TerraNES: The Civil Experiment

Trade anyone?
 
From Traditionalists
Who are your allies? Name them, and they will not be harmed. Or touched. Or fed. Or be allowed to stay. If we find any symphasizers after this naming, they will be given over to the barracks.
The villages that are our allies will be clear by the stone, agriculture, cows and metal we sent them. THey will proudly fly our banners. Our traders, builders and soldiers are already on their way. It is not too late to join the party. With agruiculture, you will have more food to feed yourself and grow stronger. With stone your monuments can be more worthy of your gods.
 
Keep your gold out, your devious currency, and we're fine.
What parts of Ethiopia do you control? We need to know this so we can warn merchants not to trade coins and gold in your land, if that is all you want.
 
2600-2550 BCE - Chapter 9


Aramya before the descent.

The Descent

Aramya, the exalted state that had steered Levean politics for over 400 years, had four times split into new Exaltations by Winter, 2550 BCE. Roughly fifty years after the, initially confident, war with the Formans brought staleness to the Aramyan military, northern, southern, eastern and central Aramya contented themselves to new kings, new bureaucracies, and new history. After the uneasy treaty with the Formans, the Northern army attacked the last remaining town of Hyak independence. The small cavity of hope within that last southern Hyak town held great enough emotional power over the Hyaks that upon the capture of the town they rose up, in a slew of revolts. That is the tale recorded in the Great Library of Sarte; the spring of rebellion in the region was more likely the combined bureaucratic stagnation of Aramyan rule, intense racial prejudice towards Hyaks by Aramyan emigrants, and general disorganization of the military. These revolts began the great decline.​

In the year 2587 BCE the Southern King died by a dagger to the neck. Internal bickering within the Southern King’s family lead to a near civil war, but the Northern King, alerted of the situation, visited Danae with the army, and southern Aramya, for his first time to quell the disorder. Banditry in the north was intensified with the redistribution of soldiers to the south, and trade declined after its short burst after the war ended. With the slow starvation of wealth in Aramya the plutocrats began a phase of consolidation. By the time Aramya ended, only a few prominent families were left, many rulers of the new exaltations.​

The system of slavery loosened significantly in the south where it had been taken well. The slave population, although overall increasing in size, primarily did not compose native Aramyans. Hyaks were often sold to southern plutocrats, a joint effort by both the elites and the government to integrate the Hyak people into Levea. Additionally there was a surge of migration northwards in search of jobs and land by native southern Aramyans.​

High government regulations and government intervention fought directly contrary to plutocratic goals. The government was target of constant bribery to avoid regulation, and criminal organizations grew plenty wherever the government guilds were too strong to benefit the rich. The rich also began bribing military officials in southern Aramya, who had the leash on the northern commanders. Those northern commanders began seeing less of the southern wealth; their equipment degraded, their soldiers couldn’t be paid or trained, and eventually the commanders themselves couldn’t keep subordinate to the bureaucracy.​

The commanders, lead by the Northern King, mounted a full invasion of the Southern lands in 2575 BCE to punish the child king and his regency council that had been setup in the previous military incursion. Upon his conquest, a new puppet king was placed in leadership, a priest from the north, devout to the Northern King, and goods began flowing to the military branch again. Over the next several years the Northern King, carefully, slowly, began demanding more of the south’s wealth, until he had their surplus, and then some. The enormous redirection of goods angered the upper classes, some of whom were slaughtered in several southern revolts.​

The south and north, for a period, were unified and energetic again. The Hyak revolts had stopped too, temporarily, and the Northern King, (who often was referred to as the Last Dual King, for his son would take the whole throne, with no contest from the heirless priest-king in the south) prepared operations for another war with the Formans. The cabinet’s rationalization was very long term, the Last Dual King wanted his sons or their sons to continue his plans, just as the great kings of the past had set out his parents to build the chariot army. Those parents did, and he now reaped the strategic benefit from that ever long quest by his ancestors.​

