This will be a thread for stories from Aretia, mostly Aretian War of Independence for now. It will be a more A1-0 or Aurora character driven, narrative RP that isn’t common in Pacifica. I will write stuff from time to time if you wanna read it.
Trigger warning! There will be extremist ideologies, war crimes, people who aren’t by any measure good and most likely gore. If you have issues with things like that, don’t read.
There will not be stories in this post, but there will be historical context. So, lets get started.
13.8 billion years ago the universe was created. And a few thousand years ago the ancestors of modern Aretians, Calydonians and Sclavinians arrived from the Mediterranean and Central Bareland. Over the years there existed many different petty kingdoms, principalities, city states and many other entities. By the 13th century AD the two most powerful states were the Kingdom of Aretia and Kingdom of Calydon.
At that time Tylianism, the primary religion within Aretia, was very different. Though it was still mostly monotheistic, it was very decentralized and incorporated many regional myths, spirits, lesser gods and mystical practices which today would be considered blasphemous. That is when a young woman started giving sermons in Farsala.
Celestina, today known better as the Prophet, started out as a member of a very strict cult of Tyl, calling for absolute monotheism, rejection of material possesions and pacifism. Though she has made a break with this cult, it still shaped the faith she would create. Her critisism of her times opressive elites, poor economic conditions and deteriorating faith would draw in followers, allowing her to overthrow Farsala and begin the First Asteripole (holy war), which lasted in between 1235 and 1244 AD.
A pivotal moment of the war happened in 1243 AD, when Celestina was captured and set to be crucified in Sidon. But when she was being dragged onto the arena, the balcony holding the leaders opposing her revolt collapsed, killing them all. The event was interpreted as a message from Tyl, confirming Celestina as his one and only Prophet. Following that event, almost all leaders in Aretia sided with her reformist movement, ending the war. 1243 is also considered the first year of the Aretian calendar.
Almost the entire area that comprises modern Aretia, excluding most northern areas, was unified under the Aretian Empire and its first Emperor, Karolis Solar. The Prophet would become the first Supreme Archon, the leader of the unified and structured Tylian Church.
In the early 17th century the Empire would experience a catastrophic civil war caused by a power struggle between the Emperor and Supreme Archon as well as a sucession crisis in Calydon. At the same time the Plymon tribes, popilated the independent northetnmost mountains of modern Aretia experienced a period of unity and modernization, forming the Plymon Confederation.
In 1624 the Confederation would attack Aretia and achieve victory by 1629, seizing all of Calydon and Sclavinia (northern third of Aretia). What remained of the Empire would fracture and become tributaries of the Confederation. Directly annexed territories would have to contend with centuries of Plymon resettlement, oppression and heavy, genocidal reprisals after attempts at rebellion.
After an attempted rebellion by the tributary states in 1878 they would be fully annexed as well and the Confederation was reformed into the Plymon Empire. In order to occupy all of Aretia, it woukd have to rely heavily on the military, leading to most territories outside the core Plymon lands coming under the rule of warlords.
By the coming of the 20th century the new military elite would have almost total control of the state and grow close to frankist ideology. As eruption of the Great War would disrupt trade and raise fears about the Empire entering the war, a series of strikes in Aretian ports would change into a country-wide revolt in 1951.
By 1955 the entirety of Aretia would be liberated and the Aretian Empire restored. Fighting ended two years later, as it would take until 1957 to conquer all Plymon-held territories. All Plymon outside their mountainous holdouts were resettled or killed over the course of the war, killing between 80% and 95% of their population. What remains is today scaterred in small villages in northernmost Aretia and are considered one of the largest stateless peoples in Pacifica (Aretia doesn’t recognize them as citizens).
Due to the volume of war crimes commited during the war, international pressure was mounting on Aretia. The government decided to blame and punish the most radical, typically frankist, rebel group, such as the Sclavinian Red Army or the Sons of Calydon. The Sons of Calydon in particular gained a lot of notoriety as one of the largest rebel groups. They controlled all of Calydon, which suffered the worst of Plymon oppression (the city of Calydon was completely levelled before the war). They attempted to declare Calydonian independence, starting the Calydonian Bush War. The Sons of Calydon qujckly lost most of their popular support and countinued a losing guerilla campaign for years until being declardd defeated in 1966.
The country remained a royal dictatorship until 1971 when the first post-inependence Emperor died. The country then transitioned to a constitutional monarchy with the Emperor being mostly a figurehead. This also ended a wave of fanatical traditionalism and attempts at a “return to the past”, bring modern political and ideological concepts to Aretia. Through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s becoming a middling/kinda strong power in Pacifica.
That was longer than I expected, but at least now I got it written.