Holy Dominion

The Holy Dominion was a theocracy located in what would have been Central and South America. The Dominion's leader is also its religious leader and is known as His Supreme Holiness, Messiah of Mexico, and by the Grace of God, Emperor of the World. Its former capital was in the Valley of Mexico, and its current capital is Nuevo Granada.

The Dominion was mentioned by Harvey Jenks, but he provided no details to the Grand Alliance. When speaking with Walter Billingsly, Jenks was confident that Saan-Kakja was not affiliated with the Dominion, which seemed to be a Roman Catholic theocracy.

The Dominion had an ambassador to the Empire of New Britain Isles by the name of Don Hernan DeDivino Dicha. The flag of the Holy Dominion is described thus: Captain Blas-Ma-Ar, "... An' all their [Dominion troops] flaags are the same, see.  That red field with the  ruff sideways 'X' on 'em in gold - just like the sails on their warships." [DS Hb. p 59]

History
The Dominion was founded by the crew of a Spanish Acapulco galleon "Nuestra Señora de La Quezon", transferred in the Destroyermen's world sometime in 1681. After the transfer, they established their presence in Central America, by conquering and converting local Indian tribes (whose ancestors were transferred centuries before them). During the expansion phase, the society and religion of the Dominion - initially catholic - were influenced by the local Meso-american cults. This lead to the formation of the current Dominion religion.

Sometime in the late 1700s - early 1800s, the Dominion came into contact with the Empire of New British Isles. The initial contact was relatively peaceful and established limited relations between the two nations. During this time, the Empire started to import the Dominion's women (as "indentured servants") to improve the initially bad demography. After the 1840s, there were at least several military conflicts between the Dominion and Empire over the colonial expansion of both sides in North America.

In the 1840s the Dominion came into contact with a group of Americans, transferred from 1847. The initial contact was hostile, and prolonged warfare erupted for a long time. It is known that the old capital city of the Dominion in the valley of Mexico was at some point invaded by the 1847 Americans, which lead to the transfer of the capital to South America.

In some unspecified moment, the Dominion came into contact with the Republic of Real People.

By the 1940s the Dominion became one of the greatest powers of the Destroyermen's world, controlling large territories and population numbered millions in South, Central and, North America.

Geography
The Dominion controlled vast territories in South America, Central America and also North America and the Caribbean. For their territorial and population size, they are probably second only to the Grik Empire.

The most important geographic asset of the Dominion is El Paso de Fuego - the natural (supposedly) passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans located where Costa Rica exits in our Central America. Plagued with strong currents it is passable at only certain times and sailing ships need steam powered tugs, but still allow the Dominion to quickly transfer ships and cargo between the Atlantic and Pacific, greatly improving their logistical capabilities. The existence of El Paso de Fuego is considered to be a great state (and/or church) secret: the Imperials have no idea that this passage even existed, despite centuries-long contact with Dominion.

Society
The Dominion is a totalitarian theocracy, with a religious leader - His Supreme Holiness, Messiah of Mexico, and by the Grace of God, Emperor of the World (more known as the Dom Pope) - formally a head of state. In truth the Dominion Pope rules in seclusion and accordance with the theology of the Dominion, the Pope is kept constantly inebriated with drugs and alcohol to keep him connected to the mortal world, and thus the real power is in hands of higher priests, known as Blood Cardinals.

The Dom's church controlled all higher aspects and functions of Dominion internal and external policy. Civil Buildings are considered Churchs and Cathedrals. A secular aristocracy is known to exist (it was hinted that initially the Dominion was ruled by secular govermennt, which only relatively recently - in the last hundred years - completely succumbed to religious control). Literature outside of approved spiritual texts are illegal.

Religion
Dominion Theology is a composite of 17th century Catholicism and Meso-American Religion and can be viewed as having the worst aspects of both. It is Monotheistic, but has incorporated much of the previous pantheon as Saints. Among the more notable tenants of its theology is the fact that they believe that the blood Jesus shed on the cross needs to be repaid in kind and that God is a stern being who deals in punishment and reward and so must his followers.

The Dominion Church practices mass human sacrifices, and consider painful death as "blessing" to the soul; it was stated that according to Dominion teachings, to "attain ‘godliness", the upper priests must mutilate themselves to death (however, the Imperials suspected that most of the Blood Cardinals are actually mutilated AFTER their natural death).

Despite the brutal pressing from the main Dominion Church, there are still a number of covert practitioners of other religions - such as animalistic Jaguaristas - on their territory.

