rich environment, surely that would be practical?) - it's not like they were isolated and made to remain unassimilated, the whole point of your RP as far as I can tell is making everyone Nadiyan - what would be the impetus for refugees from Baeguk and their descendants to create their own pidgin? I also will be frank that I just don't like the name - "Baegukyan" is not a language - Kyo is. I am assuming the bulk of refugees from Baeguk would have been Kyo people - Why would these people and their language be named in such a way? Tldr: I think it's fine for some linguistic mixing to occur between Rodshyan and Kyo in the refugee community in T/N, but for that to end up meaning a totally new ethnic group and language feels unlikely to me. I'd prefer the ethnicity and language both to be called "Kyo".

The main inspiration I had behind naming them the Nova Beagukiyans was the area known as Novo Rossia in southeastern Ukraine, but you did raise some valid points about the Beagukiyan part which I agree with now. I would be okay with renaming NB and their language back to Kyo to handle this concern.

Language

• This is one of my biggest concerns with the CP as you present it - if we approve this CP change, I would start flagging future use of Kyo/NB language on official documents as OOC CP violations. I've always been on the edge about it anyway - the Kyo language is not on Trigunia's existing CP - but I have always given you benefit of the doubt that your use of it was an official government policy of affirmative action (I've read Martin, too). This proposed CP makes clear that OOCly Kyo/NB is not an official language in T/N, so I can only therefore interpret use of Kyo/NB to be out of fit with the CP (both the old and the proposed). I think you have two options here: 1) update the languages section to be more specific about linguistic distribution, and make Kyo/NB a large enough distribution to warrant use on official documents. The issue here is that I will almost certainly oppose any number you propose, for reasons I outlined above in the NB section OR 2) leave the Language section as is and stop using Kyo/NB on IC stuff. I prefer the latter.

To be honest with you, I barely use Kyo in my logos since I tend to automatically use English on official government logos for the sake of simplicity (I only make logos that had Kyo/NB writing on them like 2 times lol) and already the names of cities in Northern Radin are mostly Korean city names russified with Novo before them if the city is based on one existing in Beaguk (like York and New York, Jersey and New Jersey). Ideally I would've liked to keep Kyo/NB in the language section but I would be fine with it being removed while Rodshyan and Kozaki's status as unifying languages remain the same.

Religion

• The proposed increase from 0% to 40% for the Matriarchal church is just too much. Very similar to language above, I gave the benefit of the doubt in your RP and made the OOC conclusion that when you wrote on 17 Jan 2025 that the church had grown from 3 million to 30 million relative to your post on 14 Jan 2025 (4 real life days between posts means a max of 2 in game years), surely that must have been IC propaganda that was not actually true OOC. It is clear to me from the 40% request that you mean that to be literally true. I simply can't approve of that. I realize you have continued to RP with the church in the intervening time, and I realize now obviously that I should have broached this earlier with you, and I apologize for my error in that - but the point of CP approvals like this is to ensure we *don't* let unrealistic RP change the long term character of a nation, and this is just flat out unrealistic.
  
  I know you have stated you would be willing compromise on around 20-25% for the MCN - that's just not far enough for me. Generally speaking anything beyond 5%-10% ish has never been approved in CP updates - it's just too much in too short a time. It also just really doesn't make sense with the RP you've done - why did the church go from 3->30 million in 2 years, and then now it's flatlined at 49 million (40%) for nearly 100 years? If we went to 20% it would have actually shrank to 25 million! All of this is to highlight that the RP claim of 30 million just was never realistic and cannot really be used as support for the change. To approve, I'd need this to be around 5% as the OOC factual approved value. ICly the government could continue to say "50 million Trigunians attend MCN churches" and maybe that could even be true - plenty of people love to dance to the government tune when it helps them rise in status - but 50 million true believers in MCN in T/N isn't working for me. I think this would help enrich the RP in T/N, to be honest - you could then focus in on telling stories about who these conversos are, what role they play in society, and how others in society interact with them.

Like I mentioned before in my reply to Mbites question about it, I would happily lower the percentage of the MCN from 40% to around 20% or 25% with the difference in share being distributed back to the Augustan Church and the other bodies which I had taken some percentages from. However, I do admit that pre-unification NEC did push MCN propaganda pretty especially on the youth and were openly supporting of it until unification where most of the confederal parties divorced from the church to the exception of the HMDP.

[Zanz]

I think at this point Svet it'd be helpful if you posted a reply with a re-drafted proposal taking into account the feedback you have received here thus far. Then we'd all have a clear picture on where you think we're landing.

[Svetlana]

Sorry for not replying but here's the CP with the proposed changes and concessions

———OVERVIEW———
Trigunia is broadly based on the countries of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus with a noticable indigenous, German minorities.

———ETHNICITY———

» Rodshyan (Russian): 49% (-3%)
» Kozaki (Ukrainian): 17% (+2%)
» Krivian (Belarusian): 11% (+1%)
» Indigenous (Indigenous peoples of Alaska): 11% (+1%)
» Hulstrian (Austrian): 10% (+2%)
» Kyo (Russo-Koreans): 4%

» Other: 2% (-3%)

———RELIGION———
» Hosianism (Christianity): 86% (+2%)
-- Matriarchal Church of Nadiya (Eastern Orthodox with elements of Slavic mythology but with a strictly female leadership): 25% 
-- Augustan Church (Eastern Orthodox with elements of Slavic mythology): 48% (-9%)
-- Confessional Church of Trigunia (Lutheran): 14%
-- Aurorian Patriarchal Church (Catholic): 8%
-- Other: 5%
» Irreligious: 6% (-2%)
» Ahmadism (Islam): 3%
» Other: 5%

———LANGUAGE———
Rodshyan (Russian) & Kozaki (Ukrainian) are the most widely spoken language in Trigunia and serves as its lingua franca across the isles due to the De-Rodashyanfication policies enacted during the Trigunian Disaster and Kozacchyna becoming the second most populated republic. Because of the De-Rodashyanfication policies, languages typical considered as secondary or minor such as Dundorfian (German), Kirivian (Belarusian), Kyo (Korean with a mix of Russian), and the Indigenous language have become used more frequently in daily lives with people often choosing to speak with their native tongue instead of relying on Rodashyan (Russian)

Though the indigenous peoples use native surnames/family name combined with a Rodashyan (Russian) names.

The local Hulstrians speak their native Dundorfian (German) language and have Dundorfian (German) names.

———INFORMATION/TOOLS———
Google translate: https://translate.google.co.uk/
Naming generators: http://www.behindthename.com/random/
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/#realNames
Tlingit name generator: https://perchance.org/namegen-natam-tlingit 

[Mbites]

Due to this new revised proposal, we'll leave this thread open for 48 hours as per section 5 of the game rules after which this thread will be closed and moderation will review the debate to come to a final decision. If the discussion surrounding the update gains more traction, we're naturally going to leave the thread open longer.

[Auditorii]

This is entirely pedantic and I recognize this.

Hulstrians, which are our version of Austrians do indeed speak German for all intents and purposes, however in-game, they speak Hulstrian which iirc is recognized to be dialect of Dundorfian. I think it would be better to recognize that the Hulstrians in Trigunia speak Hulstrian (German) not Dundorfian (German).

I'll see myself out.