Myalis

*Flag design: Me*

> *"The Past Sanctuary" - Myalis official motto*
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## Overview

The country of Myalis has a landscape reminiscent of a cross between the Nether from Minecraft and the Kalos region from Pokemon X/Y, and is very Victorian steampunk but also with some baroque elements. It has a beautiful Versailles-inspired and gothic castle called Castle Blackstone with gorgeous chalet gardens. Myalis is known for staying in a steampunk/traditional/Victorian type timeline and rejecting most of modern culture. Modern technology does exist but it all stays within the steampunk aesthetic, and is used less by the denizens of this place than by the denizens of the regular world/region/whatever. That is, these people can use the Internet and stuff, but they don’t rely on it like in our world and the computers still look like old Victorian stuff. While much of Myalis has a hellish, badlands-like appearance, many parts are usually rather chilly. Many lakes and rivers are frozen over in the winter, but there are also hot springs and even "lava ponds"- this name is inaccurate, however, since these ponds are actually filled with molten glass rather than molten rock. The capital of Myalis is Hecking, and the entire country has a population of around 422 million people.

## Culture and lifestyle

### Myalis and traditionalism

As previously mentioned, Myalians are known for keeping past traditions alive and living the way that their ancestors did, deciding to not leave the steam age/Industrial Revolution era any more than absolutely necessary. There are definitely some Myalians that do participate in modern activities and culture, and wear things like jeans and t-shirts instead of long dresses with corsets or waistcoats and top hats- but they are often shunned and seen as strange by the rest of Myalian society. In short, while they don't view modernism as "evil" they do tend to think of it as unnecessarily complicated, not dignified, and disrespectful to the traditions of the past. Although most Myalians don't at all view themselves as above modernized countries such as Esmon, Wonovell or Aibrivea, many Myalians would never want to live that lifestyle and can't understand why anybody would choose to live that way. Most of them don't want to visit such countries for that reason, and a good portion of them would go so far as to say they dislike them. However, virtually all Myalians welcome travelers from all over the world with open arms, regardless of where they came from and how modern they are.

#### The Myodernist movement

As mentioned, there are Myalians who live a modern lifestyle rather than the traditional old life exhibited by most Myalians. For the most part, these people are just content to live their own lives the way they want to, but a subset of them believe that Myalis should get into the current times and stop living in the past. These people call themselves "Myodernists", a portmanteau of "Myalis" and "modernist". They often engage in demonstrations where they will try to persuade traditional Myalians to try technology, stage protests/rallies asking for various upgrades to the cityscapes, and will often smuggle plastic containers into the country. Though their movement hasn't gained much of a foothold in Myalis, often being disproved of by the casual modern Myalians even, it is still alive and well.

## Government

Myalis is a constitutional monarchy. It has a king and queen (page for the Myalian Royal Family here), but they don't have all the political decision making power. Much of this power is delegated to a parliament of elected officials, whose decisions must be approved by the king or queen before going into effect. However it's possible for the parliament to override the king/queen's veto given a sufficient majority (of at least 85% approval to override).

## Climate and geology

Myalis is covered with crimson rocks and loamy reddish-brown soil, and dotted with crater-like pools of molten glass. The glass is, of course, hot, so the area around the glass ponds is quite toasty. This is why one popular Myalian winter activity is outdoor glassblowing, involving bringing higher quality sand and/or bits of colored glass and a hollow rod to a glass pond. The glass ponds are made because underneath the crimson rocks and the loamy soil that covers most of the continent, there’s a thick layer of sand, and sometimes little hotspots appear in the ground and push up the rocks and dirt, creating a sort of crater-like structure full of hot glass. Over time, though, the hotspots fade and cool down, making big holes full of solid glass (which is usually chipped out and molten down to make into glass stuff) as new ones appear elsewhere. It’s really quite a fast process relatively speaking, happening over centuries instead of millenia as many Earth geological processes do.

## Media in Myalis

Although Myalis may be a very traditional country deeply entrenched in the ways of the past, they do still have some modern advancements, radio and TV being one of them.

