Gordon Bay City

Gordon Bay City, officially the Democratic Republic of Gordon Bay City, is a sovereign city-state and microstate situated on the island of Candelaria in the Candelarias archipelago of the Oygruppen continent in the region of Rushmore. It is bordered to the north-east by the estrecho innomado, and on all other sides by Candelaria And Marquez.

Comprising the eponymous city and a handful of isolated villages and hamlets; Gordon Bay City was reduced from one of C&M’s largest municipalities to a small seaside town in the aftermath of the 1968 Gordon Bay disaster. Following the state’s breakaway from Candelaria And Marquez as the Queendom of Gordon Bay City under Queen Leohi however its population rapidly swelled, and the nascent country was soon established as one of the most species diverse in the known multiverse, home to members of dozens of sapient peoples in addition to humanity.

During Leohi’s brief reign the country became known internationally due largely to its newly established national football team, which achieved the highly unusual distinction at World Cup 45 in qualifying for the main tournament at the first attempt despite not having contested the preceding Baptism of Fire competition, and the mid-qualifying upheaval in Mark Baker’s squad from one entirely consisting of Kolan to one of over a dozen different species. Some time following the toppling of Leohi and the transformation of the Queendom into the Democratic Republic; GBC would precede C&M in withdrawing from international sporting competition and ultimately wider international affairs, in part as a result of the traumatic aftermath of the Beatrice Event of 2010.

The country suffered a population reduction during and after this time, but has largely retained its autonomy and its government today enjoys essentially convivial relations with C&M, including open borders, following the Candelariasian state’s Truth & Reconciliation process and the significant reduction in media censorship. GBC’s power-sharing administration has been led by humans of both Candelariasian citizenship and aboriginal Kolani heritage as well as non-humans.

History
Founded as a British fishing settlement in the early 1800s, the early Gordon Bay Town had grown into a prosperous port by the mid-twentieth century and had been considered one of the Candelarias’ fastest-growing and most financially and culturally influential cities at the time of the 1968 Gordon Bay disaster, from which the city never fully recovered. It remained underpopulated for its geographic sprawl, and with a relatively low standard of living for Candelaria, up until the early twenty-first century and the Kolani invasion.

With the arrival of thousands of self-proclaimed ”faeries” – later established to be the descendants of hitherto forgotten aboriginal Rushmoris hounded from their home around what would become Gordon Bay by Western settlers and who had taken centuries-long refuge in an extra-dimensional realm previously known to the Kolani people as the abode of the lifeforms recorded in their mythology as malevolent daemons, and by M.O.R.T. classification as the svartálfar – the character of the town altered utterly, with thousands of locals fleeing from the coast and their homes instead adopted by the young foot-soldiers of the invasion force. Styled as the Queendom of Gordon Bay City; the new state under the dictatorial Queen Leohi, in which Candelariasians were a barely tolerated minority, soon somewhat unwittingly became home to a vast influx of settlers from overseas representing some three dozen different species.

With the fall of Leohi’s regime – thanks principally to internal strife wrought by an alliance between Candelariasians and lower caste members of the Kolan – the state was granted semi-autonomy under the terms of the June 6th Agreement and the Statehood Act, with the government in Albrecht recognising the new Democratic Republic of Gordon Bay City and the authority of the Central Council, and a power-sharing government led by the Kolani first minister Lord Makua in which a broad spread of non-human representatives were guaranteed key ministerial roles.

While the Queendom’s existence went unacknowledged by the C&M government and media – with bird flu blamed for its lengthy isolation – the Democratic Republic was quickly formally recognised as an aboriginal state, with borders closed until such times as it was deemed medically advisable for contact with the outside world to commence. Although known internationally however, the true extent of Gordon Bay City’s genetic multiplicity would not become common knowledge among the Candelariasian populace until after the Beatrice Event.

Geography
Gordon Bay City is a costal enclave within Candelaria And Marquez, with a harbour at the bay itself to the north-west, an expanse of beaches to the north and north-east, and marshland giving way to the city’s largest park in a further inlet in the east. The River Caroline runs through the north-west of the city.

The City Centre is located a short walk via residential streets from both the harbour district and the seashore, and is home to the Town Hall on Merchant Street and most other civic buildings, the now largely abandoned St. James’s Church, along with the Liberty Shopping Centre – a modern construction housing most major Candelariasian high street chains, albeit with a significant number now turned over for Kolani or non-human operation and/or use. Further shopping is dotted around the city including along The Pom, a long street overlooking the beach that includes restaurants and arcades, with smaller shops found amongst the nest of colonial-era alleys to its south.

Even after a decade of the country’s existence, the three main communities are largely separated, with Candelariasians in the west and outer suburbs, non-humans to the south of the city centre and Kolan in the east nearer the coast, but the nature of the various groups’ settlement and resettlement of the city has left particular streets and individual homes housing members of different communities in the heart of other neighbourhoods entirely. The former distinctions between the districts surrounding the city centre have largely been superseded, with new names emerging – such as the Dark District, including Parsons Street, Dolphin Walk and Gulliver Walk, which is home to several predominately nocturnal species alongside Candelariasians and a handful of lower-caste Kolan and is notable for being lit during the evening and night-time only by candlelight and largely empty of life during the day. Nearby, an entertainment district heaving with pubs and clubs – and more esoteric amusements – has blown up to cater as much to Candelariasian and Rushmori visitors as Gordbaysian nationals.

