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General Geographical and Racial Traits

The world of Takomen is very different from Earth in a few critical aspects. Takomen is physically much smaller than Earth, maybe 1/3 to 1/2 the latter's size. Thus, the continents are smaller and much closer together than those on Earth are, and the oceans require much less time for warships and aircraft to traverse. There are two continents on Takomen, each one being approximately 65-100% the size of North America and occupied by two nations. Climatologically, it is overall somewhat cooler there than on Earth, and there are very few deserts and jungles. There are ample mountains, hills, forests, and flatlands on Takomenian continents as there are on Earth. The ratio of land/ocean surface area is comparable to that of Earth.

Takomen is home to four nations. Kantaria and Bengaria are on the Eastern Continent, and Likuria and Wesitaria are on the Western Continent. Kantaria and Likuria are in one alliance (I really should get around to giving those alliances names) and Wesitaria and Bengaria are in the other, which means each continent has a pair of archenemies. The population of Takomen as a whole is slightly over 50% human, slightly under 50% anthro (they use the term 'zooanthro'). The latter is comprised of a variety of mammalian land species, such as foxes, wolves, various feline variants, raccoons, minks, otters, bunnies, squirrels, skunks, and perhaps a couple of others. The population of Takomen is much younger and very much less numerous than that of Earth. I don't have any numbers regarding their age to offer, but their population is approximately 600m. I might raise that number to 1 billion since that seems so low given their level of advancement, but 600m is what I've imagined heretofore. I will detail all of this below, but, their various choices and beliefs paired with luck have allowed them to advance technologically at a much faster rate than we have. Also, the Takomenians immediately took to calling Earth Terra and its people Terrans, because the latter had no name for themselves as a planetary race/species and the former unilaterally started generally using the term that most appealed to them phonetically rather than ask them for a preference. I much prefer 'Terran' IRL to 'Earthling' or 'Earther' or whatever, and that really is the main reason they use that name.

Culture

Takomen is culturally quite homogeneous, extremely dissimilar to Earth in that regard. I barely even have a notion of the cause for Kantaria revolting against Bengaria or being occupied by them to begin with, let alone any events and timelines to offer centuries before then. Thus, I don't have a real explanation for why the four nations are so similar culturally and morally and why there are only four nations. I suppose the small size of the planet, aggressive and repeated conquests, aggressive cultural expansion and consolidation, and the natural tendency of Takomenians to move towards science and progress, all would facilitate rapid equalization and reduction of the number of nation-states. Whatever the causes, the similarities in the tendencies and morals of the four nations cause the war to virtually feel like a civil war, and would be very conducive to the establishment of a world government not very long after the war's conclusion. These same similarities which would promote harmony and rapid resolution of their current military-political upheavals after the war's end, are also extremely strong barriers to any sort of diplomatic relations between Takomen and Terra, since every nation of Takomen reviles Terrans and their cultures just as virulently. There isn't likely to be a starting point any time soon, especially with Roketsune fomenting more hatred and xenophobia every other press conference he holds.

The overarching theme with regards to the various cultural and ideological characteristics of the Takomenian peoples is, they mirror my RL ideology and visions of progress. I absolutely despise humanity and almost everything about it, and the Takomenians are the polar opposite in each and every such trait and category. What/how the Takomenians are, except for the fact they are at war, reflect what/how I wish we were IRL. If you adhere to a typical set of ideologies and principles, this document will become extremely offensive to you quite rapidly. If you are easily affronted or don't have an interest in fiction which portrays civilizations with extremely radically different views on sexuality and religion and other things, you really should just stop reading for your own emotional health.

Religious/Spiritual

With the exception of a few tiny fringe cults and personal hopes of such things as spirits and souls existing on a different plane/dimension/phase they cannot perceive, Takomen is utterly devoid of religion and supernatural belief. Terrans have expended extremely huge amounts of resources propagating religions and adhering to religious principles, while Takomenians haven't concerned themselves with God or deities and expended those resources on other affairs, facilitating their rapid advancement relative to Terrans. Temples and churches don't exist even as ancient historical structures. Any deity delusion they may have had millennia ago was dispelled when they saw worship made no difference in the quality of their lives. As Takomenians are extremely overwhelmingly atheistic, they look at Terrans and their comparative religious savagery with horrified disdain, bewildered that a sapient species could be predominantly psychotic. This obviously has an extremely disharmonizing effect on their relations with Terran nations and vice versa, though more so on Takomenian treatment of Terrans because they have little incentive or desire for diplomacy and trade.

