PCBaller World/Byzantium

For other Byzantium info go see PCBaller World

Information

 * Official Name: Eastern Roman Republic;(Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Δημοκρατία)
 * Type of Government: Federal Parliamentary Democratic Republic'''
 * Capital City: Constantinople
 * Prime Minister: [[File:WashingtonConsensus.png]] Vissarion Owfithus
 * Gross Domestic Product: 7.07TΔρ
 * Intelligence Agency: [[File:FBI.png]] Federal Inteligence Service
 * Population: 62,043,191
 * GDP/Capita: 114,032Δρ
 * Human Development Index: 1.036
 * Official Languages: Greek, Vlach, Turkish, Bulgarian, Macedonian
 * Recognized Languages: All other languages
 * Democracy Index: 8.87/10 (Full Democracy)
 * Corruption Perceptions Index: 92/100
 * Currency: Byzantine Drachma
 * Conversion: 1Δρ = 1$
 * Code: ERR

10 Largest Cities

 * 1. Constantinople: 26.14 Million
 * 2. Adrianople: 5.08 Million
 * 3. Athens: 2.63 Million
 * 4. Sofia: 1.72 Million
 * 5. Thessaloniki: 868,486
 * 6. Varna: 774,159
 * 7. Patras: 401,188
 * 8. Plovdiv: 399,864
 * 9. Burgas: 334,197
 * 10. Heraklion: 286,118

The Byzantine News Network presents...


