Sovereigns
Overview
A political and cultural alignment common to the Free Territories. Sovereigns believe that every man, woman, and child are self-sovereign and born free. They reject all non-voluntary forms of authority and control, and place individual reputation and competency above all else.
History & politics
The Sovereign movement finds its roots in the Dark Decade, as displaced populations around the world were forced to fight for their survival. While some sought safety in numbers, forming large makeshift refugee camps, others fled to more remote areas and chose to fend for themselves, isolating themselves from others and defending their land with lethal force. Over time, a code of conduct emerged among these groups that forms the basis for what has become the Sovereign identity.
As the world began to recover, and larger, more organized proto-states began to encroach on their un-ceded land, many of these ideologically aligned communities formed organized militias to repel incursions and defend their self-determined domains, resulting in many skirmishes and even large-scale battles, such as the Battle of the Mississippi Delta.
While some Free Territory affiliations represent themselves as "Sovereign states", it is believed by others that there can be no state allegiance for a true Sovereign. "Citizen" is commonly held as a term of derision. Nonetheless, when faced with a choice between the interests of GATA or another super-state on one hand, and a rebel state on the other, sovereign people consider the decision an easy one.
Fortunately for sovereigns, GATA's founding document—the New Dawn Accords—enshrined this self-sovereignty for "all people and peoples, be they self-sufficient in the maintenance of a natural human life". This right to refuse GATA citizenship is called "assimilatory consent". Among GATA's political class, and particularly district governments, this requirement is one of the NDA's most contentious provisions, frustrating and complicating governance, enterprise, and law enforcement. However, breaching this provision would trigger painful sanctions for the district, automatically imposed by The System.
Culture & worldview
Between sovereign people and peoples there are many divisions beyond the ideological individualism that tenuously unites them. Industry and ideology shape the Free Territories' patches, while the polycentric interests of syndicates and a tangled web of enmeshed alliances glue the patchwork together.
With Sovereigns, it is in many ways more insightful to reflect on their differences rather than their similarities. Some sovereigns are quick to identify themselves as "freeborn"—born after The Crash and outside of the domain of any nation or citizenship. Additionally, many contrasts can be drawn between sovereigns who live remote, quiet lives on the land, and those who reside in freeholds, or in cities.
Some consider sovereigns living in Gray Zones to be Atlans in all but name, referring to them as "grays". Closed in on all sides by another state, they are in many significant ways dependent on the provisions of the New Dawn Accords that enforce their sovereignty granted by its provision of assimilatory consent.
It is argued that because these Gray Zone sovereigns live amongst citizens of GATA (or other NDA-signatory states), they benefit from the infusion of Yield and easy access to their district's economy, media, and culture, inspiring dissonance and resentment in some outside sovereigns. Conversely, the sovereigns who live in Gray Zones refer to themselves as "zoners" and think of themselves as living on the front line of the Free Peoples' fight, living every day in defiance of a towering, indominable might.
In terms of worldview, the world's long-standing Great Religions and regional cultures weathered the tumult of the Dark Decade and the great reorganizations of the Reconstruction era, remaining somewhat consistent in their representation among the people of the Free Territories.
Notable developments within the preserve of faith have been the remarkable success of the still-young Church of the Sky—a combinatorial and adaptive amalgam of all doctrines "made compatible in their translation to the 'mother tongue' of nature"—and the slow, steady proliferation of anti-modern Eidetic movement—pronounced by the sharp provocations of its most extreme adherents.
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