Sexuality and Gender

Terrans in virtually every society have been highly disdainful of at least some forms of sexual expression and behavior, generally either because of religious influence or notions of masculinity and gender roles. Even in modern Western societies, sex is pathologized or given a greater level of dangerousness than it deserves. Hell, we even now have a major political party who just renewed their commitment through their platform to bring about the proscription of homosexual marriage via the federal constitution and a host of other ridiculous things. Takomenian societies have never had religion coloring their views or directing them, and have been typically progressive on such things as gender roles and sex. Thus, Takomen is extremely nonchalant and comfortable with sexuality and gender and the various expressions of them, even those directed to or demonstrated by children. Due to their extreme permissiveness, there are literally no movements in Takomen for the rights or recognition of LGBT people (they refer to that general demographic as GSM- Gender and Sexual Minorities) because society couldn't care less whether two males marry or decide to wear dresses.

On the matter of gender, Takomenians have a spectrum-based view of psychological gender, a recognition that the poles of male/female exist and there are traits and characteristics most common one or the other biological gender AND that very many people through their preferences and behavior deviate from those poles. They generally don't attempt to define psychological/behavioral gender precisely because it is so difficult to, and the compulsion to choose one or the other pole and set of characteristics is unusual. Thus, there isn't really such a concept as 'transgender' in Takomen besides the desire to change their biological gender, since the perception of being somewhat of both genders is normal. For example, Roketsune identifies as 'male/boy' in the biological sense but has fashion and aesthetical preferences which are most common for females. He doesn't really have a special gender identity besides the behavioral and fashion label 'prancer' (neutral/positive term meaning a flamboyant, feminine, and exuberant male; substantially analogous to 'femboy'), and sees himself gender-wise as just him being himself rather than as a part of a special gender-crossing minority. As they have such a liberal and unfettered view of gender, they see no need to have two sets of bathrooms; everyone pisses and shits in the same communal bathrooms. One of the few similarities Takomenians have with Terrans is they will use 'male' and 'female' to delineate physical characteristics, though they deviate by the Takomenians not using gender-based pronouns.

Sex to the average Takomenian is merely something fun to engage in and harmless to witness, no more troublesome and dangerous than video games or ice cream ordinarily. They do recognize deeper and potentially more hazardous relationships often come about from sexual relationships and heterosexual intercourse can still cause pregnancy without contraception, and thus they provide compulsory sexual and emotional health education to children. Because sexual expression and behavior is seen by the people as innocuous in most forms, there is no Age of Consent for ordinary sexual acts except for being anally or vaginally penetrated by adult-sized genitals and the equivalent toys, for being in erotica where they engage in such sex, or for viewing erotica that is non-extreme (not hardcore BDSM, degradation, etc). For sex which entails vaginal/anal penetration, there is an AoC of 12-14, though if a cub consents and is injured anyway and the other partner is an adult the latter could be legally liable. There are additional safeguards in place for children being featured in erotica which is intended for public distribution, especially if it is commercialized. There is a somewhat higher AoC for viewing extreme porn, and full adulthood would be needed to actually engage in such acts. There are also special restrictions for adults who serve in certain roles, prohibiting them from any sexual relationship with a child they oversee. Also, sexual behavior between siblings is so common and accepted it's virtually actively encouraged by society.

What all that means is, no one cares whether people are having homosexual sex or even bisexual threesomes, that children are highly sexually active yet also shielded from abuse through legislation and being equipped with knowledge, and that child/cub porn is very much legal but has with it special restrictions depending on the set of circumstances. A perfect and very prominent example of the way they view this sort of material and performing is Roketsune's 12-year-old mate Lucien starting his career as an erotic model. He needed the permission of an adult to proceed with the introductory performance and the associated contract- Lucien needed endorsement and oversight regarding the financial aspect, rather than permission to do what was planned on camera. It is an extremely different manner of approaching sexuality from that of the Terrans, especially with regards to children. Takomenian societies are much, much more averse to exposing children to aggression and violence than to sex, which is somewhat the reverse of Terran norms. The level of sexual abuse of children (not the average Terran's definition, but actual harm) is extremely low relative to Terra's levels; 10% or less of the levels Terran Western societies contend with even with their myriad of laws and customs which supposedly protect their children from that which they are ironically facilitating. A few Terrans have taken note of the vastly different Takomenian approaches and results and have advocated reform, but they are resisted and shouted down usually.

