Aldira primarily encompassed regions historically known as Manchuria and the Russian Far East, extending from the area just east of Tuva in the west to Jeju Island in the south, and from Jeju northward to Cape Navarin. It possessed coastlines on four seas: the Yellow Sea, the East Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Bering Sea. To the south lay China and Japan; to the west stretched the Siberian Commune; and to the north extended vast cold forests inhabited by dispersed tribal populations. Aldira exploited these northern regions as zones of exile and forced labor. The capital and largest city was Ordostok.
The geography of Aldira was predominantly mountainous and forested, shaped by long ridgelines, taiga, and permafrost. The climate was generally cold and severe. Summer was brief and unreliable, virtually existing only in certain southern provinces, while much of the territory experienced long periods of rain, snow, and overcast skies. Weather phenomena—particularly rain and snowfall—were regarded as sacred within the Aldiran Thought. These environmental conditions provided natural protection against invasion, both because the land was widely viewed as a hostile wasteland and because its terrain severely constrained large-scale military movement.
Large-scale canal projects were implemented to interlink major river systems, reshaping hydrological flows to serve centralized logistical and industrial demands. The regime also initiated certain artificial lake basins through controlled flooding of lowland regions, both to regulate water supply and to create strategic inland waterways. Two bridges were constructed from the Amur mainland to Sakhalin Island, which had previously lacked any permanent land connection. These bridges remained in operation for over a decade until they were deliberately destroyed during the War of Peace as part of a scorched-earth strategy.
Along Aldira’s borders, sudden and irregular raids were common, especially at night and in fog or snowfall. During these incursions, goods—and at times people—would vanish from border settlements and trade caravans. As a result, overland trade routes across central Siberia and southern Mongolia became unreliable and were largely abandoned. These actions were typically carried out by semi-autonomous Aldiran groups operating with tacit approval; the Order neither formally acknowledged nor meaningfully restrained them.
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Population density was extremely low. Across tens of millions of hectares, there were often no permanent inhabitants at all. This isolation allowed the Order to emerge as a regional power largely unchallenged, as no densely populated or industrialized states lay immediately adjacent to its core territories. Due to its remoteness, harsh climate, and sparse settlement, Aldira was sometimes referred to by outsiders as the “ghost land” or the “lost continent.”
According to the 1993 census, Aldira’s population was approximately 40 million, excluding stateless individuals. In addition, foreign analysts estimated the stateless population at around 5 million, bringing the total number of people in the lands of the Order to roughly 45 million. This figure had remained relatively stable over the preceding decade, as low birth rates were balanced by similarly low life expectancy. The regime also pursued generally anti-natalist policies to keep the population at a manageable level, ensuring overall growth remained negligible.
Because the Order sought not merely to govern but to reshape identity itself, Aldirans developed a profound sense of separation from all who were not of them. Loyalty was directed inward, while the external world was treated as fundamentally alien. The regime that forged Aldiran nationality did so deliberately, ensuring that allegiance flowed almost exclusively within the collective. As a result, the proportion of Aldirans living abroad was virtually nonexistent.
Most of the population was concentrated in urban centers, as rural regions were largely inhospitable and poorly connected. Cities tended to cluster in specific zones, forming dense pockets of habitation, while the remaining territory consisted of isolated towns and scattered villages. This isolation encouraged continual migration from rural regions into cities, further weakening agricultural production and deepening dependence on centralized distribution systems. In addition, certain segregated towns and cities existed, primarily devoted to scientific research and experimental programs; access to these settlements was strictly restricted, and they were absent from public maps, functioning in a manner comparable to the closed cities of the USSR and later Russia.
Although Aldira’s territory spanned a wide longitudinal range, extending roughly from UTC+7 to UTC+12, the state maintained a single, centralized official time aligned with Ordostok. This temporal standardization was enforced across all administrative, military, industrial, and educational institutions, regardless of local solar time. The policy was intended to reinforce political and ideological centralization, synchronize nationwide labor and logistical cycles, and eliminate regional temporal autonomy that might foster local identity or administrative divergence. In practice, daily life in peripheral regions often operated at a significant dissonance from natural daylight rhythms, with work shifts, broadcasts, and public rituals occurring at hours that appeared counterintuitive by local standards. While informal adjustment to daylight conditions existed at the household level, official adherence to Ordostok Time remained mandatory in all public and institutional contexts.
