Xyon

Xyon, officially the Mikaean Republic of Xyon, is a  located in. Located within the northern, Xyon lies to the far east of and southeast of. Xania is an dirigist with its seat of power located in the capital city of Blackstone. The government exercises its over thirteen sectors and two federal districts, which is under the direct control of the Mikaean federal government. The of  is located to the far northeast of the nation, making Xyon the most isolated industrialized nation in the world. The nation has a total land area of 221,742 square kilometers (85,615 square miles), making it the and the  in the world. Xyon had an estimated population of 112.7 million people as of 2015, making it the in the world.

Xyon was the last major island in the world to be permanently settled by humans. Up until that time, no knowledge of the island existed, either in nearby and, or to the  in the Pacific. The island was finally colonized on 11 May 1653 by Mikael n/a, an trader and explorer from, who had been seeking his fortune in the region. He claimed the island for himself, and covertly built up the population and infrastructure for the island until his declare a monarchy in 1671. From 1653 up until 1874, Xyon remained largely isolated from the rest of the international community. Numerous attempts to open Xyon up to foreign trade by force in the years prior to 1874 had failed, though Xyon agreed to begin trading with the Western powers when fair terms of trade had been established between the and the. Several conflicts were waged by the European colonial powers and Xania for control of the wealthy island nation, such as the First Anglo-Mikaean War, Second Anglo-Mikaean War, and the Blackstone War, all of which Xyon won, securing its status as a sovereign nation.

Xyon engaged in a regional power struggle with the for decades, with numerous attempts by the Mikaeans to weaken Japanese influence in China and, and undermine Japanese prestige through the use of inciting unrest and rebellion in the Japanese imperial colonies and puppet states. Xania remained neutral during the, focusing on taking advantage of the global conflicts to advance its regional influence and power at the expense of Imperial Japan. However, attempts by the Japanese to invade the nation in 1944, resulted in Xyon joining the in. The Mikaeans assisted the Americans throughout the entire period of the, and reveling in the victory brought about by the. Xyon assisted in the, leaving behind a history of rape and abuse on the island nation, as well as a large population of Mikaeans who chose to remain behind after the occupation had come to a close in 1952, establishing the seventh-largest Mikaean diaspora population in the world.

Xyon has long possessed one of the most advanced economies and industries in the world, with some of its technological advancements many decades ahead of the rest of the world's most advanced nations. A major and, Xyon is a  which wields the world's  by power-purchasing parity and the world's  by nominal GDP. The nation continues to wield power highly disproportionate to its size, and is an active supporter of. Xyon is a, and possesses the world's. A founding member of the, and Xyon remains a member of the international organization, but calls within Mikaean population to withdraw from the U.N. may potentially change that. Xyon maintains the world's highest standard of living and boasts the and  rate in the world, and has been considered a  by many analysts, if not an active superpower already.

Etymology
The name Xyon is a corruption of the Hebrew word Zion by the original Mikaean colonists; a major hill outside of the city of and mentioned in the. The name had been selected by Mikael n/a in light of the island's mountainous nature and its prestine environment, almost regarded as holy in n/a's eyes. Prior to that point, the island had no name nor a native population, and was unknown to either the Chinese, Japanese, and Polynesians, who resided in the regions located not far from Xyon's shores. While "Y" was a common letter in the English alphabet at the time of the island's colonization in 1653, "X" was not, and Xyon's name was originally spelt as Zyon as late as the 19th century. For centuries, many variations of the name existed, including Zyon, Zion, Sion, and Tzion. However, the name was officially changed to its current state in 1845, when the government was reorganized into the Mikaean Republic of Xyon, using new naming conventions.

Discovery
Little is known of Xyon's pre-colonial history, as no archaeological remains or evidence of human habitation prior to 1653. The island's very location had gone unnoticed until 1641, when the island was discovered by Mikael n/a....

Administrative divisions

 * Blackstone -- 2,635,416 (2.37%) (Capital city)
 * Oxida Nova -- 12,715,792 (11.27%) (Sector-level city)
 * Kordan -- 26,583,675 (23.58%)
 * Illaban -- 11,093,363 (9.84%)
 * Aurora -- 14,385,296 (12.76%)
 * Hyperion -- 6,149,591 (5.45%)
 * Sichel -- 11,409,028 (10.12%)
 * Kerella -- 3,660,207 (3.24%)
 * Metia -- 9,715,434 (8.61%)
 * Azara -- 4,049,204 (3.59%)
 * Zveria -- 3,158,053 (2.80%)
 * Iconia -- 7,182,369 (6.37%)

Military
The Xyon's primary armed security forces are known as the Obsidian Guard, under the administration the Directorate of War. This force is comprised of 0 active personnel, with another 0 reserve personnel spread across four services as of 2015. The force is divided into the Obsidian Army (OA), the Obsidian Navy (ON), the Obsidian Air Force (OAF), and the N/A (N/A). This force in total represents 0.0% of the Mikaean population under arms, and is tasked with the responsibility of projecting Mikaean power abroad as well as waging war in the name of the Mikaeans dirigist ideals. Under the current administration, the Obsidian Guard has a budget of $0.0 trillion, which is used for the procurement of weapons, training, and personnel, as well as the research and development of new equipment and vehicles. The Obsidian Guard consists entirely of trained volunteers and professional contract soldiers.

