Malagana
Marshalate of Malagana | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
 Malagana
Ascesian Banner | |
| Capital | Chulypally |
| Official languages | Malaganan, Palu |
| Religion | Vaestism |
• Banner | Ascesian |
| Demonym | Malaganan |
| Government | Rescapitan marshalate |
• Marshal | |
• Emperor | Dar Tsutsun |
| Established | |
• Malaganan War of Knowledge | 1884-89 |
• Conferral of the Ascesian Banner | 1897 |
| Area | |
• Total | 500,967 km2 (193,424 sq mi) (28th) |
| Population | |
• Estimate | 79,653,800 |
• Density | 159/km2 (411.8/sq mi) |
Malagana is a marshalate of the Ascesian Banner and a state in western Ascesia. Since 1994 it has been bordered by Nation 115 to the north and north-east, by Nation 113 to the west, and by Nation 114, Palaimoon and Massam from east to west along its southern border. There are also official maritime borders with Palaimoon across the southern approaches to the Bay of Massam.
Geography
Malagana in its original constitution was formed from the Malaganan Isles, off the western coast of Ascesia. These are made up primarily from Great Malagana, the largest island; Alajady, to its west; and Paga, to its south. The smaller islands of Greater and Lesser Pullani stand between Great Malagana and Paga, while the isle of Matola separates Great Malagana and the mainland. Smaller island chains reach in to the northern Prothenian Ocean.
The Dictates of Vellimalam, which effectively terminated Vatavil Uppalam in 1994, gave over to Malaganan control some of the northern parts of the traditional Massam region on the mainland and the bulk of Palutem further north.
History
The rise of Vaestism and the Uppali expulsion
The Joriscian presence in the islands of Malagana – and the southern Uppali coast more widely – dates back to the second half of the 18th century as their trading vessels plied northern Prothenian waters more regularly. While this was not overly disruptive at first, later Uppali rulers found themselves crossing swords – at least verbally – with the outlanders more frequently over the early and middle 1800s. What had been freely negotiated concessions from local magnates increasingly became blatant land-grabs, with the Joriscians demanding concessions from their hosts in what was, in many respects, a recapitulation of the zamorsky outports of the Neritsovid period.
A large element of this sprung from the growth of commercial whaling in the northern Prothenian; the trade overlay so much of Joriscian commercial disputes – and minor affrays with the Uppali – during the half-century from 1820 to gain the description of the “Blubber Wars”. The conflicts were wide enough – and backed up enough by the weight of Joriscian home rulership – to allow genuine petty fiefdoms to grow up under the control of outlander estate interests. Alajady, the westernmost of the major islands, had essentially been taken over by Terophatic interests by 1840, and Lacrean counterparts’ role alongside indigenous rulers on Paga could be comfortably described as a co-dominium.
Perhaps a bigger, and more existential, problem lay in the battle being fought for the hearts and minds of the Malaganans by the incomers’ religion. Bhramavada has often had a relaxed attitude towards the beliefs of outsiders – seeing them as simply another perspective on the “great truth” which lies at the heart of the world – but local rulers were not prepared for the extent to which their people took to the tenets of Vaestism – with the outlander faith feeding a “millennial” expectation of liberation from Uppali tyranny – or the ferocity with which Joriscian missionaries propagated it. Here, it was the Azophines who took the lead, with a sizeable Savant element using Chulypally, the Malaganan capital, as a jumping-off point for wider works on the mainland.
As has been seen often over the course of the faith’s history, the small but increasingly vocal Malaganan Vesnite community – imports and converts alike – chafed under the rule of “ignorants”. In the process they drew succour from the successes of the Wise Crocodile Society, an increasingly paramilitary Vesnite group in nearby Palaimoon. The heavy hand of the government in Uppalam – both the largely military regime in Vatavil and its local functionaries in Chulypally – did not improve matters, and alienated much of the Bhramic majority in the process.
The spark that set off this tinderbox was perhaps trivial by itself. The order by Uppali authorities in 1884 that displays of the Vaestic octad symbol would risk heavy fines – and jail sentences – for transgressors broke the fraying patience of Malaganan Vesnites. Carefully riding the wave of outrage, local Crocodile sympathisers were able to steer it into a wider campaign against Uppali rule in the Malaganan War of Knowledge. Despite the Vesnite implications of that name, the conflict drew in support from Bhramavadin who held sizeable grievances of their own against Vatavil. The fight roiled at lower intensity across the islands for three years before more direct support from Vaestic powers – in this instance Azophin – improved the rebels’ firepower and put enough weight on the scale to force the Uppali to acknowledge their practical defeat before the autumn of 1889.
The outcome of the War of Knowledge probably pleased none of the interested factions. For Vatavil, it rankled that they had to yield some substantial autonomy to the Malaganans. They, in their turn, were frustrated by not having broken the Uppali grip completely. The islands’ Bhramavadins were aggrieved by the manner in which the Vesnites who had driven the war had manoeuvred themselves into a position of control that their numbers did not justify. Even the far-away Prysostaia was concerned at the Strong Externalism being voiced by the Malaganans and the “unreliability” of the communion there. The first signs of friction in the islands probably emerged before the beginning of 1890, while efforts were made on all sides to damp down the tensions.
