The Order of Chaladon

[Lord Dick Tim]

What we know

-Inspired/descended by a combination of Indian culture and English colonialism
-Kingdom
-Sigil is a parrot

Now this one is a bit messy, India is huge and has incredible cultural diversity.  So I'm going to skirt around trying to speculate on to many specifics because it can go anywhere.

What I think might be going on depends largely on the fusion of the two different cultures that might exist in the nation.  Well, that's my first assumption, that there is at least two cultures in place and they might not get along all the time, or at least didn't in the past and are only now showing cohesion, if not inter breeding.
One thing I can be sure of, India has a huge religious diversity and I see this playing into the Order in some fashion, whether it be influenced by the concept of Dharma or not, I haven't even the foggiest.

India also had some of the earliest social projects and has had a continuous history of powerful leaders that started projects simply to improve the quality of life for their people because it was a good and right thing to do rather than for some religious idealism.  So there is that potential angle, that Chaladon is a rich and fertile kingdom looking to spread the "greater good" around, or projecting their borders as a way to ensure that foreigners can't invade.  Offensive defenses as it where.

There is also the idea of the spice trade, the indies trading companies and powerful corporate nations with wide sweeping political power granted by their nations.  This plays well with the merchants being so close by, and could be either a strong bonding relationship between the two, or drive them apart due to competing enterprises.  Hell, maybe both.

Some other forum goers have some exciting ideas of their own about this faction, I've been contacted a few times about it, hopefully we get to see what they all think as well.

...before Jess comes in and says, "no Tim, no."
Skywhales!

[Gato Blanco]

Solid facts, now for some speculation!

As we know, India is a hot place, and not an island nation.  Given that it is close to the "Feudal Europen" Baronies, just a little south of the tundra line that is prevalent in the Anglean Republic and Firnfield, I would suspect it would be too cold and deprived of sunlight to have the population develop "Indian" sensabilities, thus make it unlikely that cultural influences that developed in hot, Indian environments arise naturally in a place that might require heating part of the  year (im speaking about the buildings here).  Changes in the global environment from a warm era to a cooler era, noted in my posts about the Anglean Republic, would fit here; buildings designed for a warmer time, by a culture adapted and risen from a warmer environment, would make sence.  Furthermore, that it is an island nation, and has a noticible "English" influence, I would hypothesize that Chaladon is located in this world's version of England.  Perhaps the "English" heavily recrutied or replenished thir armies from "India", lead to a decrease in the "English" influece and an increase in the "Indian" influence in "England", which lead to what we know of as the Order today. 

What about trade?  The island is great source of food itself, with a strong agricultural base.  Its also has some scientific development, at least enough worth mentioning.  It could export either of these, but who is to say that they aren't trading with other nations, places that are not on the map, that aren't  players in the Airship war?

 Any island nation that wants to stay independant will have a strong navy (see England and Japan), it wouldnt be unreasonable to see some of their boss ships being huge floating fortresses refitted or purposely built for taking down airships, to force pilots to hug the ground when taking them down.

I could also see, with their combination of mad science and being an island nation, that they could apply mad genetics to local wildlife, to help them increase fish yield, domesticate gigantic turtles to make submarines, or even breed flying whales.

Skywhales, if you will.

[Lord Dick Tim]

My god gato, you've found the origin of the skywhale!
Did we just become best friends?!  (I can't help but love step brothers)

I really really like the idea of a reverse colonization, instead of a migratory force wandering into an area, it was imported en masse till it began to alter what was originally there, like the Romans importing Greek literature and culture.

[Keon]

Bump. We just had a faction feature for them.

I don't really feel a flaw of the Chaladon. They seem like they were unaffected by the fall, society completely fine, they've got plenty of resources and stuffs, and so on. I feel like they might be too powerful if they became expansionist. Heck, they've even got trees. That's unheard of.

Somehow, there needs to be a reason they don't turn expansionist and go kill everybody for the good of society, as per the Tau in 40k. Maybe they are splintered? They lack iron? Something like that?

[Piemanlives]

They might as well look down upon the rest of the world, sort like just see them as pests and ignore them to degree.

[Wazulu]

Hmm, they've got a couple oceans in the way. I can see a clear obstacle in the form of the Baronies, so expanding that way would be difficult, as it would require waging war over an ocean, which could limit the capabilities of an airship fleet, especially if the coast was fortified. In that same vein expanding to the South wouldn't be too bad, although they'd run into the Guild sooner rather than later. The only issue is if they did try to expand they could be faced with a two fronted war, which would nigh-on guarantee their loss.

You've then got to think about forms of communication- trying to control vast areas of territory with limited forms of communication is extremely difficult, and gets more so the further away the boder of the territory is from the center or capital. This is exacerbated by the oceans, and therefore trying to maintain influence of a cross-ocean territory will be pretty difficult.

Also, small point, I imagine that Chaladon would be isolationist- think America during WWI. There's always the risk of that lovely triple war in the Burren, and Yesha can breathe down everybody's necks except theirs- why would they want to enter that political mess? If they've got all the resources they need they can just wait for overseas demand and start selling. Or, sit there and wait for the storms to pass by them

[Gryphos]

Also, asking why they wouldn't expand is assuming that they'd want to in the first place. While the rest if the world's gone to shit, they're probably quite content in their little paradise.

[Piemanlives]

So is Anvala and they have guns, everywhere.

[Byron Cavendish]

What I ascertain from what is presented is: from the concept art shown, the ethnicity of Chaladon is Anglo. The clothing shows the most inclination towards aristocratic Victorian, with a touch of middle-eastern in the head-wear. They are culturally the very definition of isolationists, and on top of that, they have what seems to be the Utopian society. They are very much what could be the pinnacle of human civilization.

