Bur'I

Bur'I is both the name of a people group and a country.

History

Bur'I has one of the longest recorded histories in the known worlds, with a direct royal line claiming to go back more than 1,000 generations.

Modern Bur'I

Today, Bur'I is a constitutional monarchy consisting of eighteen major star systems and thirty-three minor, including 79 worlds total. A minor, backwater country by inter-stellar standards.

Though officially part of the Alliance, Bur'I is in a region of space too remote to participate fully. Many of the countries in the surrounding region are not members of the Alliance, having formed more recently and chosen not to join. because of it's remote location, Bur'I does not recieve millitary support from the Alliance and must maintain it's own boarders.

This is why Bur'I is perhaps best known for it's space navy, who's ten capital-class ships are probably the only active vessels in the verse able to go blow-for-blow with a GS battleship. No other political entity in the region has managed to build such large or heavily armed warships.

Bur'I's military owes it's success to twelve FTL drives purchases as surplus from the Gudersnipe Foundation during the Third Age. Two of them have since been lost; but the other ten, carefully maintained, continue to serve Bur'I more than 3,000 years later.

Old Bur'I

During the Mage Wars, Bur'I existed as a dramatically smaller nation on one of the [flat dimensions]]. They had inhabitted that region since the Age of Darkness, and sometime during that timeframe changed from the old Lion clan to Bur'Ians.

Ancient Bur'I

According to Bur'Ian tradition, they're roots can be traced clear back to the Empire of Roads.

Monarchy

The Bur'Ian royal line is the oldest in the Known Worlds and goes clear back to the beginings of recorded history, during the Age of Darkness. In fact, Bur'Ian written records are the oldest in the verse, and have been used to set the chronology for much of modern understanding.

The monarchy is an unbroken bloodline going back all the way to the edge of Antiquity, and is governed by strict rules of succession. The crown passes through the bloodline only, so that each successive reigning monarch is a direct descendant of the original king.

Rules of Succession

The first recorded monarch was crowned king in his own right; however from the get-go, the monarchy was reguarded as equal-opportunity. The succession is from first-born-to-first-born, meaning the first child born to the reigning monarch will be the next monarch.

The Crown

Bur'Ian tradition acctually records succession according to the prince or princess. Once the first-born of the reigning monarch reaches adolescence, they are crowned. It is the crowned prince or princess that will be the next monarch(if a crowned prince had a younger brother, he would still be a prince, but not the crowned prince). The passing of prince to king(or princess to queen) is not a particularly major event and often goes un-noticed.

This is because, especially in the early days, succession happened only through death. Meaning, for the prince to become king, his father had to die. According to the law, the crowned prince became king the instant his father died, so long as he had already been crowned by this time. Thus, the celebration of the ascension of a new king would also be celebrating the death of the old king.

Instead, it is the crowning of a new prince or princess that gets all of the fanfair. It is the next monarch, not the current ruler, that is celebrated.

In more recent times(after the Bur'Ian relocation and the end of the Mage Wars), the throne often passes while the old monarch is still alive. Though

That Document I have on Bur'I

Bur’I is… a land of contradictions.

As the only known monarchy to pre-date the Mage Wars with a completely unbroken line, the kingdom of Bur’I is somewhat famous throughout the known worlds. However, lacking a GATE hub and being fairly distant, they don’t get a lot of tourism.

Bur’I is a constitutional monarchy, the thrown has no actual political power but is a very important symbol for the Bur’Ian people. Most of Bur’I’s people love their king, and will cheer and shout and throw flowers when the royal family goes on parade. Some of the less loving citizens… will throw grenades.

While the king has no actual power, he plays a very important ceremonial role in the government by opening and closing sessions and appearing before the public. The king is also highly respected and has a voice. When he speaks on a certain issue, at the very least he will be heard.

Additionally, there are many positions of prominence over which the democratic government has no control. Specifically the offices of Royal Page and Royal Squire. In days long past when Kime the Great was queen and Bur’I truly came into it’s own as a nation, she retained a squire as her trusted confident. He would deliver messages and personally oversee tasks which the queen had deemed important. Similarly, Kime retained a page to be her personal companion and friend.

Squires are traditionally in their mid to late twenties but can maintain the position for a lifetime. It is rare that older people are appointed as squires, but not unheard of. Squires are the eyes and ears of the crown, serving the direct interests of the crown.