Another massive cause of mutual hatred is the two planets' stances on genital mutilation. Takomenians abhor both the male or female variants of it, and it would be considered a very severe sexual assault if someone were to do it there. There is no 'uncut' or similar terminology because everyone's genitals are intact and thus there is no need for such distinctions. On Terra, in contrast, most of the modern nations allow or even encourage male genital mutilation in the form of circumcision, and many or most of the few that have banned it defer to Jews and Muslims who persist in such savagery and invoke religious liberty. In less modern nations, especially the Islamic ones, it is more or less compulsory. In many African nations, even more catastrophic things are routinely done to females. The Takomenians are aghast at these practices and contributes greatly to the very strident and condemnatory commentary from leaders and other figures in the media. While all the religions are seen unfavorably by the Takomenians, the worst of the commentary tends to be directed at Judaism and Islam for this and other reasons, the intensity of the hatred and rhetoric often rivaling that of some extreme rightest elements on Terra. This acrimony prompts cries of anti-semitism and Islamophobia from Terrans, to which the Takomenians respond by embracing the labels pridefully. Sexuality is one of the chief causes of acrimonious dissonance between the two worlds, with Roketsune enthusiastically inflaming the passions of both worlds and personifying the general sentiments of the populaces of enemy and allied nations alike.

The sexual orientation frequencies of Takomenians are drastically different than those of Terrans now, probably more in line with those of ancient Rome or Greece. Heterosexuality occurs in approximately 50% of the population, with some degree of bisexuality being the second most prevalent at... I guess 35%. Homosexuality has a prevalence of about 10%, with pansexuality and asexuality and whatever other separate minorities there are comprising the remaining 5%. I imagine Takomenians in general are somewhat more sexually driven and active than Terrans, with anthros overall being more amorous and some species being renowned for it. Due to genetic manipulation over many decades (that general topic will be discussed at length soon), Takomenians in general have a greater sexual instinct, larger genital size, and better sexual functions overall. Due to extremely great focus on medical technology, sexual diseases of all types are non-existent.

Technology

The societies of Takomen have deemed that the advancement of various fields of technology and the development of infrastructure constituted progress for their world, and thus they have invested an extraordinary amount of their resources into such things. They have invested the highest proportion of resources into medical technology since they wanted to eradicate as much disease and disability as possible. Once they reached sufficient levels of development to make genetic therapy and even the eradication of senescence (fancy term for aging) plausible immediate goals, the level of effort and funding accelerated. The lethality of Takomenian weaponry ensure many troops who become casualties perish, but it is certainly nice that they happened to have advanced the medical field of technology so much up to the start of their Great War so that so many of the wounded survive and fully recover.

Within the last 50-100 years, the Takomenian nations and peoples deemed the destruction of the natural process of aging was the paramount imperative of Takomen, and the nations cooperated freely and invested great amounts of manpower and money to bring about the fulfillment of the Immortality Project as rapidly as was feasible. We actually know what causes aging even now, or at least two primary causes of it. Even with our primitive level of development relative to them, we are aware of telomeres/telomerse and oxidation. They also would have discovered that, and saw the possibility of making people effectively immortal (barring death from catastrophic injury) with this and the discovery of cures for diseases, the achievement of such resolving the greatest problems and causes for sadness they encountered as a planet-race. Wars were highly infrequent and they didn't concern themselves with God or other stupid shit, so they had a great amount of resources to throw at this endeavor. They eventually succeeded through several avenues of attack (telomeres, general genetic manipulation, cures and treatments for diseases and injuries) in devising methods of making people effectively immortal from aging or diseases. Once these methods were perfected and refined, it was deemed a universal right of humans and anthros to be provided these treatments (and medical care in general) regardless of socioeconomic status. They were working on bringing about immortality to fatal accidents/murder and restoration in the event of catastrophic brain injury, but none of these methods came to fruition before the start of the Great War. With no way of bringing back people lost in combat, the conflict is all the more tragic to a planet who had become so very estranged from and unfamiliar with death, and a solution to fatalities is further away now that the war demands such a high share of the nations' resources.