### Myalian news channels

Myalis has three primary news stations/sources: Myalian News Central (MNC), TeleMYL (pronounced tele-meal) and Hecking Broadcast Network (HBN). ScorpioTV is also a popular news source in Myalis, even though they’re based out of Wonovell. What sets these apart is not their leanings, like in our world, but rather the types of news they cover.

MNC is generally viewed as very analytical and dry, often focusing on the business, economic and diplomatic side of stories. Their main topics include world economy, stocks, foreign relations, and things like that, though they do also cover other topics like conflicts and notable court trials. MNC is often viewed as the “news for intellectuals” and the other news sources tend to quote them. Some Myalians find this a bit too dry, as the anchors are strongly encouraged to stick to their bullet points and not comment on the events or show a lot of emotion in general. One of their newer and more popular programs is a program that offers tips and important information for managing one’s finances and making sense of what all the information they give you about the economy means for you. Sort of like Dave Ramsey!

TeleMYL never covers stocks and financial aspects (unlike MNC, who dedicate a good chunk of time to that every day!) but rather like to focus on celebrities, entertainment and other such happenings. They will mention other stuff from time to time, particularly if a new law gets passed, or if there was a horrible storm in some part of the country, but generally they keep their focus within the Myalian borders and the anchors joke around a lot- but they also do a pretty good job of analyzing the stories they cover too. Out of the networks in Myalis, TeleMYL hosts the most interviews and debates. It’s like a cross between E! and Good Morning America.

Last but not least is HBN. HBN has a main segment where they go over all the day’s stories, and then several other talk shows and podcasts where the hosts comment on and analyze the stories further, often providing additional details. Sometimes they’ll have other people on their shows, but usually they don’t.

ScorpioTV is generally Myalis’s favorite source for detailed around the world news, and particularly good when it comes to Wonovell.

### MAlert and emergency broadcasts

The emergency alerts are powered by a system called MAlert, which divides alerts into two categories: public emergencies and disasters. Examples of disasters would include severe storms, floods, fires and earthquakes; while public emergencies include dangerous criminals, chemical spills, missing persons alerts, and were it ever to happen, foreign attacks. Sometimes they’re voiced by an actual person at MAlert, reading off the emergency details, but other times have a text to speech robot read them instead, almost always the same female voice from Parsec/Lady Parsec’s voice (though there’s conflicting information as to whether they simply emulate this chipset with software or they’ve actually got the setup)

A disaster will play the Japanese Morse code-like tsunami alert sound, preceded by a loud beep like the American attention signal.

In the event of a public emergency, the beep will play and then a sound like the Saudi Arabian emergency alarm will play. In both cases, part of whatever was on the TV before, if it’s a TV, would be obscured by a banner with flashing text reading either “Disaster Alert” or “Public Emergency”. It then would show the information and start reading it out loud. On radio this just has the auditory components, of course. *Note from Ridley: I will eventually make a video mockup of both of these alerts, when I do I'll post it here.*

Since cellphones aren’t very popular in Myalis they don’t have a wireless alert system like many countries on Earth do.

## Random trivia about Myalis

* Thanks to its abundance of glass ponds, Myalis is one of the largest glass producers on Evis, exporting glass to other countries.
	+ They have so much glass, in fact, that the Myalian government outlawed the use of plastic containers in 55D:08. This law had three reasons: to prevent plastic waste from accumulating since even in Esmon and Wonovell plastic was known for being hard to break down and recycle, unlike glass; because they were worried that plastic could jeopardize their booming glass industry and wanted to make sure that they used this resource to its fullest; and because many Myalians associated plastic with modernism and so feared that allowing plastic to gain a substantial foothold would lead to particularly the younger generations moving away from the traditionalism that defined Myalis. Because of the ban on plastic containers, companies in places like Wonovell, where plastic packaging is commonplace, have to put products that they wish to export to Myalis into wooden, glass, paper or metal containers.
	+ Despite plastic containers and packaging being outlawed, plastic is still used in other places. Plastic components are used in many electronics and machines there, and on some toys, for example.