#wonk shit

A city council assists her in administering Zaofu. Like the old Republican Council, it combines legislative, judicial, and executive functions, each councilor controlling a government department and voting on legislation and court rulings. However, the Zaofu council is elected from its citizens rather than appointed by foreign rulers.

These elections are notionally free and fair with compulsory voting, but Suyin's control over electoral districts, who can gain citizenship, and ready use of defamation lawsuits -ultimately subject to a council she controls- make these elections primarily contests of who can gain her public favor before going to the voters. The elections have thus returned Metal Clan candidates to every seat contested since their inception, allowing Suyin's faction to amend the civic charter at will.

The Metal Clan has also not been shy about coopting the policy proposals of opposition factions in order to secure their hold on voters. Her personal newspaper is stocked at all government offices, and she regularly makes public broadcasts to maintain control of narratives in the media. As sole landowner, Suyin can use the implicit threat of deprioritizing maintenance of opposition-supporting districts to encourage voters to support the Metal Clan.

Rice is grown in terraced paddies. Farmers usually raise schools of fish in the paddies to eat waterborne pests and fertilize the soil, then harvest them when the paddies are drained, providing an important source of meat. Rice is usually steamed whole, but often ground into flour to make noodles and pastries or fermented into vinegar or liquor. Sometimes it is boiled until it completely breaks down into porridge. Sticky varieties are especially prized.

Soybeans can be made into oil and meal (which is then fed to livestock), eaten whole, ground into paste, fermented into a thin sauce, or boiled, curdled, and pressed into tofu cakes. Red lentils are a common alternative; mung beans are often eaten as sprouts to provide some fresh crunch or made into flour for noodles. For thousands of years, these were the main source of protein for most of the world.

Most peasants kept a garden outside their houses where they cultivated vegetables, herbs, and spices to supplement the grains and pulses of the fields. Most dishes begin with a base of onions, garlic, ginger, tomato, and hot peppers, with cabbages being a common addition. Coconut trees grow well in the tropical climate, and the liquid is a commonly used for braising. Five spices -star anise, clove, cinnamon, numbing peppers, and fennel- are grown in almost every garden and commonly stored and consumed together. Lemongrass and coriander are common herbs. Fire flakes are made from the skins of hot peppers, dried until chewy or ideally crispy.

As an island chain, seafood is an especially prominent part of the Fire Nation's meat supply. This often takes the form of sauces made by fermenting fish in salt for months at a time. Fire Nation folk are often stereotyped as particularly undiscriminating eaters of meat based on the sheer variety of sea creatures they will buy and eat; 'if its back faces the sun and its belly the earth' as the saying goes. Hippo-cows and komodo rhinos were often kept as draft animals, their milk fermented into yogurt and used to thicken stews and sauces. Excess head or those at the end of their working days would be slaughtered for their meat, often ground into sausages to circumvent the toughness of working muscle. The blood is often dried into bricks for making soups.

In modern times, the commercialization and industrialization of agriculture has allowed the common people to eat far more produce and meat than than before the war. Rather than garden plots, fruits and vegetables are grown in vast fields, enhanced with chemical fertilizers and worked by hired hands and tractors; livestock no longer need to subsist on wild grasses and weeds growing in fallow fields, but now get much of their nutrition from soy meal grown for them in vast quantities. They are then slaughtered and processed on an industrial scale, packed onto refrigerated train cars, and shipped to the bustling industrial cities of the Fire Nation.

The United Forces has two elements, the domestic and expeditionary, the former being recruited from the Republic's own territories, the latter being comprised largely of units attached from the services of the four nations as well as a few units of domestic volunteers. The former is primarily deployed on the Republic's own borders, while the expeditionary element undertakes operations all around the world under the direction of the United Republic Council and the General or Admiral of the United Forces. When this overall commander is a General, they will have an Admiral as a deputy commander, and vice-versa. Most senior officers are veterans of the expeditionary forces who have had more chances to distinguish themselves.

Iroh's first post came at the age of sixteen, when after graduating from cadet school he was a standard-bearer in the Fire Nation's 5th Regiment of Foot, but shortly thereafter he volunteered for an assignment to the Northern Water Tribe. There he cut his teeth fighting the resurgent Earth Kingdom pirates who had menaced Tonraq years ago, learning the art of special operations in the harsh arctic conditions. On returning to his regiment, he was elected by his fellow officers to fill a newly vacated lieutenancy.

A series of successful assignments and rapid promotions followed, in which he commanded men in both conventional and unconventional missions. Many of the latter were under family friend Captain Bumi in Task Force Raider, known in the headlines as Bumi's Raiders. After a stint in the Fire Nation War College, Iroh's successes in the Raiders gave him the military capital to carve out his own unit, the United Forces Commandos, which like the Raiders drew together the best of the best from across the United Forces for dangerous missions behind enemy lines, but as a permanent institution rather than a temporary task force. The successes of the unit across the Earth Kingdom earned him his promotion to general, and thereafter to United Forces General-in-Chief.

For most of his life, Iroh was not very interested in politics, though he never renounced his place in the line of succession. Izumi wanted him to pursue a career in the civil government or perhaps the fledgling diplomatic corps, but he wanted a life of adventure, and life navigating the halls of power seemed stifling, even distasteful in comparison. Aang's death around the time he began his studies at the military academy hardened his conviction to secure his commission into the United Forces. The service's international mandate gave him the best chance to make a difference maintaining the balance of the world while and giving him opportunities to prove himself while the world waited for the Avatar to return.

Over time, he developed more political awareness and rounded out his skillset. As he rose through the ranks, simple dashing courage and charisma was no longer enough. Increasingly sophisticated and independent operations required careful planning and judgement; more competitive promotions called for deft maneuvering behind the scenes.