Of course, the process of bringing about immortality also brought numerous benefits and changes to the peoples of Takomen along the way. The reduction of healthcare and welfare costs due to prevented or more rapidly treated diseases and injuries, and the progressive eradication of mental diseases and the augmenting of people in general, was a massive effect. Also a result of the technological leaps were an increasing need to control reproduction because people were dying less and less often and later, a reduced need for senior services and their version of Social Security, the ability for people to decide their permanent aesthetical and physiological age, and an altered concept of and attitude towards retirement. The societies of the planet were radically transformed for the better as a result of these drastic and very rapid advances in medical technology. This is perhaps the main reason the citizens are relatively comfortable and well provided for even during a massive wartime mobilization and the extreme demands that come with it. They are very efficient financially and otherwise because of the aforementioned changes, so they don't need as much per person as those on Terra do. Of course, since people rarely perished before the start of the Kantarian Revolution and subsequent Great War, the crime of murder became even more abhorrent to Takomenians.

I want to delve a bit more into the genetic manipulation and eugenics aspect. I thought about adding it under the Religious section since it would be a consequence of their atheism, or the Government one since governments would ultimately be overseeing it, but this one I feel is the best. The other great project the Takomenians undertook was that of genetic augmentation. This is an existing but incipient capability IRL, and we've been able to grow cells for experimentation for years before that. I am sure that there will be substantial opposition to the notion of not only preventing diseases in people later in life before they're born, but improving them and changing various attributes. No doubt religious conservatives will be most likely to object, though when we finally get to this point hopefully they'll be close to extinction. I'm sure some liberals and even atheists will be averse to this as well. Fuck, even the damn Federation in Star Trek apparently was against this entirely and had a war over it. Anyway, largely because of a lack of recognition of a deity they would supposedly be competing with by improving their people, they very enthusiastically embraced genetic augmentation to make their people more intelligent, more resilient, etc. (bigger assets... why not if you're improving everything else?). In conjunction with direct genetic manipulation they continued imposing standards a citizen must meet to be allowed to reproduce. This meant the Takomenians in general developed at even greater paces with each generation. Genetic augmentation and non-injury immortality have been incalculably impactful to them and are easily the most revolutionary factors in their history. We could have been there and further if we made different choices as a species.

The Takomenians improved the field of medicine the most, but they are substantially ahead of Terra in most other fields as well. The Takomenian advent of the internet came 50-100 years before Terra's, and they remain quite advanced in the field of electronics and computers. Holographic projections are very common in both the civilian and military realms. Virtual reality is actually the standard method of gaming, role-playing, and other activities rather than a rare and expensive indulgence. Computers are many times more powerful and quick than ours are. Planes are much faster and used more often, civilian vehicles are often or usually of a flying type (hovercraft or a sort of low-power jet-propelled car), and the extensive railway networks almost exclusively use maglev technology. Takomen per capita has a drastically higher industrial and energy output and efficiency than the average modern nation on Terra, yet Takomenians enjoy a much cleaner planet due to stringent environmental regulations, the abolition of polluting forms of energy production in favor of fusion nuclear power and solar power (which is far more efficient than Terra's currently), and various green industrial innovations.

There are a few fields of technology they are comparatively deficient in. Robotics was neglected along the way, and thus they aren't much further ahead of where we are. There were ethical/metaphysical concerns about where the line is between machine and sapient being and what they might do if robots/programs became advanced enough (think Battlestar Galactica), so that and AI development have been deliberately curtailed. Takomen has had relatively few wars and perhaps one in recent memory, and thus their military technology maybe is only 20-30 years ahead of ours, with a lack of robotics forcing most of the fighting to be done by flesh-and-blood beings. Though, their advances in metallurgy and power generation do assist them greatly, allowing them to have very powerful armor and railguns. Their spacefaring technology and infrastructure as a whole is perhaps even less advanced, as Takomenians have been highly fixated on themselves and their planet and have had little desire to explore. The necessities of the global conflict have completely stopped any advancement in this field, the peoples caring even less about space travel than they did before. If they were more advanced in this area, it might have had the opposite effect due to there being space-borne fleets, weapons systems, and infrastructure. There were none and they deemed it impractical to try to get to that point during war, so funding was cut off. Perhaps in 50-100 more years they will develop fleets in space and make contact with another race.