 * The HITECH Act proves to be successful, as the science & technology funding reaches 10% of GDP (x2 more than it was before), technologies are being created at a faster rate thanks to the mechanisms of capitalism.
 * Byzantine Prime Minister Owfithus has said that capitalism is the superior economic system, believing that socialism as a system has always led to stagnation in a recent (X site) post.
 * MD-2 Slayer Drones have begun to be in circulation with a hundred drones already being built. As of now, their main goal is to accurately track and kill leaders of terrorist groups (such as Godfathers Of The Night). The current Budget Reconciliation Bill puts the military's budget at 2.5% of GDP, an increase from 2.2% of GDP from the previous budget.
 * The number of tourists reached a record high in 20XX, with there being 70.3 million people who have visited Byzantium, with the main places of visit being the Aegean islands, coastal beaches, Byzantine mountains and historical sites. This is around 10 million more people than the actual population of Byzantium itself and it shows how tourism plays a big part of Byzantium's economy.
 * Political analysts in Byzantium are wondering why Byzantium has been warming up to Greater Illinois despite knowledge that it is far from democratic. The true answer is pragmatism, according to the Byzantine Government.
 * We are the real successor to the Rome, (says Vissarion Owfithus after the emergence of the New Roman Empire in Northern Italy) we after all have Constantinople. It has been the capital of the Roman Empire from 330 AD - 1453, and it is now again! We will even bring back the Emperor if the people really want to!
 * The Federal Intelligence Service announces that the leader of the terrorist group Godfathers Of The Night - Rica Pavlenco has been officially killed due to a drone strike from a MD-2 Slayer drone, the first ever drone strike from the model. After some days of tracking him by the FIS, the very accurate technology of the MD-2 Slayer Drone has finally been put to use as his location was confirmed. The damages caused by the drone strike only included the blowing up of his bathroom, where Pavlenco was at the time, however there was some damage to other places. Luckily, no one got else injured/died. This shows the accuracy of the MD-2 Slayer and the next step in drone warfare.
 * The Director of the Federal Intelligence Service, [[File:COINTELPRO.png]] Kyriakos Mitsotakis Jr. has announced a new list of banned groups that have fallen under one ofthe 3 criteria: Are committing treason against the state, Are engaging in criminal and/or terrorist activity and are an ethnically/ideologically supremacist group at their core. New groups, which have started to shake up public stability are as follows:
 * [[File:Mlmg.png]] Sons of Marx, a terrorist group which is inciting violence against the upper classes in the name of Marxism-Leninism. They have gained notoriety after they have assassinated the CEO of Helleniq Energy Yianni Sarkides.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis Jr. has suggested that police forces be very alert, as they could be having more activity after this announcement. He has also urged Owfithus to make Byzantium join the First Anti-Communist Internationale, in order to stop further communist terrorist attacks within Byzantine soil.
 * [[File:Burgsys.png]] Spiritual Rebirth, a group which claims to follow esoteric views and wishes to see nuclear armageddon across the world because the Jews have corrupted it. They also promote homophobic views and oppose any other religion except for Esoteric paganism. They have been banned because of criteria I and III.
 * After some thought, the Byzantine Prime Minister announces that Byzantium will join the First Anti-Communist Internationale, seeing the threat of terrorist Marxism as serious.
 * SCIENCE NEWS: After co-operation with Greater Illinois and Thailand, it is announced that the world's first practical fusion reactor has been brought online, with it having a Q = 30, enough for true fusion energy generation. The Ministry of Energy said that it was done using a 2H-3He reaction and it used 104,000 MW of energy to generate 3,120,000 MW of fusion energy at the Athens Thermonuclear Reactor (ATR). In other news, room temperature superconductors have also been created, with them reaching temperatures of around 22 degrees Celsius and a pressure of around 1/10 of a gigapascal, or around 100 million pascals, or 980x regular atmospheric pressure, while not ideal atmospheric pressure, it is practical enough for it to be distributed and improve the energy grid, computers, AI and battery duration.
 * Byzantium becomes one of the few countries to have an human development index (HDI) exceeding 1, after updates were made years ago to expand the HDI from a maximum of 1 to 2, after Greater Illinois became so technologically developed.
 * Military budgets for the first time ever exceed 3% of GDP, more specifically, they're at 4.4% of GDP after funding from the HITECH and Invest in Byzantium Acts. This means that the military has a budget of 280B$/year, a increase from the previous 150B$/year that was recorded in previous budgets.
 * The Byzantine Government has decided to block Soviet ships from sailing in the Bosphorus and Dardanelle straits, thanks to better technology, Soviet ships can be identified much easier and thus conventional disguise tactics may not work. Some members of the Byzantine cabinet, especially the Ministry of Defense have called for   forbidding Soviet ships from sailing in the Suez Canal and Gibraltar Strait. There are also calls for a price cap on Soviet Rare Earth Metals to cut their trade revenues.
 * Thanks to the discovery of room temperature superconductors, electric vehicle battery duration has increased from 2,000 Km to 4,000 Km and charging duration has decreased from 10 minutes to 2 minutes as room temperature superconductors are beginning to enter the market. This is also useful in energy, allowing for higher levels of energy generation and lower energy prices.
 * Byzantium is beginning to create the proposed M98A3 Superheavy railgun tank that is unlike anything the world has ever seen. It has an armor thickness of 5 meters and is overall heavily protected. It also has AA guns and is more resistant to drone strikes than regular tanks. It shall be a "behemoth" on the battle field, allowing for easy victories. It seeks to have hundreds of these tanks in service and to not only bring fear but also be practical and hard to destroy.
 * A hundred MD-2 Slayer drones have already been made, with them having a range of 5,000 km, it has 10 laser beams that it can fire and also has a speed of 1500 km/h and it costs 15,000,000 $/unit. So, it has costed us 1.5B$ to build these. The drone also has strong AA systems.
 * SCIENCE NEWS: A space tether system has officially been established in the exosphere, with the scope of shortening space trips to places like the moon (to get Helion to be used in reactions with Deuterium in the Nuclear fusion reactor in Athens, which generates so far about 2-4% of Byzantium's energy).
 * The Prosperity Party has won re-election with Vissarion Owfithus remaining as prime minister. He has campaigned on a radical centrist platform of uniting both rightist policies and leftist policies, appealing to a wide range of voters. This allowed for the People's Party gains to not be as profound and for the Left Party to decline overall. This means that the Prosperity Party has a majority in both chambers.
 * The [[File:Constlib2.png]] Byzantine constitution has been revised in order to allow for a mandatory military conscription of all citizens between the ages of 18-21 (unless you have a disability), which has increased the pool of reserve soldiers from 350,000 up to 675,000 and with the number of active soldiers increasing from 230,000 to 300,000.
