History of Serania

This article contains information that has been retconned by more recent development, and will be updated in future.

For many centuries, the continent of Serania represented an unattainable, also paradisical, land of mystery, before travellers from the wider world became acquainted with its reality from the middle 16th century. The discovery of an entire continent devoid of human habitation – although populated by a wide, diverse and often dangerous variety of animal and plant life – prompted a drastic shift of attention as people from all across the world looked to the Seranias as a land in which they might find a better future, and as state agencies everywhere sought out new and untouched lands to be brought under their rule.

Before human settlement

Analysis of geological strata in southern Lestria and southern Serania Major indicate that the Prothenian Ocean began to open in the south some 120 million years before the present (BP), with the northern ocean following suit between 80 and 70 million years BP; the northern and southern parts of the future continent merged together some 40 million years BP, completing the detachment of the future Seranian continent. In the east, the Serania Minor continental plate became detached from the Messeno-Joriscian plate by 100 million years BP, although it would not fuse with Serania Minor until as late as c. 15 million years BP; there is some tangible evidence for this in the form of significant differences between plant species in Serania Major and Minor.

The separation occurred early enough in human history that it predated the appearance of hominid species; the only native Seranian primates are various species of lemur, and the vast majority of ecological niches inhabited by animal species are occupied by marsupials or birds. Overall, the environment of Serania at the time of its discovery by humans in the 16th century has been likened to conditions in the Pleistocene era of prehistory.

The existence of an unknown continent on the further side of the globe had been theorised by thinkers in Joriscia and, to a lesser extent, Messenia for centuries before its existence was confirmed, and numerous examples of pre-modern cartography show a poorly-delineated landmass to the east of Joriscia and Lestria. However, much of the “scientific” basis for Serania was founded on the then-widespread belief that a body of land of roughly equivalent size to the continents of the then-known world (themselves uncertain, particularly with regard to western Ascesia and the Prothenian Ocean coast of Lestria) had necessarily to exist, in order that the planet as a whole could remain stable in its position in space. As such, much of the “knowledge” of Serania at the time may be seen as an attempt at post hoc rationalisation.

The lack of real empirical evidence did nothing to dampen speculation about the continent and the life – and unknown civilisations – to which it might play host; and a sizeable body of fable on the subject developed over centuries, mainly in Joriscia, to which the terra incognita was closest. The largest and most detailed of these was centred on a mythical kingdom of “Serebria”, the existence of which has been recounted under various names since at least the seventh century CE. The most typical accounts of Serebria stress its status as the location of vast wealth beyond even the dreams of the listener, and as a place where even the most incredible wonders were commonplace. Some accounts maintained that precious metals like gold and silver were so common in Serebria that their ores could be dug from the ground with little more effort than a man might use to till his fields or plant crops; or that the people of Serebria were giants by human standards, and could stand as tall as four metres, with strength and endurance to match.

16th century

Map showing the extent of Agamari (blue) and Neritsovid (red) settlement in the Seranias, 1600, 1650, 1700 (click to see animation)/

Theories surrounding previous settlements and pre-colonial inhabitants aside, the first confirmed humans to set foot on the Seranias were the members of the Agamari expedition of 1567 under the leadership of the Lacrean mariner Felix Oddivosius, who was also the founder of the first settlement in Serania Minor, Novigavan (today known as Vosdavansk). Even these first explorers, though, made nods to the prevailing theories of conditions in “Serebria”, with the expedition taking a quantity of trade goods to be exchanged with the Serebrian natives with whom they expected to make contact.

Initial settlement efforts were limited to the northern areas of the continent and to the coastline, largely with the aim of discovering a through-route to Ascesia. With the definitive establishment of Great Neritsia's land-based military hegemony at home, conflict between the imperial centre and its various vassals (including Agamar) for influence, territory and wealth soon shifted to the Seranias. Notable early explorers included Maza be Rozda of Terophan and the Lacrean Shalov Guranyok, the latter of whom succeeded in making the first crossing to Ascesia and, subsequently, a circumnavigation of the globe in 1593. The Trade Leagues of southern Great Neritsia established their own stopping-places along the northern coastline.