Speaking of space and extraterrestrials, I never really explained how exactly Takomen and Terra have contact with each other, especially if neither planet has meaningful space-faring capabilities. In the previous incarnation of this universe, portals were generated on Takomen which opened on the other side on Terra. While I've been deliberately vague on the method of interplanetary travel and exchanges heretofore, now that I contemplate what I just wrote, it would seem portals are how they established and maintained contact, and how people and things cross from one to the other. As the Takomenians can close the portal whenever they wish and whatever thing which allows them to open portals only exists on Takomen, there is no risk of invasion or other military incursion from Terra. In fact, Takomen has full control over exchanges of cultural things, people, goods, etc, as a result of its portal monopoly. You can use your imagination about how portals are generated, as I don't have a real explanation for that at present.

Government and Legal

The four nations of Takomen are parliamentary republics, very much like Western European nations. There are so many variations of parliamentary regimes (and all other systems of government), and I imagine there would be some variation of rules and procedures and such between the nations. The governments are very centralized and comparatively little power is given to provinces/states. The Bengarian government is significantly more corrupted and imperialistic than the other three, but it is still effectively a parliamentary republic. Kantaria had to decide whether to follow the Takomenian norm or go with some sort of military government once it was feasible to start a national regime. Due to fears of it degenerating into a prolonged and intractable military oligarchy or an abusive regime in the name of winning the war, the majority of senior officers advocated for a regular civilian government which would enable and oversee them.

One major thing all four governments have in common is they exert more control over various aspects of the citizens' lives than would be generally deemed acceptable on Terra, at least in the most modern nations. This is not so much because they're inherently more authoritarian/fascist as because the people don't oppose such regulatory powers. For example, all four nations have had very long traditions of regulating the process of reproduction. The government- with the populace's endorsement- determined various prerequisites one must meet to marry and have children, and created a regulatory department to certify people and to investigate violations. The people of Takomen have long thought it was ludicrous to allow anyone to have children. What purpose does it serve to allow poor or diseased people to have children and then have to provide welfare services to them, if fully capable and qualified parents could reproduce instead? That's not to say they hate poor and disabled people, but they just don't want them adding to their poor and disabled populations by having children. (I am super-passionate about eugenics due to the extreme benefits of all types it would give society, and also it's personal: I am disabled due to being conceived by utterly unfit and degenerate parents, and I have committed to never having children because it would add to the problem.). Another example is the setting of certain restrictions on lifestyles and behaviors in child-rearing. Here we would flip out if someone's children were taken away for being obese or because the ideology they were being raised with was anti-LGBT. On Takomen, it's all considered child abuse and considered grounds for prosecution and sanction.

Overall, the governments and their economic doctrines and laws can very accurately be characterized as socialistic. Socialism in my understanding entails extensive regulation of the markets and industrial production, and providing substantial entitlements to its population, but allowing private property and otherwise being akin to capitalism. A government needs to have very heavy control over corporations and prices to achieve this, and I have always envisioned the governments having this power and money even before the start of their world war. For the good of their societies, they oversee and regulate to the degree they need to (usually, anyway- no regime is perfect, not even Takomenian ones) the economy and corporations, and tax them and the executives appropriately to ensure there is enough money to fund necessary programs and to combat wealth inequality (they don't actually demand everyone earn the same wage, but they do perform wealth redistribution via entitlements and investment in cities and infrastructure and such). Functions which are absolutely essential and ought not be run with profit as a goal (power, water, food, medical services, prisons, etc) are owned and managed by the government or by heavily subsidized and restricted non-profits. Thus, Takomenian societies tend to be less brutal on the poor and the low-tier workforce and enable them to advance, but as a consequence people who are middle-class and especially upper-class will have a more difficult time financially advancing since they are obligated to contribute heavily towards society. The upper class is taxed extremely highly during the war and don't have much left for themselves proportionally, and this is especially true in Kantaria due to their economic and industrial weaknesses.

