Gekit

Empire of Gekit Κούκατ καγχανδıγι Kökat qağandyğy (Maghali)
Flag
Capital	Buqqoz
Official languages	Maghali
Religion	Siriash
Demonym	Gekiti
Government	Federal respublican monarchy
• Empress	Aitana
• Premier	Bektas Qormaqli
Legislature	Diet
Establishment
• Chuktozid Gekit	1794
• Nevaranindosine conquest	1933–45
• Modern constitution	1985
Area
• Total	1,201,986 km2 (464,089 sq mi) (13th)
Population
• Estimate	24,000,000
• Density	20/km2 (51.8/sq mi)

Gekit (Maghali and many other local languages: Kökat) is a large, landlocked country in northern Lestria, bordered in clockwise order by Tisceron, Abranoussa, Yufet, Turgal, Nation 91, the Lestrian Neutral Zone, Oturech, Bilgedoghan, and Busar. Modern Gekit is descended from the Kingdom of Gekit, originally centred in its northwest, which conquered and pacified a great expanse of territory in the 20th century with Zepnish support.

Geography

Eastern Gekit is dominated by the Tloule mountains (known locally as the Zhilyat, and archaically as Kökat, from which 'Gekit' derives). To the south of the Tloule is the Uri desert, a region whose aridity is shaped by the rainshadow of the Tloule and the greater Lestrian Spine. The remainder of the country is similarly dry and sparsely vegetated, part of an expansive grassland known as Manbar. The Issik river, flowing northwest, and the Goktosh river, flowing southwest, are (with their tributaries) major drainage systems that originate in the Tloule and feed westwards into the Prothenian Ocean. The third major river of Gekit is the Baltizu, which runs south to the Bushur Inland Seas.

History

Early modern period

The turmoil in northwestern Lestria surrounding the Ozenil War of 1780 resulted from the retreat of Tionastrian influence from the coast, and this was to provide much opportunity to ambitious warlords. After a spectacular career as a mercenary commander in the coast, Bekesh Chuktoz usurped the Aqmaghali throne in 1794 and established the earliest form of the modern Kingdom of Gekit; by 1830 it encompassed the entire Magha region.

Imperial Gekit

On ascending the throne in 1927 Nevaranindos of Gekit had only just returned from studies in Busar with the Ordu, and on top of his predecessors' affiliation with Zeppengeran he was to pursue a comprehensive modernisation of Maghali Gekit. The Zepnish had other uses for Nevaranindos however, supplying his army with modern weaponry to pacify and gain full control over the north Lestrian interior. The Manbar would be brought under Gekiti rule in the 1930s, followed by the western half of the Tloule, and then these borders would be pushed to central Turgal. In 1940 Nevaranindos was declared 'emperor' (qağan) over the subservient interior states that had been incorporated under the Chuktozid banner. Some further small gains were made in the Tloule at the expense of Abranoussa after its defeat in the Abranoussan War, and only the founding of Turgal in the Sufez War due to the Straits Game stopped the expansion. But though Nevaranindos was ascribed the glory of these conquests, he was actually held hostage by the Zepnish-trained officers who carried out the actual fighting, and by the entry of Zepnish economic interests.

Nevaranindos attempted to use his unearned charisma to push towards deictic, respublican reforms that could create a power base to oppose the military, but in 1952 he was simply ousted by his cousin, Elbau III of Gekit, who the Zepnish supported to prevent any intrigue that could shake Gekit's position amidst the Sleepwalker War. Elbau pushed for an autocracy along the lines of Vsevolod the Great, but his iron-fisted rule became especially unpopular, and amidst the years without summers calls for Nevaranindos to be reinstated emerged. In 1962 Nevaranindos's suspicious death in an airplane crash caused mass rioting, and in 1963 Busar opportunistically invaded Gekit, installing Nevaraninkeme II. The Busaris' Unionist aggressiveness incensed the Zepnish, so they had to withdraw support for Nevaraninkeme after a few years, resulting in his replacement by Qasot I in 1969. The imperial office was quickly hollowed out by political instability, while the military turned into a deep state that began to run the country in an authoritarian manner considered distasteful to urban and regional elites alike. The economic growth of the 1970s however eroded the military's grip on power sufficiently for opposing forces to emerge.

Qasot II's assassination in 1981 led to the Gekiti War of Succession: the princes Sazan, Nevaraninkeme, and Qasün vied for the throne. A Busari intervention to install Qasün ended disastrously, and caused the long-discontent southern and eastern regions to revolt and seek secession. By 1983, when a Zepnish intervention secured Qasün in Magha and the Tloule, the independence of five new Siursk-backed states seemed certain, but still preferring the domination of the interior by a single intermediary the Zepnish played off tensions between local aristocracies and aphypnist intellectuals to allow Qasün's newly branded aphypnist government to reunify the area by 1985, though not without some permanent territorial losses. At the end of the year, a new federal and aphypnist government was instituted, and the rational consolidation of Gekit seemingly complete.

Politics

Gekit is a federation of 11 self-ruling realms (handyğy, 'kingdom'), headed in name by the Chuktozid imperial monarchy, presently held by Aitana of Gekit, the first woman to sit on the throne. A bicameral Diet, consisting of selected representatives from each realm and elected members of the Companions' Party respectively, serves to enact laws and policies, and a state bureaucracy of trained Party members carries out day-to-day administration. At the local level, orduyabenzer groups coordinate and communicate with central authority, occasionally protesting against it. Much of the present Gekiti governmental system is explicitly modelled on Zeppengeran.