17th century

In 1603, the first outbreak of Seranian fever was recorded in the Agamari region of Etelämā. Carried by native Seranian rodents brought back to Outer Joriscia, it spread across the civilised world in the matter of a few years between 1603 and 1609. The disease was devastating, representing the dictionary definition of a virgin soil pandemic: approximately 40% of the population died, with peaks around 75% in Outer Joriscia where the disease found an environment and climate the most similar to its native area, before petering out in northern Lestria and south-eastern Ascesia, where it has been theorised that the natives possessed some form of natural immunity. Although other Seranian animal diseases would pass to humans and spread in the Old World in the subsequent centuries, none would ever be as virulent as Seranian fever. The fever also dealt a serious blow to the early colonies in Serania Minor.

Nonetheless, the following decades saw the beginnings of intensive colonisation in the Seranias, especially after 1617 when the War of the Pact of Osan and the subsequent Eternal Treaty of Nardash saw the destruction of the Trade Leagues in Outer Joriscia itself and their theoretical absorption into the structure of the imperial state. This had a two-pronged effect. On the one hand, both 'voluntary' emigration (in the form of the Flight of the Bgheetjes) and political exile resulted in several small but significant waves of population movement into the colonies. The exiles usually took their Rabtat with them, providing the basis of the first self-sustaining settlements in the Seranian landmass. These settlements, in keeping with the character of their founders, were typically established on a model mirroring that of the pre-Osan autonomous city leagues.

On the other hand, the Neritsovid polity - although still seeing the colonies largely as a distant and politically irrelevant foothold most appropriate for use as a prison for political undesirables - took a greater interest in colonial affairs, even founding new aristocratic colonies in the form of the Princely Grants (most prominently Livotsky Strana). The Neritsovids' growing involvement in the Seranias led to a struggle for control of the northern route to Ascesia culminating in the 1656 West Wind Treaty, in which Agamar agreed to end its competition with the emperor in the north in exchange for exclusive rights to settle the then largely-unexplored Valtakunta Archipelago.

The late 17th century saw the first Messenian presence on the Seranian landmass. Despite the early successes of Gísli Hellisgils in the very early 1600s, Messenian efforts in this direction were delayed first by the 'Dark Thirty', when no real expansion had taken place even in the trading colonies of Ascesia closer to home, and then by the Median Wars. The first Messenian expedition to reach the Seranian mainland was dispatched by Siurskeyti in 1654 under Rannver Ekill, making landfall in 1655. In the 1660s a Zepnish fleet under Lothar Ebenstein successfully navigated the southern route, discovering the Princess Margaret Islands. The first permanent settlements were established by Siur pioneers around the Eiguflói in the same decade. Siur efforts, driven primarily by a hunt for spices and other rare discoveries, continued throughout the century. In 1669 Roriks Gulf was discovered by Valbjörn Rorik, followed by more intensive exploration by Florent de Melies in the 1670s.

In the 1680s Zepnish and Quenian settlements were founded in the Princess Margaret Islands, which were an ideal environment for the cultivation of certain cash crops, particularly sugar cane. However, they also served as bases in the tense intra-Messenian competition in western Ascesia; in more northern latitudes they were also used in disruption of the far-flung supply chains connecting the Joriscian trade posts of Ascesia to their home ports. As such, many were set up with explicit provisions for privateering and acted as bases for both official and unofficial piracy. With the end of the Median Wars in the 1690s, Odann's fleets joined the increasingly crowded seaways of the eastern Seranian coast. The escalation of Messenian activity here saw a corresponding hardening of the Joriscian presence, with a string of fortifications set up as far west as Victoria. In 1699 Félix Marche-Laberse successfully navigated the Great Belt, opening up a new route to Serania.