Usually, the government will stay out of the way in scenarios and situations where it's warranted, and they will not cross certain boundaries. If something does not harm society or if interfering would or probably would cause more harm than remaining still, they tend to be passive. Like in America, the peoples and the governments they elect feel the rights of unrestricted speech and press (within certain parameters, obviously) are sacrosanct and, save for such things as revealing military secrets and bona fide harassment and directly inciting violence, should not be restricted at all. Things such as recreational pursuits and sexual activity they don't even want to get involved with beyond a few safeguards if children are involved. Anything that does not behoove society to interfere with, they leave alone. Things of great significance to society, they mercilessly involve themselves with and regulate for the good of society.

I suppose I'll add this here since the justice system is a function of the government and the government dictates how they function and address cases. Crime is very low to begin with due to eugenics and the needs of all of its citizens being met. It's also drastically easier to prove guilt and innocence through a variety of technologies than it is for us now, so that's another deterrent. Police have a comparable level of power to what they have here in America, but there are more safeguards for people who are detained or interrogated and transgressions by police are severely punished due to the power they wield over everyone else (good luck making a cop or prosecutor suffer much if they behave unethically in America). Defendants enjoy more protections and benefits than those in America and at least some First World Terran nations do, such as shorter trials and more quickly acted on appeals and better representation (this is also a right of civil litigants on Takomen, if they cannot afford attorneys).

The criminal justice system has a restorative orientation: that means it is focused on rehabilitating criminals and enabling them to be upstanding citizens rather than resorting to retribution (i.e., prison terms and harsh treatment while in prison) by default. Higher levels of technology in various fields allow them to do this more effectively. There are no such things as 'mandatory minimums' generally in Takomenian laws because the people and regimes understand very rarely will a judge be pants-on-head retarded about a case, so courts are free to be mindful of the facts of the case and decide remedies congruent with the aforementioned orientation. Prisons are not common per capita for two main reasons: they have found throwing people in jail as a method of deterrence and rehabilitation is inefficient and arguably cruel, and they deem those who will not or cannot stop committing crimes are not usually worth preserving and execute them rather than incarcerate them forever. Unlike most Americans, Takomenians find the idea of privatizing prisons or holding vast numbers of the hopelessly predatory and criminal types in one place forever to be outrageous. Prisoners who are deemed to be irredeemable and who have exhausted their appeals tend to be treated worse than even their American counterparts, in contrast to increased protections and rights preceding that point. If they are not executed immediately they might be used for experimentation or extremely dangerous labor, though I do picture one or two nations deciding that's too severe.

Military

The militaries of Takomen relative to Terra are far more permissive and accepting of individualism. What doesn't affect their performance and the capabilities of their units, and what isn't indicative of degraded performance or gross immorality, is generally not a concern of someone's superiors or the military in general. One major example is a total acceptance of sexual activity between personnel, even in combat units. They and society in general don't see sexual behavior any differently fundamentally from people deriving pleasure from eating ice cream. In fact, the leadership would rather their soldiers get each other off during a few free moments and maybe improve morale somewhat in the process. They don't see it as inherently a threat to performance or battle-readiness, so they default to the Takomenian norm of not interfering with benign things.

Another major example of this is general appearance. Generally people are commanded to wear uniforms while on duty for practical and rational reasons, but they're free to wear whatever accessories with them they wish, though combat troops have special restrictions for obvious reasons. Infantrypeople are not obliged to shave or keep hair length below a certain length, though they often elect to shave and keep hair short for comfort and convenience. There are no gender norms and Takomenians are supposed to be free people, so if a prancer decides to have long hair and wear a MLP necklace and rainbow bracelets and such while he works in a secretarial office, no one gives a damn as long as he still is identifiable by average people as a member of the military. Actually, on the matter of appearance and fashion, it's even more lax in Kantaria, particularly at those places where he is routinely physically present and is thus the immediate senior officer. He's so informal he likely wouldn't care if people came to work in entirely civilian clothes. He himself has carried out business while in civilian clothes on those few occasions he's forgotten or was too lazy to change, and I easily see him deliberately going around naked once or twice just to randomly fuck with his personnel. I imagine the main reason he generally prefers to wear his uniform is he designed the thing. It would be fucking awesome to work under him...

