Post by Sword and Shield on Jan 8, 2014 6:35:45 GMT -5
The Federal Republic is a nation divided along regional and ethnic fault lines. In antiquity the peninsula was dominated by the Cyrodillic people of the central peninsula who controlled almost all trade, industry, and agriculture by virtue of their excellent ports and rivers. They exercised little control over the north, sparsely populated and resistant to central authority. The Gallic peoples of the Julian Mountains however were subjugated as they controlled the only passes through which an enemy might attack the central plains. Towards the end of the ancient empires a war like people from the South, enticing the Gallic people to make war alongside them destroyed the ancient Cyrodillic Empire.
These foreigners did little to mingle with the Cyrodillic people of the plains, whom they viewed as decadent and weak, and were content to claim lordship over vast agricultural estates as absentee lords. They did intermarry with the Gallic people of the Julian ranges, the area closest to the foreign homelands, providing these clans with a political power out of proportion to their numbers. The Mantellian peoples of the northern tundra and Augustan ranges had remained apart from the ancient empires despite several attempts to annex them, but the new regime forcibly integrated their villages and towns into the empire. The locals were subjected to an extortionist forced labor system in an attempt by the foreign rulers to extract the same tribute they received from the central plains.
The dawning of the Age of Enlightenment dramatically altered the political landscape of the peninsula. The proliferation of literature, creation of a powerful native middle class in the Cyrodillic plains, and the ineffective administration from afar led to the War of Liberation. The northern Mantellian people of the tundra had never been entirely pacified due to the sparse infrastructure and great distance from the foreign rulers beyond the Julians. However it was the rising of the Cyrodillic peoples, with their rich lands and industry of the central plains which provided the spark that drove the foreign regime out. The rising also coincided with a civil war of succession in the foreign ruling lands, leaving the Gallic peoples of the Julians and south to wage war in the name of foreign rulers. The central plains quickly fell out of the foreign orbit, the northmen returned home, and the nascent Republics were birthed in the blood of revolution and civil war.
The defeat of foreign rule was a foregone conclusion as the loyalists recieved little support from the central authority. Ensuing social chaos caused by revolution and the need to pacify the Julians left the Cyrodillic Republic in a precarious situation when the foreign dynasty was done with its latest round of civil war and returned to reclaim what had been a bountiful province. Fearing the retribution of the mighty empire, the northmen, Cyrodillic Republic, and those Gallic people who had supported the War of Liberation joined together to form the Federal Republic, creating a central government to prosecute foreign and military affairs but with little domestic authority which rested with the three semi-independent Republics. The Federal Republic succeeded in defeating the attempt to suppress its independence but the weak federal structure of the Republics left many questions unanswered.
As the Industrial Revolution kicked into high gear, the Republics began to develop along radically different lines. The central plains became a center of manufacture and maritime commerce, with large cities and towns fed by the rich soil of the area. The Gallic Julians gained some wealth and industry thanks to controlling the only overland routes into the peninsula, but politically disenfranchised due to the stain of having once intermingled with the foreign rulers. The northmen grew in prosperity due to the rich natural resources of the Augustan Range, not the least of which was a Gold Rush mid-century, but could not compete politically with the wealthy central plains. The increasing reach of the Federal government, dominated by the central plains, into the semi-independent republics divided the peninsula.
The scene was set for a devastating civil war at the dawn of the modern age. The Gallic and Mantellian Republics seceded from the federal republic they saw as increasingly benefitting the Cyrodillic Republic at their expense. Faced with the possibility of two hostile powers controlling rich natural resources and the only landward invasion route, the Cyrodillic Republic amended the Federal Constitution to set up a strongly centralised government in all but name and waged war to prevent the secession of its two sister republics. Rather than attempt an immediate invasion of the central plains that may have given them victory, the seceding states made no attempt to coordinate their war efforts, and allowed the Federal Republic to conquer, or "restore", them seperately.
The Federals concentrated on securing the natural resources of the Mantellian Republic vital to the Federal prosecution of the war and were content to simply blockade the rest of the north. The northern armies retreated into the Augustan mountains and to their great city of Pelargir, two holdouts neutralized by Federal dominance of the sea. Though they held out until the end of the Civil War, the northern armies were neutralized within the first year.
The Gallic Republic was the more serious threat to the Federal government, having the bulk of the standing army and arsenals thanks to being the only Republic with a hostile land border. Though this gave them an edge early on, those armies and arsenals were dependent on manufacturing in the Cyrodillic areas, cutoff by the Civil War. The Gallic Republic struck first, seizing the city of Corinth, a major staging area for any Federal offensive into the Julians, but did not attempt to press their early advantage, content to hold Corinth as a bargaining chip for peace and doing nothing to stop the Federal conquest of the north.
They later paid a price for this passive strategy, as federal dominance of the rivers, combined with an amphibious landing to the southeast of the city obliged them to withdraw to the Julian Passes with barely a shot fired, abandoning massive war stocks they could ill afford. Though the war would drag on for a total of three years, the withdrawal from Corinth sealed the fate of the secessionist cause in the face of overwhelming force. The resulting peace did little to convince the defeated they were wrong, handing over near complete control to the central government in Delphi, the capital of the Cyrodillic Republic, and leaving the three "republics" as vestigial remnants.
The now central authority made stamping out regionalism one of its top priorities, centralising schooling and language. Though remarkably successful in creating a nation, the government did little to change the economic outlook that had sparked the Civil War. Decades of prosperity ensued as the modern age progressed, and did much to assuage discontent as all areas of society seemed to benefit. For awhile many were convinced that regionalism was a thing of the past.
However the recent global economic meltdown, and the ensuing expansion of income disparity over the past several decades has thrust regionalism back into the fore again. The rise of the "Culture Wars", pitting the more independent minded and conservative outer republics against the more progressive central plains has polarized the nation. Increasingly devolution is seen as the answer to a nation that cannot agree with itself, but it finds scarce support in the base of the Federal government; the central plains where increasingly collectivism is seen as the answer. Though it has not progressed to outright violence, the nation is increasingly fragmenting.
