What is this?
Kaskada is a writing (read: worldbuilding) project of mine that originated in the browsergame nationstates.com. It started as a bunch of random ideas about the world and politics and other things that I threw together to improve my general writing ability, creativity, and language (I'm not a native English speaker).
From there it slowly developed into a full fictional world (or, at the very least, country), that I've been continually adding stuff to in the past year or so. Since I left the original community within nationstates.com, I am now looking for a new place to post my stuff. E2 seems like the right place for that.
Kaskada is not a serious place. I try to make fun of as many parts of popular culture, politics, and real events as I can cram into the world. Still, from within, Kaskada does make sense. Everything should have a reason for being the way it is, even if it appears idiotic at first, second, and third glance. If I stare at something long enough, I can think of an explanation. Most of the time.
Some inspirations are 1984, Welcome to Night Vale, The Man in the High Castle, and basically all the works of Terry Pratchett. Honorable mentions to the Nationstates Region of Equinox (where I thought up Kaskada), /r/worldbuilding, (where it became a thing on its own) and my good friend Beo (who made me do this in the first place).
All of this is a work in progress. Will add more if this is well-received. Probably also if it isn't. In general, negative criticism is more helpful than praise.
But what is this?
The People's Republic of Kaskada is a massive, efficient nation, renowned for its smutty television, zero percent divorce rate, and ubiquitous missile silos. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless, devout population of 2.063 billion Kaskadians are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."
-from nationstates.com
The People's Republic of Kaskada is about as much a People's Republic as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which is to say, not at all. The nation is run by the virtually omniscient State Council, a mysterious, multi-headed, extradimensional being disguised as a group of about twenty tall, humanoid figures shrouded in black cloaks. The populace is generally okay with this.
In official matters, Kaskada is represented by the State Secretary of the General Ministry, a position which is currently held by Ebenezer Gershwin Peters, former Minister of Finance. It is common knowledge that he has no actual say in any governmental decisions, but his work as the primary arbitrator between the State Council and the rest of the Government is still very important.
For all unofficial matters, we have the Secret Sheriff of the Secret Police ("SecPol"). Traditionally, the Secret Sheriff does not have a name or identiy, but is involuntarily picked from high SecPol staff and then brainwashed into uncompromising obedience of the State Council. A new one is picked whenever the old Secret Sheriff gets ceremonially assassinated at the end of his term.
Geographically, most of Kaskada is a cold, windy desert, with most of the population living inside the major cities near the south. It is also completely surrounded by mountain ranges, cutting off any ground-based contact with neighbouring countries. In fact, no one knows what lies behind the Kaskadian Alps, as the existence of mountains is denied by the major populace, although the belief in mountains is currently flaring up again. This is also the closest Kaskada has to a religion.
The very strong Kaskadian economy, worth 400 trillion Kaskadian Crowns a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Uranium Mining, and Retail. Black market activity is rampant. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is an impressive 193,958 Kaskadian Crowns, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.
Public shaming is the bedrock of Kaskadian society, government ministers claim to ride dragons to work, a girl's success in life is often linked to her performance in beauty pageants, and people choose marriage partners by buying a lottery ticket. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, despite the fact that it is difficult to make it through a day without breaking one of the country's many laws.
-also from nationstates.com
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