There are policies in place to protect the rights of soldiers and officers to conduct political activities during off time. They are allowed to participate in rallies and campaigns, and advocate for whatever or whoever, just as they were allowed to as a civilian. Policies differ on whether they're allowed to carry out things of that nature while actually in uniform, or towards/with those who are their subordinates. The norm on Takomen, speaking of political activity, is to separate the military administration from the civil government and its politicians as much as possible, so one does not unduly influence or degrade the other, the chief concern being politicians in a variety of ways weakening the military. To this end, there may be a curtailment of civil liberties on very senior officers with regards to political activity and affiliations.

The militaries are far less needlessly harsh and oppressive when training and indoctrinating inductees than the Terran equivalents often or usually are. Takomenians don't feel it necessary to build discipline through such means as screaming, penalizing for trivial infractions, communal punishments, and various pointless and tedious commands. The stereotypical angry marine drill sergeant mentality they find irrational and abhorrent. They find that rigorous physical exercising, rigorous combat tactics and maneuvers training, and inculcation of various necessary things, are all that is needed to generate sufficient combat and general discipline and order. Their basic and post-basic training courses certainly wouldn't be considered easy or pleasant, but they don't needlessly "break down" the trainees in a war on individuality either. The academies and advanced courses follow this and the previously expounded principle. If a deprivation or regimen won't meaningfully assist their capabilities as whatever it is they're being prepared for, it's not seriously contemplated.

The militaries of Takomen are far more egalitarian and reverent of the common trooper than those on Terra tend to be. On Takomen, the officers and regular troops use the same facilities regardless of what rank the officer is. Unless he elects to dine elsewhere or at his desk, even Roketsune has to go to the same mess hall as the lowest soldiers for chow. He also has to piss and shit in the same restrooms. There is no special officer club he could go to where only all the other cool marshals hang out. Ordinarily he and all other officers are supposed to carry out a minimal level of menial work per week. They even are paid more than he is. Of course, he probably could exempt himself from the grunt work and having to eat in the mess hall if he wanted the military to pay for his meal, but I use him as an example to illustrate and emphasize a point. They remind themselves that the officers and enlisted alike are sapient and mutually dependent beings in pursuit of the greater good and progress, and that frontline personnel bleed and suffer and die just the same.

The officers are given special authority over the regular personnel, and above a certain rank officers generally are no longer field-grade and frontline. They are inherently already privileged, especially the more senior officers in the rear. Roketsune and his immediate subordinates do obviously experience unique mental burdens and fears, but the sergeant at the front charging at the enemy or being bombed from the air in a foxhole has WAY MORE stress to contend with and had no say on the order he/she is executing. They find the Terran system of bestowing even more special rights and perks to the officer class to be outrageously deplorable. This is why higher ranks generally result in less rather than more pay, though the officers away from the front might receive more allotments and coverage in the way of housing and other things which aren't applicable for combat troops at the front. The Kantarian military actually had to raise the base pay of marshal-level officers recently because they weren't being fairly compensated for their efforts.

Urban Traits and Lifestyle

The average Takomenian lives in an urban or suburban area, with very few living and working in remote and agrarian regions. The increasingly rapid technological development has accelerated the rate of urbanization, and Takomenians are increasingly accustomed to doing more things faster and more easily, which can most readily be achieved in metropolises. People are connected to whatever they call their version of the internet ("datastreams" or "databanks" I tend to think of most readily) constantly, service is ubiquitous and provided to all as a basic sapient right (though, obviously, taxpayers fund it), and it has been decades since data usage and speed have been issues for them. Mass transit is ordinarily highly developed and expansive, and virtually every corner of most cities and large towns is served by one or more forms. The average city and town is extraordinarily safe to walk through at any given time, because eugenics and civil services have caused criminals to become somewhat close to extinction. Also due to eugenics and civil services, these places tend to be quite clean and attractive. Also due to those things, homelessness for any reason is essentially non-existent, and various policies and police empowerments ensure that the few cases that do emerge for whatever reason are very quickly resolved because street-dwelling is effectively banned.

With the exception of the average inhabited area in Bengaria and various districts and towns with diurnal populations throughout the rest of Takomen, cities and towns do not sleep completely at any given time because many anthro species tend to be nocturnal by default and thus are carrying out their business when the diurnal people have retired. Everything in areas which warrant it either is open 24 hours (I imagine they would use a decadal metric system to measure time, at least the hours) or is open during optimal times during the day and night. Also, while commercial activity in general has significantly fallen due to the increased wartime demands on the population, the streets are still quite active in the four nations, especially within the capital districts. The various species of Takomen live and work amongst each other in near-perfect harmony even during war, and even the few Terran visitors and immigrants are generally not discriminated against.