The operation intended for the population, construction, and military outfitting of three new towns along the east side of the Tigris. The region had always been populated, small settlements even dotted the region, but the Aramyan plan demanded these settled people be completely displaced by Aramyans, and their small villages be rebuilt into serious establishments. Trade had flowed from the peaceful tribes of the region for centuries, mines, pastures, farms had all been created along the river banks. The Last Dual King’s chariot army marched across the plain, and brought Aramyan order to the area; the local rulers were promised wealth immeasurable, and the Aramyans promised only to make policy on military grounds; so long as Aramyan migrants were allowed to live there, and the military allowed to build barracks and house soldiers, the locals would have full control over domestic matters.​

For all the influence of the Last Dual King, the southern bureaucracy’s inefficiencies and corruption continued to grow and bother the public. When the Last Dual King died in 2559 BCE, he left a gigantic kingdom to the helm of his very competent son. Very competent wasn’t enough, and along with the king, the energy of Aramya vanished into the heavens. Literally. While the plutocrats began a rampage of personally seizing the guilds as their own property, the remainder of the royalty in Aramya abdicated and escaped far to the north, into the newly settled, politically stable mountains, where the godly pantheon resided. They had ascended.​

The Maelstrom

The king and royal family left in 2558 BCE, only three seasons after the new king came to power. The next four seasons would be the most dense amount of tumult the region had ever witnessed. Less than a week after the king’s departure, the southern priest (who although officially subordinate to the king still managed the southern bureaucracy thoroughly) was assassinated in public by an angry mob of plutocrats. That has been the official story for many millennia, however new evidence from modern excavations are indicating the assassins were the highest Viziers of the Kitabalist clergy.​

Regardless of the culprit, the southern and northern regions of the Exaltation were governor-less and ran purely on the structure of the bureaucracy. The north saw five uncontrolled revolts of Hyak-Aramyan farmers. The south saw economic chaos. The people needed work, and the elites welcomed the people into personal armies. These well organized, high morale battle groups seized pinnacle locations all across Southern Levea. The Danaen wealth magnets seized Danae, Eira, Pire, Anshan and made a bid for Kitalo. The Council of Viziers declared Kitalo the holy place of Kitabalism in Levea, and negotiated the region’s towns and cities join them in a league against the uprising Danaens and Ortundians. Kitalo, Sarte, Awai, Bablae and Irud joined their holy league, after a period of Bablaen and Irudite non-cooperation.​

The city of Ortun, one of the most prosperous in Aramya, also declared independence the next year, taking control of the tired military stationed there. The bureaucratic structure of the Hyak territories and the city of Ortun remained the same, and they were able to concentrate their forces on the Hyak-Aramyan revolts threatening flipping to Forman control.​

The revolutions and usurping was not simply accepted, and widespread resistance existed all over Aramya. Some areas particularly organized for their own defence: the cities of Bablae, Irud, Anshan, and all of Parusha, kept in alliance in the name of Aramya. Their cause was misguided, because there were no heirs to maintain the government, and slowly the allies of the Parushan headed alliance fell to other revolutions, until Parusha proper was all that remained. The alliance held out until 2550 BCE, when they became the Exaltation of Parusha, instead of the Aramyan alliance.​

A strange imbalance shadowed all of Levea, with the new Exaltations of Danae, Parusha, Ortundia and Viria. The successor states of Aramya each had a new identity, but that identity was the direct product of the ancient, centralized, bureaucratic government of Aramya.​

The Exalted Danaens were lead by wealthy land barons and guild masters, and their king was the patriarch of the wealthiest family of all. Their patron deity became the Morae, to encourage commerce and industry. They were the middle man between trade with the Hormunian people and the rest of Aramya, but they lacked the naval power needed to dominate the region. Their military was also composed of untrained citizen brigades, which often wielded spears for fighting. With the size of the territory they commanded, gaining any footing over Parusha was hard, and their navy simply couldn’t overcome the rivers to make action against the Virians.​

