Laconia

The **Laconic States** (RC: "Лаконык Политэяс") also known as the Dusters or the Spartans are a highly advanced militaristic Ranathan tribe who consider our humble narrator their natural born soldier because of my Martian heritage & also because of the violent style of my Facebook rants.

They live on harsh planets like Mars for the most part, but also in outer space where they build & maintain their war fleets! As of 2018 they are basically in control of Mars National Bank. The total number of Laconians is estimated to be roughly 7 trillion souls, having the reputation of cockroaches among the Thanna for colonizing every goddamn planet or moon they find.

The relative majority of Laconians profess the Zen Sunni faith, you know, like the Fremen people of the Dune saga. Their holy scripture, so to speak, is a few thousand pages of extremely secular legal philosophy named "Laconic Demokratsya" - RC: Лаконык Демокраця. The Laconic dialect of Creole speech is very dense, like for example they often say "apstos" instead of Apostoles or "demkras" instead of Demokratsia or "taskaf" instead of Tachiscaph. This manner of speaking has a bad reputation though, so you'd better just avoid it in distinguished circles!!

## Geography

They also live on large planets with bearable temperatures until the Runa people (EN: Latinas) finish terraforming the place, a process that takes centuries on average. They lease the planet to the Runa who then pass it on to the tribe most suitable to utilize its resources.

There are also lush worlds on the perimeter, too far away from large trade zones, where they have heavily armed outposts also hosting lots of Runa scientists. Alexandra is the most common Laconic name, in other words: Sandra, Sandy, Sassy, Sasha, Lexy & so on.

Here you got some Laconic states...

* Diwali: (Дивьали) relatively laid-back & conservative compared to the rest of Laconia, they serve as our industrial heartland together with the Larkana state. They are basically like British during the 19th century or something: extremely perseverent, always very polite & politically correct, always on the side of the underdogs etcetera. They are very much into competitive sports & violent music as a means to show their Laconic identity in spite of everything. Also they can lose their temper sometimes, in which case they turn surprisingly violent! There is a well-known story in Laconic folklore about an angry mob of Diwali sailors beating a victorious Thanna general to death at the docks.
* Nyatar: (Ньатар) also laid-back & conservative, but more akin to contemporary Japanese/Korean youth with all their cuteness because of not having much planetary surface at their disposal. Renowned for the quality of all the fabulous warships built & maintained at their naval yards, they are true Belters who join the Laconic navy to fight for their Belter causes & stuff like that.
* Larkana: (Ларкана) renowned for the cultural diversity of their massive population, they are a little bit of all the other states - a bellwether state of the whole union, with almost a thousand planets & moons under their control. Larkana tends to be the port of call for all immigrants attracted to the Laconic way of life!!
* Trisol: (Трисол) the striking fist of the Central Navy, they are by far the most violent Laconic tribe as a result of a rather unstable climate on their home world. Proxima Centauri B is their capital planet, hence they are also named the Centauri nation! Despite being always jumpy & hysterical by nature, they tend to be the most popular Laconians because of their ubiquitous pop culture combined with highly effective foreign policies. As a result of their extremely prominent cultural activity, they are also very intimately connected to the Ranigan business empire. They tend to admire the Diwali for their calm & relaxed dispositions while the Diwali also admire them for their exotic passionate lifestyles, which results in a lot of intermarriage between these 2 tribes. In spite (or maybe much rather because) of their enlightened liberal affluence, the birth rates of Trisolar ladies are among the highest in the universe!
* Ares: (Арес) the founding mothers of Trisol as well as all the other states, they are the proto-laconic nation founded on Ancient Mars more than 400 thousand years ago. Although they have mostly faded into political insignificance during this unfathomable amount of years, in 2018 they returned to the spotlight by signing a bold unification treaty with the modern human-dominated Mars Republic. Millions of affluent Laconians arrive every year, mostly of the Imperatrix race, called simply "the girls" by the local population.

## Politics

War is their trade!! There is no such thing as an unarmed astronaut (RC: "Apostol ohne oplas nyet!!" or "apsto nö plas ne" in the spoken dialect) as they love to say, referring to the common practice of using the drive plume of a fusion engine (or any other civilian space tool) for violent ends. Laconia is always willing to fight for anyone who supports Ranathan hegemony & is not completely cringe, anywhere anytime!

The first proto-laconic state was originally founded by some shady Thanna chick clique on Mars, as a coalition of renegade admirals in bed with terrorists who turned out to be the better of two evils against a cracking & crumbling empire seated back on Ancient Earth sometime around 450 000 BC.

Almost all manners of interstellar travel were forbidden back in those latter days of old Thanna rule, ultimately even rotolifting was banned!

Since they portray themselves openly as the better of two (or more) evils ever since, Laconic rules are always worded in everyday street language: just like on Socialist Mars, it is very common to hear a recorded voice politely telling you to "please get the fuck out of the vehicle" at the terminal stop of a transit pod.

## Culture

Sandra is mostly an avid practicioner of BDSM who emulates brutal Thanna practices with members of a large interstellar guild of well-trained male actors + a huge number of illegal amateurs bribed into silence by nearby Cargo cults. In general the more you are willing to suffer for the pleasure of a Laconic mistress, the more you become entitled for emotional & financial support from her community.

Although they are really fascinated by violence, they tend not to be particularly arrogant in the common everyday sense: their lives are mostly revolving around the holistic provision of Low Entropy Warfare solutions to a vast number of client states, with all aspects of their long-term strategic defense in mind: electronic, economic, biological, chemical, ecological, psychological, cultural, political, you know, all that fancy stuff!!!

The notorious **Laconiq** investment bank is arguably the largest aerospace & defense contractor of the known universe: they admire the late Soviet military leader Leon Trotsky BUT together with Nikolai Bukharin as well.