Shortly after he reached the post of General of the United Forces, with nowhere higher left to go, more changes shook the world. Avatar Korra moved to Republic City while the Equalists plotted in the shadows before striking. His men took heavy losses in their first clash with the Equalists, leaving a profound impression on him.

In the aftermath, the Republic ceased to be an international mandate and became a sovereign nation with its own leadership. This fundamentally changed the nature of his role from intervening around the world to defending a particular nation. His instinct was to powerfully intervene in the Water Tribe Civil War, but this conflicted with the president's politics; as a result, the crisis festered until Unalaq's attack, which caused further heavy damage to his forces.

In the years following the Red Lotus Crisis, the Iroh and the United Forces played only a limited role, lacking the strength to shoulder the burden of stabilizing the Earth Kingdom. They concentrated instead on hunting down the remaining Red Lotus cells while the Earth Kingdom at large disintegrated, leaving a power vacuum that Kuvira filled. This boiled over into yet another disaster when Kuvira invaded the Republic, with her Spirit Cannon inflicting untold losses on his troops until he was ordered to surrender.

To him, the broad pattern was unmistakable. Crises had been allowed to simmer again and again until boiling over in catastrophes that his men died for. The Kuvira incident was an especially dire warning, showing the threat that a united and modernized Earth Kingdom posed to the balance of power and the threat spirit weapons could pose to world civilization.

Wu's decision to devolve the powers of the Earth King to constituent realms and the destruction of the then-only spirit weapon on earth were rare strokes of good fortune, and Iroh is determined not to waste these opportunities to build a safer world built on a just balance of power. This would mean both preventing the Earth Lands from reuniting, while also keeping the peace between them so no nation felt the need to develop the awesome destructive power of spirit weapons. At the same time, he is convinced that the Fire Nation must acquire an arsenal of such weapons if any nation should seek to develop them.

If/when Iroh should ascend the throne, then, the main planks of his policy program will be

A foreign policy of active peacekeeping

Non-proliferation of spirit weapons

Independence and protection for the Earth Lands

Domestic autocracy to guarantee him a free hand in foreign policy

Worship and ritual is usually approached transactionally. The worshipper offers some material good -usually incense, fruit, imitation money, wine, or among the wealthy, livestock- in anticipation of or gratitude for some service. These might include good harvests, calm seas, protection from disease, success in work and studies, bearing witness to solemn vows, and so on. The bending arts are considered an exceptional form of meditation. Some devote their whole lives to serving the spirits on behalf of their communities, usually in the form of diligently maintaining a holy site. This comes with varying levels of self-denial; while the Fire Sages are permitted families, nuns in the Earth Kingdom are traditionally considered married to the spirit of the monastery shrine.

Some rituals are enacted whenever the need arises, while others are fixed in an annual calendar, often tied to celestial events like solstices or floral cycles. These latter ones often see great festivals grow up around them. Rulers are expected to play a leading role in rituals and festivities to secure divine blessings for their lineage and domain, and protecting the shrines of the land is considered one of their most important duties.

Divination is an attempt to read the will of the spirits for the future. There are a number of methods in use. Reading the cracks in bones exposed to fire is the most celebrated method. Others include reading clouds, flipping coins, and dividing yarrow stalks.

Most sages teach that one's soul passes through the Spirit World on the way to their next life. The righteous pass quickly and easily through to new lives of good fortune, while the wicked must be tortuously purged of their sins in a chthonic prison before they can be reincarnated; offerings by their families can be used to bribe the wardens for swifter release. The most unfortunate become stranded in the Fog of Lost Souls. It is thought that if not properly attended, spirits of the dead may plague the land as ghosts.

The Air Nomads are the biggest exception to the focus on immanent powers in the observable world. They instead seek to transcend the suffering inherent in existence altogether, believing that if detach themselves from their earthly concerns altogether they can escape the cycle of reincarnation, a state called Freedom. The dominant sect teaches that the Enlightened Gurus reside in a so-called Pure Land within the Spirit World, and that if one can find the Pure Land after their life in the Mortal World, they can learn directly from them and rapidly become a Guru themselves.

Before their massacre by the Fire Nation, the monks were divided on whether individuals could achieve Freedom individually, or if all had to attain Enlightenment before all achieving Freedom together. Most agreed that only mastery of Airbending could train one's soul to find the Pure Land. Since the massacre and the foundation of the Air Acolytes under Avatar Aang, the asceticism of the Air Nation has been greatly relaxed in an effort to recruit and retain new acolytes.

People often invoke the Avatar to guide them to the Pure Land at the hours of their deaths in their capacity as the bridge between the two worlds; the standard mantra passed down from the Bhanti Sages is ‘Namo Amituofo Shidi’ when the living avatar is male and ‘Shimei’ when they are female, meaning 'Honor the Great Light's Disciple'. Also in use is a translation into the common tongue:

叩頭降卋神通

kaotao jiangshi shentong

Earth Kingdom ~ roughly the size of Afro-Eurasia, with its largely undeveloped peasant economy, appx 2 billion , GDP ~3.5 trillion

Ba Sing Se appears to be roughly the size of Germany, no counting the Agrarian Zone, which at relatively low urban densities results in a population of ~125 million

Kuvira's map has about 55 state territories outlined, so their average population would be about 36 million

Fire Nation ~ roughly the size of Russia, with population density of an industrialized world power around 1900, appx 1 billion subjects, GDP ~4.5trillion

United Republic ~ one tenth the size of the Earth Kingdom, similar density to Fire Nation, 800 million citizens , GDP ~5 tillion

Northern Water Tribe ~ 4 million , heavily subsidized by royalties on southern oil

Southern Water Tribe ~ 10 million, only 1 million being actual natives of the Antarctic, the rest being guest workers drawn in by the oil industry