Although it had been hundreds of years since the times of Scottish Emperors, the sacred bloodline of the first Norse Kings still ran through their exiled descendants. The Royal family had been continued, hidden abroad in the Royal Courts of Scotlands European vassals. They had always dreamed of reclaiming the Scottish throne, and had laboured at undermining the Scottish Republic through their agents, the Jacobites. Most of these supporters were drawn from the old aristocratic families that felt threatened by the changing world and fickle politics of the Republic. Through the wealth and influence of these powerful agents the old Imperial family was able to plot their return to Iona, and the resumption of the Scottish Empire.
During the first months of 1805 the Jacobite plans came to fruition, as word reached Iona that traitorous felons had risen up in the penal camps of Scottish India, and along with the long-suffering natives had declared a free and independent India. Though the majority of the Scottish pillaging forces stayed loyal there was such political paralysis in Iona that nothing could be done to prevent this secession. It soon became apparent that the trouble in India had been fermented by Jacobite agents, and when the Republic was seen to be powerless to protect its own integrity the plotters struck. With Republican forces in disarray and with the assistance of a freshly turned Jacobite rifleman division the island of Iona was overrun, and the great-great-grandson of the last Scottish Emperor took his rightful place in the Palace of Iona. However the Jacobites had overestimated the general populations reverence of their past Empire, and the dissatisfaction that had been building against the Scottish Republic was quickly redirected towards this new suppression of any democratic rights. As the Republicans retreated north to the loyal garrison island of Ulva the Jacobites lacked the navy and manpower to chase them down, and set about fortifying Iona. To the masses this elitist posturing showed the complete contempt the working classes were held in, and outright rebellion swept through the millions inhabiting Bunessan and Tiroran, the satellite cities that had grown over the centuries across the waters from Iona. These new socialists and communists demanded their rights for a brave new world, but they lacked the equipment, training and ships to threaten the fortified Republicans or Jacobites.
By April the Jacobite consolidation of Iona had been completed and they started to look hungrily at the socialist masses occupying Bunessan, who were deemed guilty of rebelling against the new Empire. Though many in the Jacobite camp argued for a glorious assault on the vestiges of the Republic the senior planners knew from their spies that the Scottish armies and navies had mostly stayed loyal to the Republican cause, thanks to the brutal purges they had recently suffered most seditious elements had been rooted out. These forces were barracked all over Ulva, and the shipyards there bristled with frigates and ships of the line. Taking the island in the name of the Emperor would produce horrific casualties on both sides, and would hardly warm the Scottish elite to the Imperial cause. Instead the hawks in the jacobite leadership countenanced a series of raids on the Socialists, as if enough of the Scottish population could be seen to be under the Imperial yoke then surely the powerful Republicans would see that Scotlands future lay with Empire. While the Jacobites were confident that their time had come morale in the Republican camp was in tatters, from controlling the world the Scottish Government could now only assert control over the fortified island of Ulva and the vast military base overlooking the south-western tip of the Tiroran Peninsula. Though they were awash with equipment and supplies they were losing men rapidly, as Socialism seeped poisonously through the ranks and troops deserted daily. These Socialists could lay claim to the majority of urbanised Iona, but though they had the strength to resist the Republicans or the Jacobites in their own neighbourhoods they could not strike across the waters or effectively coordinate their irregular troops.