A Seranian Bgheet, Keshuts, 1706. The red Birmeeng indicates his neutrality in the Hat Wars of the early 18th century.

Colonisation was not without difficulties. Although Old World crops could be easily acclimated to most of the settlement areas, settlers had to contend with isolation, unknown diseases and large predators. In northern Serania Major, several species of terror birds were the local forests’ and grasslands’ apex predator, quickly discovering an appetite for human flesh. As the population grew, several of these species were hunted down to extinction; today, only three species survive in the less developed areas of Felicia, which is one of the most densely populated region of Serania Major. In the equatorial regions, and the continent’s southern half, various species of marsupial lions were the apex predator, and also proved dangerous to humans.

18th century

The escalation in Messenian presence in western Serania coincided with the implosion of the Great Neritsian political order in Outer Joriscia and a corresponding, if temporary, decrease in interest in the colonies from the metropolitan governments. The old imperial centres in Azophin and Terophan were occupied with the Crown Wars, which played out in surrogate form in the colonial cities of Serania Minor with the conflict between the Black Birmeengs and the Blue Birmeengs (in the so-called Hat Wars). From the 1720s onwards, the lack of central control saw the emergence and gradual self-assertion of the so-called Pirate States in areas of Joriscian settlement, most prominently the New Zaavic League, founded in 1765. Agamar, which remained relatively insulated from the effects of imperial collapse, was left as the only major Joriscian competitor in the colonies for the first half of the century. This played out in its favour in Serania Minor, allowing it to make a series of gains at the expense of its former overlords. In the second half of the century, Agamar was joined by the relative newcomer Lacre, which purchased the rights to a huge swathe of central Serania Minor in the Acquisition of Ondolu. Although the conflict at home may have weakened the imperial powers' control over and interest in the colonies, this period of unrest also saw a considerable rise in emigration to the colonies, boosting population growth, particularly in areas of relatively intensive settlement. In the last two decades of the century, the non-Agamari metropolitan powers began tentative efforts to reassert power over the colonies, beginning with Azophin's Novigavan expedition, which triggered the first major colonial insurrection, the Bytiborovid Insurrection, only crushed definitively in the early nineteenth century.

In Serania Major, Messenian settlement gradually gained speed over the first half of the century, with several remote Joriscian colonies seized without much resistance. Savam, Zeppengeran and Odann, the major Ascesian powers, focused their efforts on the north-east, whilst the ascendant Siurskeyti continued its exploration of the southern regions relatively unopposed. If Agamar benefited from the absence of other Joriscian powers in the west, in the east it suffered: left as the sole organised defender of Joriscian settlements it found itself hopelessly overstretched in the face of Messenian incursions. One early flashpoint was the area surrounding the originally Agamari settlement of Itätūlen (now Zepnish Tatuln) at the point of the Tatuln Peninsula, which occupied a commanding position over the sea route from Ascesia, and which was sacked and occupied several times and permanently annexed by Savam in 1745. Despite a number of bilateral treaties staking Messenian claims over different parts of the new continent, no concerted effort to effect major settlement was made until the late 1760s, in part because of the distraction of the Reform Wars closer to home. After the discovery of gold in Felicia in 1765, however, emigration to the Seranias began to accelerate. Although now part of Savam's Seranian territories, Felicia at this point was very much a contested area: alongside settlements established by most of the major Messenian powers, Joriscian settlements had extended inwards from the coastline up the river throughout the century. The acceleration of settlement and the return of all of the Messenian powers to the field in full force after the Third Reform War culminated in the Heathen Wars of the 1790s. The Heathen Wars saw the de facto seizure and then de jure cession of huge swathes of largely unsettled but notionally Joriscian land in Serania Major to Messenian powers.