The Vizier’s Exaltation, or Viria, was the confederation of central Aramyan cities, which mostly united for their own defence and protection. Trade was free, and only the cities themselves were managed directly by government officials. Legislation was relaxed. The Council of Viziers held great influence over the other states in Aramya, partially because they were a conduit between the ocean and upper Levea, but greatly because of their political ties to the priests across Aramya. Each town had its own patron deity, Sarte had the truth goddess Ius, Awai preferred Thice, but Kitalo, the capital, was home of Kitab.​

Parusha was perhaps the most delicate a state, their borders were wide, demanding a swift chariot strike force, but their government, backed by the god of strength Resurus, was decisive and authoritarian, like many Aramyan kings of the past. Parusha was often able to secure itself by being the primary supplier of copper and tin, forcing other states to avoid conflict with the power.​

The Exaltation of Ortundia was a combination of ancient Ortundian practices, Aramyan administration, and Hyak culture. The nation was ruled by the wealthy military commanders that had seized the military and declared Ortun their capital. The Hyak people for a long time had their culture suppressed, but the new military king, to appeal to the people, made Hyaks honorary Leveans, and began a long process of integrating them with the Aramyans in the region. They were the next country in the line of nations that slowed trade between the east and west, and theirs was the only country next to a none Aramyan people. Ortun received support from other nations, often because of the negotiation of the Viziers to assist in the pushing of Forman initiatives. They had two patron gods, Tarias of the wildreness, and Sune of wisdom.​

These new Exaltations continued the long traditions of Aramyan bureaucratic institutions, authoritarian economic control, and innovative military tactics. They disrupted trade for a period, and the economy of the region was never as robust as before now that traders were taxed at least three times before going beyond Levea. This mess of distrust, competition and diplomacy, is the Aramyan maelstrom.​


OOC: Preferential map, I look to Terrance to confirm or edit it.

The Ascent

While Aramya boiled and brewed a new, contorted, face, the royalty travelled by ox chariot to the far northern colony in the mountains. The king had taken a convoy of gold, copper, weapons, tools, and technologies. He brought the most loyal charioteers, spearmen and archers of his armed forces, and a small army of administrators, artisans and faithful followers. He was followed by devout Aramyans, whom had sold everything to join the king in a new life.​

This group took many years to integrate themselves into the far north town of Etass, on the lake Etass. Upon the king’s arrival he saw the vast lake, with two rivers that flowed into it. The first words he was recorded to have said at his arrival were “little Aramya”, as he gestured to the symbolic, miniature version of his home kingdom.​

The locals were given gifts, and the local governor was made second in command to the king. The process of integrating the region and developing it to a point of proper government took 8 years, during the time Aramya was imploding.​

The town was isolated, and because trade and communication no longer existed between the settlement and Aramya, its use as a military facility against the Formans ceased. The king and his compatriots were safe. The king had several children, and he encouraged intermarriage to foster relations with the natives and prevent racial conflicts. He was a mediator, a wise man that people asked questions of life to. His wisdom was recorded and a small library became one off the pillars of the town’s social life. It was an outdoor library, with covered areas for the tablets. Supplies of the sort the king was accustomed to were not available, and his initiatives to build a fine city-state were slow. The local language was discouraged and education for the natives was attempted to spread at least some hybrid of Old Kitabic and the local speech. Kitabalist gods were also a place where there was no compromise; these mountains were where the gods resided, that was the law of religion.​

By the year 2550 BCE, his first son was prepared to lead a new state, and already the king trained his boy by taking him to the places he worked. He discussed with the workers, with the administrators, with the traders and the writers and the farmers. The king wanted to bring everyone together and create a harmony that he never saw in Aramya. The king died peacefully of old age in his bed, and his son took the town of this new state, with a future unknown.​

OOC: @Lord_Iggy, I want to see how your secret identity will deal with all this.
 