Economic
Of all the great powers of the Destroyermen's world, the Dominion currently is the least technologically and industrially developed. The Dominion economy is generally on the level of XVI-XVII century Spain, with widespread slavery, utter lack of scientific development, and machine manufacturing. The majority of the population is peasants or serfs; it seems that there isn't any bourgeois class, and all industries are state-or aristocracy-controlled. What advanced industry that does exist seems to be dedicated along strictly martial lines.

Still, the Dominion has at least the limited ability to produce primitive steam engines for their ships, which indicated at least the late XVIII-century technological and engineering level. It's currently unclear, for how long the Dominion had steam engines and how effective are Dominion engineers. A likely possibility is that much of said technology was reverse engineered from examples acquired one way or another from the Empire of the New Britain Isles or the New United States.

Army


The Dominion maintains the large, but outdated and inefficient army. It is composed mainly of Salvadores - the foot soldiers, drawn from the peasantry. They are trained to fight in tight formations, marching with the drums, and using muskets and spears, much like the early linear tactics of the XVII-century. The Dominion also possessed numerous and effective cavalry lancer units, but generally used cavalry as battalion-size support forces. The army size is numbered in the hundreds of thousands. It is known, that in peacetime the army is generally used to maintain order, enforce the Pope's will over the population and protect the civilians from the "Great Dragons", that inhabit the central parts of South American continent.

The elite army troops of the Dominion's army are called Blooddrinkers. They are well-trained infantry and cavalry troopers, fanatically devoted to the Dominion's Pope and Blood Cardinals. Their zealotry led to the belief that a violent death on the battlefield grants them instant access to heaven and that retreat or surrender damns them forever, which made them perfect shock troops.

One of the most unique troops that the Dominion possessed are the Dragon Monks - the religious order, devoted to the tending and control of the several species of large dinosaurs (generally known as Greater Dragons). Those creatures are considered the personal stable of the Pope, and deployed only on his orders. Giant and terrifying, the Greater Dragons are occasionally used to shock and terrify the enemy, but their effectiveness against even primitive firearms is dubious.

The Dominion army uses a variety of weapons, such as swords, pikes and firearms. The standard Dom's musket uses the miquelet flintlock. Infantry troops used the plug bayonet, that prevented loading and firing with the bayonet attached. Only officers and cavalry used pistols. No rifled weapons of any kind were used in large numbers.

The Dominion army possessed a great number of artillery pieces, but their artillery are only smoothbores, designed to fire round shots and grapeshots. There are no explosive shells or shrapnel for filed cannons in the Dominion's current arsenal (primitive shells are used in large calibre siege mortars). The Dominion's artillery tactics prescribed the use of artillery generally from stationary positions. The usual size of a field artillery piece is 9-pdr, but larger cannons are known to exist, up to the 12-inch (305-mm) siege mortars.

The officer corps of the army is hereditary and plagued by nepotism; a lot of high ranking officers "served" their positions since childhood (for example, Ghanan Nerino, "served" as a commander of the Army of the South since he was twelve, and was supposed to pass his position to his eldest son). This often - but not every time - led to general incompetence.

Navy
Main article - Holy Dominion Navy

The Dominion possessed a strong and numerous navy, composed of sail and steam wooden ships-of-the-line and frigates in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Air forces
The Dominion was, actually the first faction in the Destroyermen's world, that created an air force of some sort. This was achieved some time before the war with the Alliance, by the domestication of so-called Lesser Dragons - large, semi-sentient flying creatures, distantly related to Griks.

The Lesser Dragons (also called Grikbirds by the Alliance) were taught to live on the Dominion's ships and fortresses and attack the enemy from the air, by intimidating the enemy troops and dropping rocks on their ships. This tactic was moderately effective against the Imperials, but not against the more modern Alliance military. After the Alliance joined the war, the Lesser Dragons were used in attempts to counter the Alliance aerial superiority, but eventually they had proven to be incapable of this. By the end of 1944, the supply of trained Lesser Dragons, available to the Dominion was almost exhausted and the whole program was considered a costly failure.

After capturing and converting (as they think so) Fred Reynolds, the Dominion made an attempt to create their own heavier-than-air aircraft. Due to the covert sabotage of supposedly-converted Reynolds (used as a consultant), they didn't achieved much, but probably were able to obtain some basic knowledge about aerodynamics and aircraft designs. It's unlikely that the Dominion (with early-XIX century level of science and industry) really have the ability to produce aircraft of any kind.