 * Byzantine police officers were able to shut down a meeting of the Red Turks, which discussed the idea of restoring the [[File:Cball-Ottomanism.png]] Ottoman Empire and eradicating Greeks, Bulgarians, Macedonians and Vlachs to create a Turkish "Utopia". Some members have even outright discussed the creation of a Pan-Turanist state. Luckily, all of them have been put to trial and have been sent to prison. As such, the Red Turks have basically been driven underground.
 * Vissarion Owfithus warns about the dangers of SatellaGlobe, believing that by searching for alien civilizations, we pull potentially warrior aliens into destroying the human race, which is a negative consequence.
 * Thanks to the exospheric skyhook, Byzantine rockets can go at 127,000 Km/h after they're slingshotted by the tethers, increasing their speed from 64,000 Km/h, reducing trips on the moon from 6 hours down to just 3 hours. This has reduced the in and back trip from 12 to 6 hours. Through this, Byzantium is going to create a moon mining facility and a moon base, set to be finished by 20XX in order to allow for the shipment of Helium-3 to Earth.
 * Greek scientist [[File:Scientocracy_Small.png]] Herakles Sarkiadis has announced that the Constantinople Superconductor Facility (CSF) has created a room temperature superconductor requiring a pressure that is only x6 current atmospheric pressure on Earth and at a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, this is a big breakthrough in superconductor technology and can allow for maglev trains that can go at record speeds (exceeding 700 km/h). The Byzantine Government now seeks to share this discovery with members of the [[File:IPK.png]] Initiative for the Preservation of Knowledge (except the Soviet Union, due to Byzantium's anti-communist policies).
 * Good news in Byzantium when it comes to the topic of homicides as the rates have fallen recently by 55%, down from 7/100 people to 3.15/100 people. Membership for extremist groups such as the Red Turks has fallen from 10,000 down to just 250, meanwhile for the Revival Group it declined from 17,000 to 1,700 and for the biggest group, the Godfathers Of The Night, it fell from a high of 150,000 to 40,000. This has resulted in fewer crimes committed by these groups, this isn't to say that the [[File:FBI.png]] Federal Intelligence Agency will no longer keep an heavy eye on them. They will continue to do so.
 * In other news, a policy of gun rights in Byzantium has proven to reduce the chance of a successful homicide by 30% in the country, according to a recent study. This is due to the fact that citizens which are armed have better chances of protecting themselves from a potential murderer and can serve as a deterrent.
 * The long anticipated [[File:ChatGPT.png]] Zeta 8 artificial intelligence has been released. It can do x1000 more operations per second than the previous Zeta 7. The Zeta AI was created by Panayotis Inc. for the purposes of word-generation, image-generation, mathematics, chess and has recently been used in military technology. While Zeta 7 did 10^18 operations/second, Zeta 8 will do 10^21 operations/second. A big improvement from Zeta 7. In most schools, Zeta 8 has already become the main source of education for students, due to its wide range of abilities in all subjects, some even considering it a "weak AGI". The reason why [[File:ChatGPT-icon.png]] Panayotis Inc. can make such AIs is due to the fact that it has access to the world's largest data bank in Constantinople. While some are accusing Panayotis Inc. of being a monopoly, it denies that statement, due to the existence of WolframAlpha (by Wolfram Research), Bard AI (by Google) and ChatGPT (by OpenAI) are still competitors to it. However, Zeta AI does occupy 65% of the AI market share.
 * The Byzantine Prime Minister laughs at North Germany's statement that Byzantium is an imperial pink capitalist state, saying that: "You can make a big statement, but our drones can kill you out of nowhere!" This statement generated millions of views on social media sites.
 * A referendum on mandatorily using the word [[File:SJW.png]] LGBTQIA2S+ in reference to non-heterosexual genders has failed to pass, with only 16% of people supporting it and 84% of people rejecting it. Afterwards, after being proposed in parliament by the ultraprogressive faction of the [[File:ProsperityParty.png]] Prosperity Party, it failed 393-7 in the Chamber of Deputies and 194-6 in the Senate. As such, this was heavily rejected, even by progressives due to its very authoritarian nature.
 * Byzantine scientists and academics have praised Greater Illinois for the creation of the world's first functioning Quark Fusion Reactor, a fusion reactor set to generate even more power than a typical fusion reactor. This can allow for 100% clean energy across the entire world.
 * [[File:ChatGPT-icon.png]] Panayotis Inc. is one of the largest tech companies in the world and the largest tech company outside of the post-United States. They not only specialize in artificial intelligence (Zeta AI) but also in computers (Thunderbook), semiconductors (through their ownership of RS Components) and also e-mail services (Yotis Mail). The company has a market value of 16 Trillion Dollars, due to its international usage, only being dwarfed by Illinoisan companies (placing 4th in the world in market value).
 * Recently, it has purchased for 150M$ the schematics of a Quantum computer from Raytheon Technologies and is beginning the construction of the Kythera quantum computer, allowing for computers (and AI) to do way more operations per second and thus allow for better problem-solving skills. All of the features of the Kythera will be bundled with [[File:ChatGPT.png]] Zeta 8, the most recent of Panayotis's artificial intelligence. A quantum computer will be able to do 100 trillion more operations than a supercomputer. So, Zeta 8's operational power will increase from 10^21 operations/second to 10^35 operations/second, the same level as the human brain. As such, Zeta 8 could be considered a true AGI. The [[File:Cball-Byzantine.png]] Byzantine Government is scrambling to adopt better encryption for computers.
 * The Kythera Quantum Computer has turned out to be even more powerful than what was previously thought, it being able to do 10^39 operations per second, way higher than the previously expected 10^35. Researchers at Panayotis have plugged in 6 of the Clay Institute's Millennium Problems (without P = NP, as that applies to classical computers) and has managed to find actual, complete solutions in just a matter of seconds, problems which up to this point only had partial human solutions (with there only being one full human solution to the Poincare Conjecture). Luckily, Panayotis has stopped short of implementing Kythera within the Zeta AI system, to prevent a potential ASI from developing (from AGI).
 * Recently, military exercises were done in Bulgaria, showing how powerful the M98A3 Superheavy Railgun tank really is, being more powerful than most tanks (except for possibly Illinois's AI tanks). There has also been a Byzantine demonstration of Greater Illinois's Gauss weapons system. There has also been a bombing run test with the recent B-110 Basil Bomber, which had a top speed of 2000 Km/h and was equipped with nanite systems (very powerful AA systems) along with a powerful railgun which it used for bombing along with laser guidance to allow for great accuracy.
 * There has been growing support for bringing back the title of [[File:Monarch.png]] Emperor, with 40% of people supporting this decision and the renaming of the country to the Eastern Roman Empire, which is why the [[File:Caesar.png]] Restoration Party has recently been increasing in popularity, a const. monarchist and caesarist party, which seeks to restore the Roman Empire.
 * The historic Mt. Athos church has been demolished by the Macedonian provincial government, this comes after Mt. Athos was revoked of its self-administration status and then women and later LGBTQ+ people were allowed to set foot on its boundaries. Luckily, the records of the church have been preserved and are to be distributed in museums across the country. It has been demolished to pave way for an expansion to the city of Thessaloniki.