I suspect that I shall be a bit of a wrench in your story's chronology regarding the portions that apply to Hyak, but we'll see how Terrance works things out. It'll be a blood-party, that's for sure.
 
J.K. Stockholme: I don't know you well yet so I'm not sure how you would respond to OOC information. I've built up an amount of detail regarding Baragan, but a lot of it is information that would be exploited by someone who will metagame with information that they should not otherwise know. You seem like a good roleplayer, so I'm not that concerned, but I might just post a lot of significant plot points after the orders deadline has passed. Until then, here's a little sneak peak from my orders:


"The world has yet to taste my strength."

Baragan is a third generation mercenary, and the blood of warriors flows hot through his veins. Born in what little remained of free Hyak in the final years of the 26th Century BCE, Baragan has traveled widely, first as a companion of his father and as a the leader of a band of fighters for hire. Rumours have inconsistently placed him as working as an enforcer in Siria, the Levant, and even as far away as Egypt. However, what is clear is that as the Aramyan Exaltate was beginning to collapse upon itself, Baragan had already returned to Hyak. Evidently displeased with the region's decline in the hands of the increasingly dysfunctional Aramyans and the progressive disappearance of the remaining Hyakkid cities, he began to draw together an assortment of allies with shared interests in the removal of Aramyan authority. Amassing funds through theft and raiding, Baragan slowly began to assemble an army which would unite the disparate Hyaks, and crush those who stood in the warpath of the bloody-handed god Takarzi.
 
I can assure you that I do not metagame. If you write something about my nation I might incorporate it into my summaries or stories , but I wouldn't plan against it if it weren't something I ought to know. Your earlier story talked about banditry and Hyak hate towards Aramya, so I included those in the Descent in revolts and slowing trade.

Post away, my orders are being sent now (and they are very short).

Edit: Have been sent.
 
Sardinia is back!
 
Orders coming this evening.
 
From: Daksina

To: Daretoki
Yes, we will continue to give support.

To: Vanassi
We are interested, but we must see a demonstration before we can make such a drastic switch in our policy.
 
Keep your gold out, your devious currency, and we're fine.

What parts of Ethiopia do you control? We need to know this so we can warn merchants not to trade coins and gold in your land, if that is all you want.
To Traditionalists: We wish to repeate our question
 
all lands

all peoples
 
((I'm going to start making homemade names for my cities because I can't find anything at all.))
((Athkatla = big city on the river in Osismied))
Excerpt from the diary of King Derfel the 12th

I visited the slaver city of Athkatla today. There I learned of a new type of soldier being created by the merchants. I bought the merchants when I saw two Unsullied, as they call them, dispatch 10 bandits. It was an amazing feat. The merchants now work for me though for now, I am the highest bidder. The training of these Unsullied from what I hear is a gruesome affair but at least it gives us something to do with the influx of slaves from recently conquered lands. If you want to read about details, I suggest you talk to the slave masters of Athkatla. I know a few tidbits though of their training and features of their service.
They are trained from when they are no older than 8. The merchants perform a ghastly deed after that and make them into eunuchs. This is supposed to make them immune to a woman's charms. They are then given a puppy. This puppy will be with them for an entire year. At the end of the first year, they are to kill the puppy. Any who fail are given to the other children to die. Each year they receive a different test where they get one chance to prove themselves. Each time one fails, they are killed by the Unsullied in training. This training goes until they are 15. At that time, their final test is the worst. When they turn 15, they are ordered to rip a baby from a nursing mother's arms and kill it. They then become a full unsullied.

These soldiers are completely loyal to their owners. They cannot be bought or coerced into backstabbing their owners. They are also the best infantry I know of and have even shattered cavalry charges using a formation they call square even though it's a circle. There are 100 men in a century and they are very expensive.
 
Have I missed much?
 
Rrrrrrread the update to find out!
 
Where are the latest stats?
 
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