Vatavil took every available opportunity to stir the pot, and made it clear in a protest to the Prysostaia that it would not yield Malagana to Vesnites whom even their co-religionists distrusted. Announcing, theatrically, that they had lost patience with the disorder in the islands, in 1896 Uppalam mounted an operation to take back full control. This, in some ways unexpectedly, righted some of the disputes – as Malaganans of all stripes acknowledged who the real enemy was. Pushing aside the increasingly problematic Strong Externalists, a reinvigorated Malaganan leadership held and forced the Uppali back over some three months in the “War of Tempering” during the autumn of 1896. Reports from observers allayed some of the worst concerns of the Prysostaia, with Yorsephor – elevated to the Universal Prophecy in the following summer – being sufficiently reassured to acknowledge Malagana as a marshalate under the newly-created Ascesian Banner.
The early Marshalate
Following this independence Malagana remained a deeply divided and tense society: even with its enthusiastic adoption, only around a quarter of the population embraced Vaestism, and only a fraction of that were recognised as orthodox. Power was disproportionately concentrated with Joriscian-educated Vesnite revolutionaries, who established themselves as large paternalistic landowners in a plantation economy, as both Uppali bureaucracy and Strong Externalist social projects collapsed. Segregative and subjugative policies were imposed on the Bhramavadin and heretical-Vesnite majority, and Malagana became known as the 'Yfirland of the West'.
Uppalam's rationalist Coordination Pole regime, which was initially Vaestophile, attempted from the 1910s to cultivate relations with Malagana as a financial intermediary with Joriscia. Increased Azophine investment from changes in interordinate trade, volunteering Kainish experts of the Telepedia, and access to the Uppali market would fuel infrastructural and light-industrial growth in Malagana from the 1930s. Missionary-profiteers expanded both Vesnite entrepreneurship and religion into Uppalam, particularly Palutem. But deepened social divides led the local Arbitration Movement to protest the gentry's policies within the isles, as well as with the ignorants on the mainland. From the 1940s instability and Vaestophobic flare-ups within Uppalam during the Uppali Alternations, as well as the Long War, further attracted anxious Joriscian and Uppali attention to Malagana.
At this time the post-Tempering political system was crumbling with numerous Vesnite factions contending for power, not to mention Uppali-backed Bhramavadic insurgents. In 1950, an Arbitrationist coup backed by Terophan demediatised Azophine estates within, and run out of, Malagana, adding to a growing portfolio in Uppalam. In 1956, the Vaestophobic administration of Uppalam confiscated Malaganan estates and expelled the missionary-profiteers, and threatened to invade Malagana itself, in the Three Bridges Crisis. As the government in Chulypally prevaricated, the Waterfront Congress, supported by angered Vesnites and Strong Externalist experts, seized power in another coup in 1957.
Contemporary history
The continued confrontation with Uppalam and the years without summers allowed the Waterfront Congress to enact sweeping social reforms known as the Sublimation of Malagana. The remainder of the island's Bhramavadin population was brutally subject to forced conversion, with thousands deported or put to death for resisting, or on charges of acting as Uppali agents. In the name of preparing for war with Uppalam, the military was expanded with Kainish and Terophatic materiel. Although Uppalam stood down from its stance on Malagana after negotiations in 1959, and commerce resumed albeit under surveillance, relations remained tense. Malagana took up the banner of Arbitrationism, advocating the liberation of Uppali Vesnites from the grip of the Polarist regime. Under Terophatic pressure and in context of the 1962 Pragmatic Recognition, the most hawkish Congress leaders stepped down in 1963, but the Sublimation's domestic policies continued. By 1970 insular Malagana was nearly homogeneously Vesnite, and a sophisticated Joriscian-style politico-religious structure was established.
The next generation of Malaganan leaders were content to enjoy the economic boom of the 1970s and adopt a relaxed approach to Uppalam, which also became more moderate. They consolidated power by cracking down on the fanatical popular movements and wayward local politicians that emerged during the Sublimation. But in 1980s, religious and diplomatic tensions resumed, as the Uppali cracked down on mainland Vaestism again. Popular Neo-Arbitrationism and outrage at the abuse of fellow Vesnites by ignorants was combined with attacks on 'oligarchs', who according to the new movements either betrayed the Sublimation, or used and prolonged its flawed aspects for their own ends.
When the Massam War broke out in 1990, Malagana provided logistical support for Palaimoon against Uppalam, and bases for Joriscian powers to launch air strikes. In retaliation Uppalam began major bombardments and attempted invasions in 1991, but they were ultimately defeated. Malagana eventually dispatched forces to occupy Uppalam itself, and by 1994 it was agreed at the Dictates of Vellimalam to annex Vesnite Palutem to it.
Social tensions in insular Malagana were mostly overcome by wartime unity, and then by the exploitation of the mainland annexations as a new frontier for islanders' ambitions. Attempts to exploit Palutem in this colonial fashion have caused conflicts with erstwhile local allies and collaborators, especially among the former Redeemers, who from the 2000s initiated the Insurgency in Palutem.