Unlike the position of squire, pages begin at a much younger age, usually in their early teens. Also unlike a squire, a page will not retain their position past the age of twenty. It is not uncommon for pages to later be appointed as squires, however it is not guaranteed. A page is usually appointed by, and loyal to, a specific member of the royal family. Either the king, queen, or a crowned prince or princess. Other members of the royal family may not appoint pages or squires. The duties of the page include doing ‘gofer’ work for the royal they serve. Go for this; go for that, though usually within the palace proper. They are also there to provide companionship; a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen to. They are also often used in an advisory fashion to help the royal obtain a different perspective on a situation. Since pages are often by the side of the royal they serve, they get to see everything from an objective standpoint.

Interestingly enough, pages are fairly uncommon compared to squires. Every king or queen will have at least a dozen squires(the squires have to travel to other planets within the kingdom to open and close sessions of the senate on the king’s behalf) but it is not uncommon for the position of page to go unfilled for several generations. The squires are very necessary to the proper running of the kingdom, but the position of page is mostly ansilary, left over from the time of Kime but not removed from the constitution because it is, after all, one of Kime’s laws. And the people do so love Kime.

Often pages are named simply as a royal favor to the families of wealthy people. They carry out no actual duties and often never even meet the king. This practice is frowned on, however, because it disrespects what was once a very important position.

The Bur’Ian line is governed by a very strict rule of succession. The crown is passed from first born to first born. Since the time of Kime, women in Bur’I have enjoyed equal status with men, and thus the queen is considered fully equal to the king. Bur’Ian’s love their pageants, and have many intricate customs and ceremonies regarding the royalty. The members of the royal family (and those closely associated with them) understand that the Bur’Ian people don’t want to see their monarchs as human, but as the idealized beings they have been made out to be for millennia. As such, being a member of the royal family is less like leading a nation, and more like playing a part on a sitcom. Carefully staged ‘events’ are often arranged to allow members of the royal family to do something that makes them look good, all to enhance the public’s opinion of them.

As part of the rule of succession, the name Bur’I is always maintained. As such when a woman becomes the rightful air, whoever she marries must take her name. the current king is Caleb Bur’I, who took the Bur’I name when he married Princess Tadashe Bur’I, the 998th crowned heir to the thrown. She died giving birth to a son, Jason Bur’I, who is the 999th crowned heir.

Caleb Bur’I is not a particularly great king. He described being king as ‘about a two hour a day desk job’. He is in his early fifties and spends much of his time on leasirue activities, namely reading. He is very well read, having spent pretty much the last 20 years reading and a good chunk of his life before that. He is knowledgeable and articulate when it comes to matters of philosophy, science, history, economics and similar subjects, but tends to freeze up whenever anyone tries to get him to make a real decision. He is not crazy or even a little bit strange; he is just a quiet, even-tempered old man.

Nita Bur’I is the current queen, Caleb’s second wife. Nit is the daughter of a wealthy aristocrat and her family has been ‘friends of the crown’ for many generations. She was once Tadashe Bur’I’s best friend. Now though she is quite an unpleasant individual, ‘taking up the strain’ as she describes it for her husband’s lack of leadership. Nita’s role as queen however seems to be mostly geared towards her own interests, as well as the interests of the aristocracy.

She has two children from a previous marriage, Dora and Laden. Both are completely spoiled. Caleb secretly hates both of them, but is too much of a nice person to show it openly; however he would never intercede on someone else being mean to them. Dora is a mean-spirited, pudgy girl concerned primarily with getting her own way. Laden is a bit more fit than his sister, though two-years younger, and firmly believes that he should be the crowned prince. Though according to Bur’Ian law, neither of them has any official standing, they are often referred to as prince and princess. Jason, who spent much of his childhood terrorizing them, is not above quoting exact passages from the legal code explaining in great detail why neither of them is ever, will ever, or could ever be royalty. Jason is not a nice person.

On Bur’I things are an awkward mix of technological advancement and regression. Millennia ago the Bur’Ian people possessed great scientists who made many advanced discoveries. These discoveries eventually led to Bur’I making contact with other technologically advanced cultures who were often willing to sell these advancements at a price. As a result, Bur’I posses several technologies which they did not invent, and no matter how long you study some things for, without earning the knowledge yourself it is impossible to fully understand them.

Take Bur’I’s military fleet of capitol-class ships. They have been using the same FTL drives for thousands of years. Not the same technology, the same physical drives. Bur’I possesses the means to service and maintain this technology, but lacks the fabrication facilities needed to build large-scale FTL drives.

Further still, the FTL technology used in Bur’I and the regions around it is incredibly archaic. The entire kingdom is only a few dozen light years across yet it takes a ship six weeks to go from one end to the other.