19th century

The completion of the Heathen Wars established a rough boundary between the Messenian and Joriscian spheres within the Seranias; but it also marked something of a last hurrah for unchecked Messenian colonialism in the Seranias. The last years of the century had already seen Azophin and Terophan return in force to colonial possessions where they had been at best absentee landlords for the better part of a hundred years. In Azophin's case these steps met initially with catastrophic failure, setting off the Bytiborovid revolts, whose spectre continued to dog Azophine colonial policy into the first decades of the 19th century. But they also heralded what was to come; in the 1801 Nusileh War, Agamari forces seized Ūsilinna, as well as dealing Messenian interests in Ascesia a serious blow in Nusileh itself. In 1805 the Bytiborovid-linked Melky Strana Heresy was crushed by Azophine troops, in a symbolic reversal of the experience of twenty years before. With the new self-assertion of the Joriscians, the loose border between the Messenian and Joriscian zones began to solidify. Although its effects would not be experienced by the most powerful of the Pirate States for several decades, the metropole's newfound ability to project power also hailed the beginning of the end for them; the smaller statelets were annexed over the course of the first half of the century, and by the end of it the sole survivor would be a much truncated New Zaavic League.

The end of the wars also brought an end to the brief period of religious solidarity which had characterised colonial policy during the wars, particularly on the Joriscian side. This manifested itself initially in minor colonial struggles during the first decade of the nineteenth century, coming to a head in 1813 when Azophine armies seized large portions of northern Serania Minor during the Far Empire Campaign. Azophin's dominance in Serania Minor was further confirmed during the Great Peninsular War, where Azophine troops - in contrast to their relatively lacklustre performance at home - distinguished themselves against the Terophites. The 1845 Treaty of Tharamann left Azophin in control of almost all non-Agamari settlements above the 44th parallel, including all of the most densely settled regions, and provided for a Lacrean zone of colonisation in mid-Serania Minor and a Terophatic zone across the vast south. Azophin's seizure of the northern colonies put it ahead of the other two colonial powers, but not for very long; systematic settlement efforts by Terophan and a gold rush in Dosh Starum led to a massive acceleration in development.

Architectural sketch for the Melies Viaduct, Savamese Serania.

On the Messenian side, efforts during this period concentrated less on conquest and more on consolidation of the vast claims won legally - but not yet physically - during the Heathen Wars. Colonisation efforts and militarisation were sped up in a deliberate attempt to compete with the development of Joriscian Serania, and the population rapidly increased. Various minor colonial scraps took place, but there were no major colonial wars along the lines of the previous century until after the 1860s. A series of bilateral treaties between the various Messenian states fixed borders in northern Serania Major, paving the way for the 1889 Treaty of Ūsilinna between Agamar and Savam, bringing an end to their ongoing rivalry in northwestern Serania.

Throughout Serania, the 19th century was characterised by a massive expansion of population and industrialisation, with the Messenian colonies lagging as always slightly behind those of the Joriscian side. Migration was driven by various different factors, which differed inevitably from country to country. In Joriscia the political turmoil of the first half of the century led many to flee the continent. Towards the end of the century, economic stagnation in areas like Dekoral also contributed to migration. Huge infrastructure projects including the Seranian Railway and the Mirsky Canal opened up new travel routes and sped up settlement across huge swathes of land. Large-scale efforts to systematically exploit mineral resources, driven by the excitement of the early gold rushes, continued apace. The population of the entire landmass in 1860 is estimated at around 77,000,000 people, although accurate census data is hard to come by for large portions of the colonies. By the end of the 19th century, the colonies had begun to outstrip their respective metropoles in terms of productive output, although the standard of living remained generally worse.

20th century

By the 20th century, the Joriscian colonies were economically much more prosperous than the metropole, and leading it in many respects, although quality of life was generally lower. During the Long War, the colonies were a major theatre, and the Congress of Kethpor saw many significant changes, the most important of which being the total absorption of Lacrean Serania, largely into Azophine and Terophatic Serania; but there were other cessions, as well as the massive expansion of the network of strategic Terophatic bases around the Seranias into what became known as the Golden Hand. Much of this would be dismantled when the Terophatic Ascendancy came to an end.