Relations Between Takomen and Terra

The Takomenians experimented with portal technology or whatever, and on about 2010 I imagine they made first contact with Terra. At the time Kantaria was not a sovereign nation, so only three would have existed. The two worlds quickly realized they repulsed each other and the three Takomenian nations adopted some variant of a non-intercourse policy towards Terra. They might talk to them or have a few visit Takomen, maybe even provide information on medical and agricultural technology which the Terrans could use to bring their own closer to theirs without benefiting the latter's military technology, but otherwise trade and travel was intentionally non-existent. The Terrans were confused and offended by this, and the religious people disappointed they could not proselytize to this world of heathens, but there was nothing they could do about it. The only Takomenian presence on Terra aside from the occasional special envoy or technological emissary was the portal base in a remote part of America, which required a great deal of negotiation and subtle threatening from the Takomenians to convince the Americans to allow (if Bush was the President they might have refused entirely). Some people wanted to emigrate from Terra to Takomen during the pre-war years, and a select few were allowed to. Unlike most nations on Terra, people had to fully embrace the moral and cultural norms of Takomen (including being atheists) to even be considered, and they usually were mentally screened with more advanced lie-detection technology to ensure this (and then always without exception after the war started). They were perceived as being snobbish as fuck by the majority of Terrans, while the Takomenians just felt any sane nation should be doing the same with its immigrants.

When the Great War started, nothing actually changed substantively, though the animosity seems to have intensified. As I've stated several times in this submission, relations between the two worlds are at best silently hateful, at worst seeming to verge on war after one of Roketsune's legendary excoriations from the podium. Not only the citizenries of each planet but also the leaders of such utterly despise the other. Takomen's displeasure with Terra is so intense and universal that when Roketsune openly pondered the possibility of going to war with one of Terra's countries over a theoretical incident, his archenemy Taneru publicly and unsarcastically vowed to effect a cease-fire and deploy planes along side Kantaria's for the duration of the operation if it ever happened, despite her government being the only one to allow embassies on their soil. While her interjection was hilarious or horrifying depending on the judging person's outlook, it underscored the real and constant possibility that something will start a war between the two worlds, quite possibly before Takomen's intraplanetary war ends.

Despite the rancor between the two sides, there have been and continue to be very modest exchanges of various types taking place since first contact was made. Roketsune surprisingly has embraced a few aspects of Terran culture, such as Downfall parodies and the holiday of Halloween (though he introduced a non-horror and sexualized variant of it). Various culinary innovations and practices from Terra have been assimilated into Takomenian culture. A few miscellaneous things in popular culture such as Japanese artistic styles and My Little Pony have been embraced as well. Extremely few Takomenians have gone to Terra on temporary business for whatever reason, but 100s of thousands of Terrans have been allowed to come to Takomen. Most have come to volunteer for the war effort and become full citizens in the process, mostly for Kantaria due to its role in the war and a few other factors (some join the Likurians; very few join Bengaria or Wesitaria) and after extremely thorough screening. A high proportion of them have been bronies and furries (who would have increased in number following the discovery of Takomen), the remainder cultural malcontents who want off their shitty planet and are happy to assist the war effort in the process.

The state of affairs between the two worlds will likely remain as they are for the foreseeable future, if it doesn't degenerate further. As Roketsune and the Takomenians in general seem determined to head down the path of intolerance, xenophobia, and bluster, there seems to be no chance of any sort of rapprochement. Once the Takomenian Great War is resolved, the chance of the antipathy transforming into military aggression will only rise. Roketsune is opposed to a ground war with Terra of any sort and opposed to unprovoked warfare in general, but it would take very little provocation from a Terran entity to cause him and the Kantarian military and civilian leaderships to wage a punitive aerial campaign in response- possibly even with atomic weapons. The other nations are not far behind in willingness to retaliate in a theoretical incident. As the only link between the two worlds is a portal which can be turned off at any time, the potential for a casus belli is greatly limited, thankfully.