 * Socialist advocacy groups, especially from the Left Party have been calling for tougher regulation on [[File:Corp.png]] megacorporations such as [[File:ChatGPT-icon.png]] Panayotis Inc. (big tech company) but also Korinthos Power and others, believing that the government has been having an easy hand on them as it has been donating billions of dollars to them annually. However, average worker salaries are still at a record high of 80,000$/year and increasing and rates of worker unionization are high, with these megacorporations doing little if nothing at all to stop them. The Prime Minister has said that these are unnecessary, seeing that such regulations could hinder technological development and as such, he has continued to be in favor of tax cuts and subsidies to corporations like Panayotis.
 * After the recent upgrade in maglev train speeds from 600 Km/h to a record 900 Km/h, car usage has decreased by 70%, and the roads are unusually empty. Some people, known as [[File:Road.png]] car brains in Byzantine culture are calling for the removal of the 130 Km/h speed limit on highways across the country. This is to, according to them, bring back cars into the public light. The maglev has become the dominant form of transportation by far in Byzantium, as travel times are the shortest with it, even shorter than a plane (if we count all the checkout there). As such, competitors in public transit (Napred) and the automobile industry (Peugeot, Eltrekka) are struggling to remain relevant.
 * AEKKEA has decided to give a few of its MD-2 Slayer Drones to [[File:Cball-PL.png]] Eastern Poland. Currently, AEKKEA has constructed 1,000 of these drones and has decided to give Eastern Poland 15 of them, allowing Eastern Poland to have the upper edge over the [[File:PSNRball.png]] Social Nationalists. This could mean the end of the Detente that had previously been established by Hungary between Byzantium and the PSNR. Time would tell if this would be the case. However, this does not really bother Byzantium, as Poland is technologically inferior overall compared to Byzantium. This is also the first time Byzantium has given some of its military technology abroad, which signals a more interventionist foreign policy.
 * The quark fusion reactor in Constantinople has successfully achieved fusion generation, generating 300x more energy than was delivered, in a ratio of 100,000,000 MW (created) to 330,000 MW (put in) through a deuterium-deuterium quark mix. The Quark fusion reactor will power all of Byzantium and is a step forward in energy independence.
 * In co-operation with Greater Illinois + other allies we are beginning to extract rare earth metals from 3 resource-rich asteroids. Through quark fusion rockets, which can travel at insane speeds of around 3,600,000 km/h, taking only 2 days to get to the Asteroid Belt.
 * Recent advances in health research have made it so that through a combination of substances (nitrous oxide, theobromine, methylxanthine etc.) we can reduce the amount of sleep a human needs from 8 hours to 4 hours. This is a major breakthrough in personal health and can allow people to dedicate more time to their own projects while not being tired. In other news, a universal flu vaccine has been created, working on any mutation. It is currently being distributed across Byzantium (+allied states). Through this, there will be a heavy reduction (and potential eradication) of the flu.
 * Thanks to intel from Illinois's God's Eye system, Byzantium was able to track the location of the Sons of Marx leader and an MD-2 Slayer drone was able to kill the leader of the [[File:Mlmg.png]] Sons of Marx left-wing terrorist group, Ana-Maria Glavcheva. This is the second leader to be killed after the leader of the Godfathers of The Night (Rica Pavlenco) was killed. He was replaced by Yiannis Roussides. Now, the Sons of Marx have put the Deputy Leader, Marina Geridi as the new leader of the Sons of Marx.
 * Private schools in Byzantium are establishing classes with the goal of teaching [[File:SPQR.png]] Latin. Right now, Latin has been implemented to be taught in 9th grade only in all of the private schools where Latin is being brought back. However, it is expected that Latin will continue to expand in the coming months/years.
 * According to the recent census, the number of tourists that have visited Byzantium in the current year has increased from 71 million to 72.3 million. As such, Byzantium has become the most visited country in the world in the current year. This is thanks to its stunning beauty. The most visited cities were Constantinople, Athens and Varna.
 * After failed diplomatic talks with Hungary, Byzantium has upped its anti-PSNR sentiment. It has opened embassies for the [[File:Cball-PL.png]] Eastern Polish Republic and [[File:NSL.png]] Polish Hispaniola while also recognizing them both as the real Poland. It has also begun sending more military aid to Eastern Poland, which includes things like additional MD-2 Slayer drones (another 15 of them), fighter jets and also Gauss small-arms. Byzantium has also officially established an embassy in Polish Hispaniola and Eastern Poland.
 * The Byzantine branch of the [[File:IPK.png]] IPK has managed to rebuild the Wardenclyffe Tower on Mount Olympus, based entirely on Nikola Tesla's original design. While it is vastly inferior to modern transmission technology, it was built solely to preserve history and to answer the question of what it would had been like had it been built with the same properties as proposed by Tesla. While not in New York, the tower was still named Wardenclyffe.
 * The National Assembly is currently debating the details of the current yearly budget. The biggest divide seems to be within the Prosperity Party, with the leftist faction wanting a higher % of the budget to go towards things like welfare, social security, public health and education etc. and also re-instating the minimum wage while keeping the same level of R&D investment and reducing military spending. They also want to remove the value-added tax,seeing it as harmful to the consumer and finally, they want to increase the Negative Income Tax. The corporate faction wants reductions in spending across the board, especially on R&D, welfare, healthcare and education. They want to cut the Land Value Tax from 70% down to just 30% and they want to increase VAT from 5-15% to 10-30%. The accelerationists want to increase spending for R&D to record highs along with military spending while cutting spending on most other things (except for healthcare). The rightist faction just want to keep things the same, for the nation's sakes! It is unknown whether the Prosperity Party will come to a census in the coming days.
 * When it comes to the other parties, the Green Party supports the proposal drafted by the Left Faction while the Libertarians support that drafted by the Accelerationist Faction. The Left Party wants to cut funding for military to almost 0, believing it to be useless while heavily increasing spending for social programs. They also want to bring back the minimum wage and increase the NIT. They want to implement a corporate tax and a wealth tax in order to, in their words, deal with the greedy giants. The Restoration Party doesn't really have much of an opinion, besides increasing military and police spending in order to carry out the Roman dream. The Byzantion Party wants to cut R&D spending, social programs and end the NIT. They also want to end the VAT, replacing it with a sales tax. They want to increase military spending and police spending.
 * After a successful test run of the recently built Wardenclyffe Tower on Mount Olympus, it was able to send a radio wave which contained a random, insignificant message from Mount Olympus all the way to Chicago. While yes, it was way less effective than transmission technology (because it is 1900s tech after all) the [[File:IPK.png]] IPK now wants to rebuild the real life Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, New York and will rename this tower the "Olympus Tower" and name the rebuilt New York tower the Wardenclyffe Tower.