[Wazulu]

So is Anvala and they have guns, everywhere.

Anvala's different. Chaladon can put up two fingers to Yesha, as to invade they'd have to cross extreme distances, as well as doing so in territory that isn't theirs- I don't think the Baronies will let the Yeshans park their Armada on the coast for a quick stop before Chaladon.  However, like a post I put before somewhere around here, Anvala's got 3 factions drooling over it. I wouldn't say it's isolationist, it's merely trying to keep it's head above the water with potential armies surrounding it. That and it's gonna be the general area (Burren) in which I can see lots of conflicts occurring.

Also of interesting note is that the Chaladonians (Probably the right way of putting it) could under price their goods, particularly food, and sell it to the Angleans at cheaper prices, compared to those of the Yeshans. That'd be a nice point of conflict, and a potential reason why areas such as the Baronies and Angleans may side with Chaladon in the case of war. That's if Chaladon bothers to get involved, mind.

[Lord Dick Tim]

Ok so I wasn't completely off my rocker on my early guess for this faction.
One of the things that stuck out for me are the city states.  With Chaladon being a collection of independent entities that follow a similar creed there is room for different parts of Chaladon advancing their enterprises in largely different ways.
Additionally one of the hurdles of any humanitarian project or organization, as the Chaladonians seem to favor as a way of life, is coming to terms with that idea that fractured small entity populations will and can attack you despite your good intentions.  This could lead to the militarization of their scientific and trade expeditions. 
It leaves it open for individual Chaladons to make aggressive take overs of territories, that would later become new independent city states that follow the national identified creed.

[Byron Cavendish]

Sorry, I don't see it. Everything they do seems to have a purpose towards betterment of their own society, and by extension humanity as a whole. Aggression would likely be a last resort. The purpose of the city-states is most likely a simple matter of better control over each area's immediate infrastructure. A society of their description works best in small communities.

[HamsterIV]

Even if Chaladon was a perfect utopia there would still be reason for conflict. Chaledon has food. The other factions want food. Chaledon wants for nothing so they have no desire to trade for food. The other factions decide to trade "not bombing your homes" for food. The Chaledon are forced to militarize from a population that is superior in size, but inferior in fighting skill and tradition.

My speculation is that Chaledon would field ships, weapons, and tactics that initially look like identical copies of the ships and weapons of those invading them. However they would be slightly different in worse ways, as Chaledon engineers and naval tacticians miss the point of the original design.

Gatling guns that shoot explosive rockets
A Lumberjack with a telescopic sight
Flares that pass right through clouds
A ship with 5 forward facing light guns that are slightly offset so that it can't have more than two mercs on a single target (yeah I went there)
Formations that resemble lotuses and birds of prey but do nothing to maximize firepower at the point of initial contact

[Helios.]

here's what we know about chaledon:
they largely are untouched by the environmental catastrophes that made much of the world barren (although from teh sounds of it, people havn't looked at the map carefully, as there are definitely a few forests in there.) despite the limited recovery, they undoubtedly have the most natural resources around.
because they were largely unaffected, they don't have super cool old-timey reverse-engineered airships and stuff; they diddnt have airhips untill a barony airship visited, and they reverse engineered the ship and started making their own much later than everyone else. this means that their ships are largely different. the 'science int eh morning, tend the land in the afternoon' strategy we have been told is a mainstay of at least some significant percentage of the chaledonian population for generations means that their technology might NOT be based on the remains of the old world, and have genuinely new technology. when the airships started arriving, and the chaledonians started making their own, the synthesis of old and new might make some really wild unique ships, the squid we know is one, and if you watched the vidios from pax, you see another (it kinda looks like a oversized squid with feathers on it, it's gorgeous.) 
as others have said, having the resources they do, they will have to protect it from attack, either economically or militarily. the undersell/oversell method of ensuring they have friends wehn they need them is a really cool idea.  im imagining that the chaledonians and the mercantile guild would have a lot to gain from cooperation, and the movement of food and natural resources to the freezing, barren, technology-rich anglean republic and technological advances back might be a mainstay operation of the mercantile guild, and put the three of them at odds with the arashi who i would think would be glad to attack both directions of that traffic coming through the desert. the yeshans and baronies would hate this as well because it allows the angleans to operate  indefinitely without being hugely hindered by their more or less lack of excellent farming space. the MG benefits because the MAIN raiders of the GOIO map are now reliant on them for food, and so would be crazy to attack their trade caravans.
the chaledonian cultural isolationism suits the MG fine, better that they sell it to the MG instead of trying to create their own trade empire.
the ships we know the chaledonians have are fast and agile, allowing them to counter the more static ships that are more typical of the fjord baronies: any sniping spire pilot can tell you a fiery squid is a nightmare... defending the shores of the chaledonian island with a fleet of small nimble interceptors avoiding the largest ships' heavy guns but still being large enough to shoot down the airplanes of the fjord baronies makes a lot of sense.
this raises a important issue with the ship requirements of trade. to trade you need a lot of deck space to PUT all the stuff you have, the squid has no deck space to speak of, and so its easy to see why they wouldnt be the best traders and rely more on teh MG to do that for them, having mobulas

[Clockeye]

One thing that I think might be important about them, is their connection to the nature itself.
they are thankfull not to be starving like the rest, and it's clearly said not to "take too much" from nature itself.
Do you think their ships, weapons, buildings and all that should be also decorated and constructed in a way to get them
closer to the nature itself? You've mentioned a feather-decorated bigsquid. Maybe that is their thing?
They would try to merge with the nature as much as they can, planting plants whenever they can, taking care of the animals and
looking at other fractions with a bit outrage, seeing as their heavy, steel plated ships contract with natural beauty and harmony.