The Mikaean Home Guard (MHG) is the second armed force of the Mikaean military, constituting the equipping and organization of a state-funded militia with paramilitary capabilities. Given the ideals of dirigism, pertaining to the establishment of a caste system, in particular a military class, Xyon possesses a large number of reserve military personnel within the soldiery caste. The Home Guard fills the gap for a low-cost combat force, which remains well-trained and equipped while in reserve, while also stepping in for the standard military services, and provide security in regions the military deems too important to lose, yet not important enough to spare crucial manpower and firepower required to defend them. This force consists of 0 personnel, staffed by members of the soldiery caste who serve a standard six-month tour of duty in active service, and another two years in "active reserve" before being recycled into another six months of active service again.

The counter-intelligence apparatus of the military is centered within the auspices of enigmatic Mikaean Electronic Army (MEA), which was established in 1983 to serve as a trained and professional military hacking and counter-cyberterrorism organization. The primary responsibility of the MEA is to target enemy military computers and databases and disrupt their command-and-control capabilities, all with the goal of preventing the endangering the ability of the Mikaean military forces in the field by allowing the enemy to fully utilize their electronic warfare resources. The total size of the force is unknown as it is a classified military organization, but estimates have placed the total MEA personnel between 0 to 0. The organization is also tasked with coordinating military drone operations, though the true scope and depth of the MEA's capabilities remains to be seen.

The Mikaean military is known to be one of the few nations capable of projecting hard power well beyond its shores, and is one of only a handful of nations capable of waging a total war against the United States with its existing military and natural resources. There exist multiple rapid reaction force units within the organization of the military, capable of being deployed at a moment's notice to regions of critical importance to the Mikaean government's foreign policy. These units are built around several squadrons of amphibious assault ships, which allow Xyon to maintain a presence in nearly every corner of the globe. Xyon maintains an series of active military forces throughout the globe based within nations it is allied too, allowing Xyon to maintain a global presence that allows swift response to threats beyond the reach of the main military force back home.

Military service in compulsory for all Mikaeans, male and female, between the ages of 18 and 25, with law stating that all Mikaeans within that specified age group are required to serve three years but not more than five within the Mikaean Home Guard as active reserve personnel. This allows the military to call upon them to fight if the need arises, but allows them to maintain their civilian life until said time. There exist few legal cases for exemption from armed military service, though according to Mikaean law, this does not exempt them from the military but instead sees them transitioned into unarmed duties that support the military's ability to operation effectively. Only those Mikaeans who have critical medical conditions, have served the nation in the past valiantly, or perform a vital public service for the nation, are truly exempt from having to serve in the military. Until they can serve in the military, all Mikaeans are trained throughout their childhood how to clean, handle, and use weapons, as per the nation's self-defense programs.

Education
The Mikaean education system is markedly different from that of the rest of the world. All education within Xyon is freely provided by the government, and regulated by the Directorate of Education. Education is compulsory from the ages of four to ten as part of their elementary school education, and this is where the similarities end. A Mikaean student receives their political education during this point in time as part of their journey toward legal citizenship that all children of the Mikaean state are expected to undertake. On the last year of their elementary education, all students must undergo a battery of stringent achievement and aptitude tests. The success rate for those undergoing the last year exams is about 63%, an intentional creation by the state to filter out underachievers. These individuals are directed by the Bureau of Skill Development to the appropriate technical schools within the nation as part of their secondary education. Those who fail the exams are filtered out into the schools pertaining to the servitor caste, where they will serve as second-class citizens until they can successfully gain citizenship in the future.

During the secondary education, which lasts for about five years, Mikaean students are placed with "learning cadres" which are made up of about fifteen to twenty students each. Each learning cadre is directed by a instructor by whom all the students are taught the skill relevant to the caste they wish to join. Instructors are flexible individuals capable of growing with their students' needs and handicaps. All instructors are members of the intelligentsia, and are responsible for ensuring that the political indoctrination of their students sticks. All students are held responsible for their own success or failure on an individual basis, but the instructor is held responsible for the actions and performance of his or her learning cadre as a whole. Instructors whose classes fail repeatedly, or having multiple low-performing classes face government discipline or termination from their posting or membership in the intelligentsia caste as a whole. The loss of a child within the education system because of poor teaching skills is deemed unacceptable by Mikaean society.

Students during their secondary education years must wear uniforms, and are subject to semi-military discipline, all while being exposed to the harsh indoctrination of Mikaean and dirigist ideology. Students are expected to work hard during their ten month long school years, and have little time for leisurely activities. They are encouraged to time of military training in the free time they do possess, as a form of relaxation. This has helped to increase discipline within the youth of Xyon while having a direct impact upon the lowering crime rate within the juvenile population. It should be noted that the families of students who have failed their elementary school courses are perfectly content with their children's future, believing the state-sanctioned belief that a higher education belongs to those best equipped to utilize it, while not spoiling potentially useful "servants of the state" by making him or her discontented with their new fate.