Xaldari State (RBU)

Founded on the tenets of patriotism and hard work that carried its ancestors through countless hardships, the Xaldari State is today a corporate capitalist alliance of the eight Xaldari Megacorporations, a central state directorate and various neutral corporations and factions.

Ruthless and efficient in the boardroom as well as on the battlefield, the Xaldari are living emblems of strength, persistence, and dignity.

Government
The Xaldari State stands for corporate capitalism in its purest form. There are eight great Corporations that together divide the State between them, controlling and ruling every aspect of their respective societies. Each corporation is made up of hundreds of smaller companies, ranging from industrial companies to law firms. Each corporation rules its territories like their own kingdom with little or nor interference from the other corporations, though The Forge and Arcadia systems fall under the jurisdiction of the Xaldari Providence Directorate, a non-partisan form of central government within the State.

In higher matters, such as in foreign policy towards other nations, the Chief Executive Panel, which consists of the CEOs of the eight major corporations and the State Executor, has the highest authority. The Chief Executive Panel's primary purposes are to determine the budgets for the State's few government agencies, such as the State Navy and the Business Tribunal, and to act as a way for the State's corporate powers to coordinate national policy, such as foreign relations, customs and trade regulations, and inter-corporate business laws. The CEP also makes sure that the social infrastructure of the State remains intact and settles all major quarrels between the corporations.

As most Xaldari trade and agreements are conducted by individual corporations rather than the State itself, this makes it difficult for other nations to deal with them at a political level. Though if a Xaldari corporation is threatened, often the whole State backs it up with full force.

Society and Culture
The Xaldari people are noted for their strict adherence to capitalist principles, personal honor, and martial hardness. Xaldari society is steeped in military tradition. As a people, its members had to fight a long and bloody war for survival, and even had to surrender their home planet to their invaders. It was at this time that the corporations established themselves as the driving force behind creating and maintaining the new Xaldari State. Even if the Xaldari have not engaged in war for many decades, they still strive to be at the cutting edge of military technology and their vessels, weapons and fighting methods are inferior to none but the enigmatic Jove.

To curb their aggressive tendencies, the Xaldari actively pursue and sponsor a range of sporting activities. Many of these are bloody, gladiatorial-like competitions, while others are more like races. Whatever the sport, they love betting on the outcome, making gambling a massive industry in the State.

The core of the typical Xaldari socioeconomic system is largely meritocratic, where merit is defined and measured by the Xaldari to be hard work that benefits society and the State as a whole. It is not believed that individual wealth or status grants a citizen any sort of entitlement that allows them to ascend above the masses by default. Instead, the emphasis on hard work and discipline means that a child born into a wealthy executive family will still be expected to start at the bottom rung of their occupational field, where they may very well earn less than a factory foreman, and work their way up.