The south-western portion of the city proper is primarily Candelariasian, and home to the airport, the Institute of Further & Higher Education, the Harris Road cricket oval, the GBC Television studios, Hague Park, the Weston Distillery and most of the city’s significant number of allotments, before giving way to the tenement blocks that characterized the inner suburbs during the early 20th century boom time. Many of these were overgrown and uninhabited even prior to the invasion, and were among the first locations to be taken up by non-human settlers prior to their move towards the city centre. Effectively lawless, initially by circumstance but now by intent, some streets and buildings in this area are known to be inhabited by Candelariasians with seemingly little interest in cooperating with the rest of the city, as well as non-humans including spriggans and seligen.

Also noteworthy is that, in certain parts of the city, GBC can effectively be considered to continue underground – with the sewer-dwelling svartálfar the most famous examples of modern Gordbaysian citizens living beneath the city proper, along with the mines of the coblynau.

The city itself is surrounded by farmland and wooded areas, the largest being Serenly Wood to the south, though the territory of the modern state stretches somewhat further to take in the villages of Doggett, Dudley, Makeham and Peach Acres along with numerous small hamlets. There are also small expanses of grassland and bodies of water, with the river eventually feeding into a string of small lakes.

There are two main motorways out of GBC, both with border checkpoints, while other roads and country lanes leading between the two countries show the border clearly marked. Wooded areas on GBC’s perimeter are for the most part divided by wire mesh walls, with concerns over C&M natives coming into contact with treemen, skogsra, leshiye and the like, though in general all these borders are much more amorphous than was the case a decade ago.

Politics
From the post-Disaster era up until the invasion, Gordon Bay City was governed principally from Albrecht, with limited responsibility for housing, transport, education, social services and the like reserved for the Town & Parish Council (GBC being downgraded from its formal city status in the late 1970s). The town was typically considered a Modern Liberal Party stronghold, thanks in part to widespread scepticism towards the role of David Clarke and his Unionist Party in the events of 1968, and with the MLP forming the council’s executive throughout most of the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Following the Statehood Act, ratified in C&M and again in GBC in the post-Queendom authority’s first act, the defunct Town & Parish Council was annulled, and the Central Council established in the old Town Hall building as the Democratic Republic’s unicameral national legislature.

The Central Council has thirty seats, with each renewable every three years (an increase from an initial six months, since 2016), divided on a 10:10:10 basis between the Candelariasian, Kolani and non-human populations. At the inaugural June 2009 elections, the former of the three were chosen from three mixed-member constituencies, while all the Kolan representatives were selected in a public ballot over the course of several hours. Under the terms of the Statehood Act, the three lower castes were automatically given representation among the ten places – however, the remaining seven were won by noblemen. No female Kolan were returned as Members of the City Council (MCCs). The methods behind which the initial cadre of non-human MCCs were selected is unclear, and remains obtuse to this day.

The initial make-up of the Council was apolitical, with Lord Makua voted First Minister and head of government by popular consent of the chamber before being formally appointed by the first Governor-General, Barry Williamson, the country’s head of state as selected by council members themselves. Under the terms of the Statehood Act, Makua appointed his fifteen-member cabinet from across the three main communities, with two non-MCCs selected as ministers (a First Minister being permitted to appoint up to a third of his cabinet from outside the list of elected members).

In most regards, the process of electing and selecting members of both the Central Council and the cabinet have remained little changed over the subsequent years. Lord Makua served several terms as First Minister, with Marjorie Belt his deputy for all but a year of his tenure, before being succeeded by the Candelariasian Tony Lukaszczyk, the dwarvish Logazor Drakkiborgo and the current holder of the office, since May 2020, the mannegishi She-Who-Tickles-The-Trout. A kolan, Lord Naikapa, was voted in as Governor-General in 2019.

The Cabinet as of March 2022 comprises the following members:

First Minister, Lady Trout MCC [Mannegeshi, Nonhuman] Deputy First Minister & Cabinet Secretary for Finance, John Tringali MCC [Candelariasian] Deputy First Minister & Cabinet Secretary for Community Cohesion & Immigration, Lord Wanaha MCC [Kolan] Attorney General, Unomsindo Amashiya [Tikoloshe, Nonhuman]

Cabinet Secretary for Business & Enterprise, Enrique Medina Rodríuguez MCC [Candelariasian] Cabinet Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Lm-Sp MCC [Gnome, Nonhuman] Cabinet Secretary for Defence & International Relations, Alan MCC [Alan, Nonhuman] Cabinet Secretary for Education, Claire Blagoev MCC [Candelariasian] Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Agriculture & Rural Affairs, Pandolfo Capra MCC [Erdluitle, Nonhuman] Cabinet Secretary for Housing & Transport, Lord Wanaha MCC [Kolan] Cabinet Secretary for Health & Sport, Riley McNicholas MCC [Candelariasian] Cabinet Secretary for Justice & Policing, Lord Ouka MCC [Kolan] Cabinet Secretary for Social Security, Lord ‘Apake MCC [Kolan] Cabinet Secretary for Candelariasian Affairs, Eric Miller MCC [Candelariasian] Cabinet Secretary for Kolani Affairs, Lady Helihiako MCC [Kolan] Cabinet Secretary for Nonhuman Affairs, Swanhilda MCC [Seligen, Nonhuman]