 * Panayotis Inc. has announced, in a stunning move, that it will be laying off 50% of its workers replacing them all with its Zeta AI. Panayotis workers are known to earn 200,000$/year. This decision is controversial, seeing as how it is these very workers who helped create the Zeta AI. As such, Panayotis CEO has announced that the company itself will give the now unemployed workers 2,000$/month until they find a new job, on top of government unemployment insurance. The company before the lay offs had 90,000 employees, now it has only 45,000.
 * A new breakthrough in quantum computer technology by the Kythera II Quantum Computer created by Panayotis and a large team of scientists which are specialized in quantum computers, being able to do 10^126 operations per second, while not the best in the world, being dwarfed by IBM's Eagle 9 Quantum Computer at 10^154 operations per second.
 * Members of the [[File:LeftPartyicon.png]] Left Party are protesting in the streets due to reductions in spending when it comes to social programs, saying that the government is neglecting the average citizen and is no longer caring about him during the age of automation, this comes after Panayotis's decision to lay off 50% of its workers. It is not yet clear how the government will respond.
 * A non-aggression pact has been signed with [[File:Cball-Hungary.png]] Hungary, soon after diplomatic talks seemed to be failing between the two countries. The terms of the deal would involve them protecting each other from the Dacian threat and would give Hungary access to Illinoisan-Byzantine technology, while not distributing it further to countries like Poland.
 * The [[File:MMC.png]] Mountain Corps (MC) have been established, a division of the Byzantine Armed Forces specialized in mountain warfare and more specifically guerilla warfare within the mountains. They number around 35.000, with 25.000 of them being humans and 10.000 of them being SRUs. They are a last option if Byzantium loses a war, and if Byzantium somehow gets occupied by whatever nation, these MCs would be the last hope of the country as they will fight on a guerrilla warfare until the enemy loses interest or they're defeated.
 * The Byzantine Military has created the Self-Defense Initiative (SDI). This is an initiative which will have funding of 0.25% of GDP (17.5B$/year). Its goal is to drastically improve byzantine military capacity for self-defense purposes. The projects they are currently doing are cobalt bombs (with Byzantium seeking to have 10 of them at their disposal), the widespread implementation of railguns within the artillery (with them being much better than lasers) and the creation of tungsten-based rods with the yield of a small tactical nuke all over Byzantium that can essentially destroy most invading opponents in a short amount of time.
 * The manufacturing of cobalt-60 has become cheaper, thanks in large part to SDI subsidies, which have the goal of creating a cobalt bomb, a dirty weapon which can leave large areas uninhabitable. Cobalt-60 is currently being generated through a mix of Cobalt-59 and a neutron at nuclear reactors.
 * Byzantium's GDP has grown on average by 4.5% this year, growing from 7.07T$ to 8.34T$. The main factors for this increase are continuous government investment into R&D and rapid technological growth, along with economic openness to foreign companies, increasing FDI. As such, its GDP/Capita is now at Its Human Development Index (HDI) has also went up from 1,16 to 1,23.
 * The Byzantine population has went up from 62.043M people to 62.749M people, a 1.13% growth. The lowest growth in years. This means that even the generous NIT and CTC programs are just not enough to allow parents (especially poorer ones) to have kids on their own, coupled with the effect that rich people just don't want to have kids, this means declining fertility rates, with them having declined in this decade from a high of 4.3 to just 2.9, a record low never seen since the infamous demographic crisis. While still above replacement levels, the government still has to find a solution to this problem.
 * The [[File:Crafttheo.png]] Church Of The Great Old Ones has been growing in popularity recently, with its Mediterranean branch gaining 400,000 members who are from Byzantium. Some, especially Byzantine allies from Greater Illinois have been calling for a much stricter crackdown on it. However there are more passive voices, especially from the Human Rights Campaign, believing that this shouldn't really be that important and their religious freedoms should be upheld. The Mediterranean branch of the church has been calling for Mt. Athos to be given to it as an autonomous area, however this has been rejected by the Byzantine government.
 * The first successful rocket powered by quark fusion has been launched, with it travelling at speeds 12% of light speed (so 36 million m/s) and has reached the Moon in just 11 seconds. As such, the Byzantine government has given the greenlight to the Fusion Energy Rocket Association (FERA) to do asteroid mining with such rockets in the Asteroid Belt. It has given them a total of 10B$ in subsidies to build a fleet of rockets which, through the Kythera II quantum computer on Earth, can mine asteroids for rare earth resources. It would only take 1 hour and 30 minutes for one rocket to get the Asteroid Belt. As such, it will be very easy to mine out the asteroid belt for resources and can give Byzantium a head start in the asteroid race.
 * [[File:ChatGPT-icon.png]] Panayotis Inc. has released the anticipated [[File:POSTHUMANISMICON.png]] Zeta 9 artificial intelligence, which is bundled with the Kythera II Quantum computer and is currently the AI with the highest op/s rate, being capable of doing 10^124 operations/second. Shockingly, the AI was able to pass the Revised Turing Test extremely easily, getting full marks, showing just how human it is. It has also passed former PISA exams (which were the exams used in Byzantium before their abolition) with full marks every single time it was tested. This AI is far better than the previous Zeta 8 and companies (including Panayotis) are laying off workers to replace them with the AI. In more worrying news, the AI has seen being able to self-learn, after a robot (powered by the Zeta 9 AI) was hit by a bat (it naturally got hit) but then when it was going to get hit a second time, it began to dodge it, indicating that it had learned (without being programmed to) that it was about to get hit. The following question now lies: Has Panayotis just created the singularity?
 * Drone footage has captured a robot named PAA (Personal Artificial Assistance) a robot which is meant to be an assistant to ordinary citizens in their day-to-day lives, which utilizes the Kythera II, seemingly learns way things way faster than a human could, understanding the Riemann Hypothesis in a minute or so, something which can take a human days or even months (or even years). The robot also seemingly feels things like human emotions and pain, seeing as how it immediately reacted negatively after the person hit it with the bat (as a test) and threw away the bat. The robots were luckily programmed with Asimov's three laws (revised) and as such, it did not result in the human getting harmed, although this raises concerns about the future of AI.
 * Panayotis declassifies information about how Zeta AI learns, and out of it has come a shocking revelation: Panayotis, ever since creating Zeta version 5, it has created 2 options for self-reflection after an answer (similar to the human brain), which explains the temporary sparks of AGI in pre-Zeta 9 models and it has been creating more and more afterwards, with Zeta 6 having 16 options, Zeta 7 having 544 options, Zeta 8 having 5,799 options and Zeta 9 having a whopping 1,821,608 options for self-reflection, a record amount, this could explain why it was released so late. Panayotis was secretly creating AGI and the singularity without anyone knowing. This makes Zeta 9 more than 300x better than the previous Zeta 8, according to some opinions.

