Aldira was only marginally recognized by the international community. Even when other states maintained contact with the Order, such interactions were informal and perfunctory, marked by mutual irrelevance rather than engagement. The notion of “severing relations” was largely symbolic, as Aldira’s existence had never been fully acknowledged in the first place. The Order maintained no embassies abroad; just as Aldira was not formally recognized by others, it did not recognize them in return. Throughout its existence, the Sublime Council never officially acknowledged any foreign political entity as legitimate.
Owing to its philosophical rigidity and doctrinal absolutism, Aldira could neither negotiate nor reform without violating its own theology. Diplomacy was therefore deliberately neglected. The expression “Aldiran diplomat” was regarded as an insult, since what other states considered cooperation or dialogue was interpreted within Aldiran Thought as contamination. Isolation was equated with spiritual hygiene. Even where sympathetic regimes existed, Aldira refused to form alliances. Limited bilateral arrangements were established with a handful of states, but these never developed into enduring partnerships or mutual trust.
Because Aldira did not belong to any international organization, it abstained entirely from global summits, cultural events, and sporting competitions, including the Olympics. Diplomatic correspondence from abroad often went unanswered. In one notable instance, an international aid organization offered humanitarian assistance after observing what it described as widespread poverty within the Order. The proposal was ignored. Such initiatives were instead subjected to silent rejection under the policy known as the Wall of Silence, a doctrine that prohibited engagement without acknowledgment.
Commercial relations persisted primarily with communist states, even in the absence of formal alignment, as these regimes could tolerate Aldira’s rigidity in ways Western powers could not. Some communist leaders even regarded Aldira as a form of “metaphysical socialism,” a misreading born of limited insight into its internal system. However, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc between 1989 and 1991, followed by the global ascendancy of liberal democracy, rendered Aldira increasingly conspicuous. It was frequently described as “the last stronghold of autocracy.” The dissolution of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance further aggravated Aldira’s economic stagnation. From that point onward, the already limited economy entered a steady contraction, marking the beginning of the Order’s economic decline.
Even if it was not on the scale of a superpower, Aldira was regarded as a major power, and in many respects—such as its military size, industrial output, energy sector, and scientific research—it ranked among the top ten in the world.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
In the early 1990s, the dominance of anarcho-syndicalist currents in Spain imparted distinctly socialist characteristics to its governance, which had come to power in the political vacuum and institutional fragmentation that followed the death of Francisco Franco in 1975. The persistence of decentralized labor federations, collectivized industries, and anti-NATO foreign policy orientation gradually isolated the Spanish Commune from Western European economic structures, making it Aldira’s sole remaining commercial partner on the continent. This also explains why the first carrier of Nova was seen there.
Beyond Europe, Aldira’s principal trading partners were concentrated among states operating outside or in tension with the Western geopolitical order. These included Libya under Muammar Gaddafi and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, both of which maintained sanctions-era economic channels and interests in unconventional weapons research. Additional partners included the Ethiopian Empire, which, having survived its twentieth-century revolutionary crises, unified much of the Horn of Africa under a pan-African nationalist imperial regime; Indonesia under an authoritarian and explicitly anti-European government shaped by post-colonial resource nationalism; and anti-French Indochina, administered collectively through a political union of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam formed in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, with a unique form of socialism and under strong influence from Aldira-sympathizer Buddhist communities.
In 1971, after years of constitutional crisis and political radicalization, the Confederate States declared independence from the Federated States, 110 years after its first independence, triggering the Second American Civil War under Cold War constraints. The war ended in an inconclusive armistice, leaving two rival American governments, comparable to the divided Germanys, Vietnams, and Koreas. In the following decades, the new Confederacy pursued reforms to abandon its racist and slavery-oriented past in order to secure legitimacy, formally rejecting racial hierarchy and integrating minorities, especially Afro-Americans, while preserving a traditionalist, religious social order and rejecting liberal democracy and secular pluralism. Politically and economically weaker and excluded from the Western bloc, it sought pragmatic foreign ties with states opposed to Federated and Western dominance, maintaining limited contacts with communist and non-aligned powers and mostly symbolic sympathy toward Aldira, whose anti-Federated stance aligned with Confederate interests but whose post-human ideology and geographical distance prevented deeper cooperation.
The Order enjoyed a stronger reputation and greater appeal in the Global South, where many historically subjugated and enslaved populations perceived it as a warrior against Western imperialism. In many African cultures, walking around with the Aldiran flag would likely have elicited friendly reactions. However, this sympathy was frequently shaped by asymmetrical information flows rather than ideological alignment. Public and political understanding of Aldira remained limited, filtered through state media, strategic propaganda, and the broader anti-imperialist discourse of the era. As a result, Aldira’s internal doctrines, governance structure, and more controversial practices were far less known than its external posture as a firm opponent of the West.