Intra-Messenian conflicts during this period, while perhaps less intense than in the home continent, were nonetheless significant in the Seranian theatre. Much of this fighting involved Odann during the Gaste War, in which it fought against Savam principally on land in the south of the continent and against Zeppengeran at sea in the Prothenian Ocean and around the Princess Margaret Islands. The final defeat of the Sacred Kingdom saw parts of its Seranian territories become prizes of war in the subsequent Treaty of Ostari; the Dombalte Bay territory on the coast of the bay of the same name was yielded to Savam, who annexed it to Grand-Sud, and its small outpost on Muskat Bay was claimed by the Zepnish, who later renamed it Tühl after the recently-deceased minister of foreign affairs Viktor von Tühl. Crippling restrictions on Odannach naval and merchant tonnage hampered its efforts in its remaining Seranian territories for at least two decades after the end of the war.

Smaller Messenian states with interests in Serania Major were also at arms at various times in this period. The worst offender here was Madaria, where its drives towards territorial expansion - aimed principally at its Prasinian neighbours and against Zeppengeran in the Messenic Sea - brought it to blows over the Helmin possession of Jannaland in what Helmin studies of the Long War period call the War of the Gold Coast. It also made a successful capture of Tvåriken’s Skärö Islands in 1949, overpowering the tiny and undersupplied Tvåriker squadron and holding the islands for almost six years. While this was regarded as a sideshow by the great powers - Zepnish admiral Hugo von Männlich dismissed the Skärö assault, claiming that “I controlled bigger fleets in my bath when I was a child” - the Seranian theatre forced Zeppengeran to divert resources in support of its Helmin allies and probably prolonged its separate war with Madaria as a result.

The drastic effects of the climatic upheaval of the late 1950s and early 1960s forced homelands in the northern hemisphere to draw hard on the resources of the Seranian territories – as well as those of ally groups in Lestria – to keep themselves from collapsing. Central and southern Serania, in particular, were less badly affected by the climatic shifts than the north, and although the territories’ own resources were severely stretched and supply chains extending half-way around the world were strained almost to breaking point, the worst effects had probably passed by the harvest of autumn 1962, and a return to pre-shift conditions had probably been reached by 1965.

The narrow margin of their victory convinced many in positions of authority that greater effort had to be made to harness the resource bases of the Seranian territories; and as Messenian and Joriscian economies recoverd in the 1970s and 1980s, funding steadily improved and infrastructure projects helped make the land more livable for the settlers who were increasingly encouraged to make their way out there in the beginnings of what has now been termed the “Seranian Pivot”. While this had been a phenomenon of some fairly long standing in Joriscian countries – with Azophine Serania probably the stand-out example prior to the Long War – now the Messenian countries with Seranian holdings jumped onto the wagon. Some wilder flights of fantasy have even suggested that the real future of some of the “Messenian” powers ultimately lies not in Messenia, but in a vast and still largely untapped Seranian continent.

However, the shift still has some way to go before the claims being made for it have any prospect of being met. The past reputation of many Seranian territories as dumping-grounds for felons and political undesirables, or as sanctuaries for those whose dreams and desires are out of step with those of their neighbours – “a crawlspace for crooks, cranks and crazies”, as it has been put – and the sheer distance involved have been substantial drawbacks; and the widespread tendency for Messenian states, especially, to limit free movement to and from the metropole has seen Seranian natives become a kind of “second-class citizen” under the laws of their own countries. For all these drawbacks, though, there has been a slow, but visible stream of permanent settlers; this group does, indeed, skew markedly young – at least in part due to a sense inspired by post-war ordaitheacht sentiments that “the Old World is lost; and now we must find a New World which we can make in new ways”.