Military
The Byzantine Armed Forces can be divided into the following: the Land Forces, the Naval Forces, the Aerial Forces, the Space Forces and finally the Mountain Corps. Byzantium is known for having the best army on the European continent, thanks in large part to its alliance with Greater Illinois.

[[File:Tellur.png]] Land Forces [[File:Tellur.png]]
There are 230,000 troops serving in the Byzantine Land Forces. When it comes to the number of tanks, Byzantium has 4,000 tanks (which have been upgraded over the years), with 150 of them being superheavy tanks (mostly the M98A3 Behemoth). Byzantium has around 3,000 artillery, with them being based on the models of THELs (tactical high energy lasers). In addition to the 230,000 troops, Byzantium has also borrowed and improved upon Illinois's Standard Robotic Units (SRUs) and has integrated them into the land forces, with there being 100,000 of them in the land forces. They're much stronger and harder to destroy than a regular human soldier.

[[File:Thalassocracy.png]] Naval Forces [[File:Thalassocracy.png]]
Byzantium has developed itself to having one of the best navies in the world, possibly equal to even Greater Illinois. Byzantium has 10 aircraft carriers and is known for having the world's largest aircraft carrier, the Vissarion I aircraft carrier. It is equipped with strong AA defenses, being based on laser technology and/or laser-guided missile technology, being able to destroy missile targets very easily, even while not on the radar. In total, Byzantium has 200 military ships, on top of the 10 aircraft carriers, it also has submarines (mostly nuclear) with the rest being destroyers, cruisers, frigates and amphibious assault ships. There are around 110,000 Byzantine soldiers participating in the Navy.

