Police in Vekllei

✿ This article was featured in Issue #3 of the Atlantic Bulletin

There are two regular police organs in Vekllei.

1. Fedecenoayan porits (national police, or venopor)
2. Comoisniyan denporitsa (local police, or cosmopor)

A young venopor officer stands on the left, in the full street regalia they’re renowned for. Unlike cosmopor, they often carry machine guns while on patrol and are stationed outside of government buildings, hospitals, train stations, ports, schools and any company managed directly by a bureau, which is a trade organ of national importance. They are special units of special purpose, and supplement the deficiencies of local policing through their training and tactical deployment.

They are police insofar as they protect and respond to their community, including through special tactics situations, but are paramilitary in their wider function as a defence force for critical infrastructure. This is reflected in their history, traced cleanly back past independence and the Atomic War to the royal guards and junta federal police of old society, which continue to be reflected in their uniforms and several other ceremonial artefacts, like swords and knee boots. Venopor is a complex organisation with many different purposes. There are street patrols, pictured here, but there are also intelligence units associated with HO/NI and by extension the military, as well as tactical response teams, bomb squads, search and rescue and most other specialised emergency units outside of the capabilities of any given local police station.

This is contrast to the cosmopor, a more conventional police outfit. A cosmopor officer stands on the right, in standard summer uniform. He carries a radio, revolver and rubber baton for the worst of his duties, and is embedded deep into his local community. Cosmopor officers traditionally visit and introduce themselves to each house in their beat, and spend far more of their time mediating, counselling and organising than they do making arrests. The autonomy of most Vekllei communities largely spurns petty legal proceedings, and so the cosmopor are a critical aspect of sundress municipalism, resolving disputes personally and taking custody of a person only when it’s needed. Most crime in Vekllei tends to be emotionally motivated — so it is in this domain that cosmopor navigate.

This makes the cosmopor especially powerful figures in a Vekllei village or township, but their duties are closely watched. While the Vekllei village may be autonomous, all officers in Vekllei are responsible to a division of venopor called “officer welfare,” or picosec, which operates autonomously to seek out incompetent or misbehaving police officers, no matter their jurisdiction or status. Where most business in Vekllei has very little in the way of professional behaviour or “work culture”, policing in Vekllei is held to high standards, and they are severely bound by traditions that have become codified as the country has grown. This is a time and place where the children of police often inherit the jobs of their parents, and the constables of a village often have roots that go back centuries. This often makes cosmopor very respected figures, and their successors and recruits are expected to work for that respect.

In a country that has done away with money as a measure of success, professional legacy is profoundly important in Vekllei. In this inversion of priority, teachers, doctors, pilots, constables and librarians are celebrated. This is not founded in a general egalitarianism, but in fact the precise opposite — a celebration of success and influence, touching the lives of those around them. The glamour, and paycheque, has largely been stripped away. Only the work remains, and so that work has become more important than ever.