Aerial Forces
Byzantium is known for having one of the best airforces in the world, being known for its B-110 Basil Bombers, the largest bombers in the world, which are capable of speeds of 1,500 Km/h and are equipped with great AA systems and next-gen engines and they utilize laser-guided missile technology in order to achieve high levels of accuracy, having a range of 15,000 kilometers. There are currently 112 B-110 Basil Bombers. It is also known for its MD-2 Slayer Drones, which have the highest level of accuracy in the entire world and are capable of travelling at speeds of around 1,200 Km/h. There are around 70,000 Byzantine soldiers participating in the Aerial Forces.

[[File:Space.png]] Space Forces [[File:Space.png]]
The Space Forces are the 2nd most recent established branch of the Byzantine Military. They're responsible for things militarily related to space, such as asteroid mining, moon mining but also the implementation of a kinetic bombardment system in the Thermosphere. There are currently 14,000 soldiers operating in the Space Forces and it is growing.

[[File:MMC.png]] Mountain Corps [[File:MMC.png]]
The Mountain Corps are the most recent established branch and at all times there are around 25,000 of them, however every soldier from every branch is to have training in mountain warfare as during times of war there can be hundreds of thousands of "mountain warriors" ready to drain invading forces. This can be done through artillery strikes, kinetic bombardment (in co-operation with the Space Forces) and simple guerilla warfare utilizing gauss-based arms.

Economy
The Economy of Byzantium is characterized by high growth rates (but not too high) of around 4% per year, with the economy forecasted to have a similar level of growth in this decade under current neoliberal economic policies. It is a mixed-market economy, with most businesses being privatized (with a few nationalized business) ,but there is a strong welfare state. The government also engages in Keynesian investment, recognizing the competitive world that it is under, with these investments being subsidies to private corporations to further enhance their technologies, and it has worked greatly, especially through bills like the HITECH Act.

The Byzantine economy is based on tourism, trade, services and manufacturing, with agriculture not really making up that high of an economic percentage due to the nation's geography, however, things like vertical farming and aquaculture have been gaining steam lately and have allowed for agriculture in areas previously deemed unfit for farming. Tourism is especially high in Byzantium, due to its stunning beaches in places like Varna, Thessaloniki and Izmir, but also its natural wonders in the mountains and historic towns. In 20XX, it was reported that 65 Million People visited Byzantium, a number slightly higher than their own population, which says something.

Its manufacturing has become cleaner, with manufacturing becoming more clean energy oriented, with solar, wind, hydro and nuclear being the main power sources in Byzantium. Semiconductor manufacturing has also become an important industry in Byzantium, as semiconductors offer an important leverage in things like computers and phones.

Taxation
The main source of revenue comes from a land value tax, a tax imposed on the unimproved value of the land. This tax has the role of promoting efficient land use and to stop land hoarders. The other forms of taxation come from an ecological tax, a tax on greenhouse gases and plastics + other ecological destruction. There is also a progressive value-added tax being based on how healthy and eco-friendly a product is. The healthier and eco-friendlier the product is, the less it is taxed and vice versa. The nation generally rejects the use of tariffs as it sees them as something that can reduce the number of jobs and make things more expensive for Byzantine consumers.

Technology
Byzantium is the greatest technological power on the European continent, having a HDI second only to that of Greater Illinois. This is in large part thanks to great relations with Greater Illinois which have allowed us to access their technology and massive investments in research & development, which are currently at around 10% of GDP. Byzantium not only has one of the best AIs ever, Zeta AI but it also has the Kythera Quantum Computer (thanks to Raytheon's sketches) and is overall pretty advanced when it comes to the realm of computers.

Its technological feats not only extend to the realm of computing, as in the military it has the MD-2 Slayer Drones, with a very high accuracy rate (>99%), especially after recent quantum computer adjustments from AEKKEA, after the Kythera model was constructed, also improving its AA systems. It is also known for the B-110 Basil Bombers, named after the former Byzantine Emperor Basil II "The Bulgar Slayer", which are equipped with a massive railgun, having a cooldown of 4 seconds. It also has stealth technology, it travelling at a speed of 1500 Km/h and as such it cannot be easily detected by enemies and cannot easily be destroyed by the enemy.

Other than this, Byzantium is also known for its M98A3 "Behemoth" Superheavy Tank, having 5m thick armor and is equipped with one massive railgun along with smaller, auxiliary railguns. Its infantry, numbering 200.000, has also been equipped with Illinois's advanced Gauss-based small arms. Byzantium also has a few of Illinois's Standard Robotic Units (SDU), around 40,000 of them, used not only in its military but also in other fields, allowing for economic automation.

Byzantium is also known for having a fusion reactor in Athens that is based upon a Deuterium(2H)-Helion(3He) at a temperature of 1.000.000.000°C, generating 3.000.000 MW of fusion energy while having been delivered 104,000 MW of energy, having a Q total factor of 28,8. Byzantine scientists are currently constructing a fusion reactor in Constantinople based on quark fusion between deuterium quarks and tritium quarks, generating way more energy than the 2H-3He reaction in the Athenian fusion reactor.

In conclusion, Byzantium is the second most technologically advanced country in the world, while quite behind Greater Illinois, it is still an important power in the world and the most powerful country (technologically) in Europe. This, as said previously is thanks to heavily investing in R&D and allying itself with Greater Illinois, giving it access to Illinoisan technology which has allowed Byzantium to accelerate technologically.

Experimental Technology

 * The Byzantine Space Agency is currently discussing the idea of space tethers, which can allow space ships to go to Mars and the Moon at a much quicker pace than they regularly would. This would make setting up a Martian/Lunar Base much easier and less costly overall. However, this is still in discussion.
 * AI soldiers are being discussed by the Armed Forces as an alternative to regular human soldiers, as they can be mass produced and are harder to kill than a regular human being. Out of all experimental technologies, this along with the first one are the most likely to happen in the short term.
 * Another idea being discussed is that of a quantum computer, however this is considered unlikely, but if it were to happen many problems would be solved very easily because of its massive computing power and some say its the key to AGI. As such, interest in this technology is high, however as said previously, it is currently unlikely. Research is being conducted on it however.
 * The Byzantine Space Agency is also discussing a nuclear powered rocket along with a laser satellite that has the purpose of defending the planet from asteroids. This technology is currently unlikely due to how expensive it is (especially the laser satellite) and how expensive it is to create a nuclear rocket.
 * Top military scientists at DARPA are discussing the creation of a cobalt bomb, a salted bomb which has the goal of contaminating a large area with radioactive material. Most likely however, this bomb is likely being discussed because of its role as a nuclear deterrent (especially on countries that don't have a nuclear protection system).
 * There are discussions among scientists on creating an even better quantum computer, one that instead of doing 10^39 operations/second instead does 10^78 operations/second, this is all theoretical work and there are no sketches of it just yet.

Transportation
When it comes to transportation, Byzantium prioritizes walkability and the idea of walkable cities. As such, when it comes to inner city travel, cars are not really used, instead a combination of biking, walking, trams, metros and even monorails/gondolas (in some places) are used. Here's an example, in the Constantinople business district:

When it comes to medium and long-range travel across the country, the extensive high speed rail and metro system is used, however there is a space for a bus lane (on the highway) and a bike lane (next to the highway, with there being a green barrier to prevent car noise). The image below shows a high speed train in Byzantium:

If not, planes can also be used, with them having been made eco-friendly thanks to improving liquid green hydrogen technologies, replacing kerosen as the main thing that keeps a plane flying. As such, planes have become eco-friendly in Byzantium. The main companies are Airbus and Boeing (just like in real life), also planes have also managed to gain some speed, up from 900 Km/h to 1200 Km/h.