Callac Cananach

Callac Cananach was a statesman, bureaucrat, and politician of Faneria, and Despot of the Republic of Faneria from 1909-1925. He founded the National Republican Party of Faneria, later called the Central Republicans, and was instrumental in organizing the republican movement in his country and establishing Cananachan Republicanism, the central ideology of the Republic of the Fhainn.

Early Life
Callac Cananach was born the oldest of three in the riverside community of Cavan Dún to a Catholic couple, Gwynnyth and Darragh Cananach. His childhood was often described as unremarkable, with Callac describing it in his personal writings as "a dull affair... full of so many wonderful things I could not do due to my age, and it agonized me..." His youngest sister died during an outbreak of cholera when he was twelve in 1874, profoundly impacting his developing views. The outbreak was part of the last significant wave of the disease before a cholera vaccine was developed in 1881, which led to a sense of bitterness that would color his views on the monarchy and vestigial aristocracy of Faneria as a result of the complete non-response of the government towards the outbreak, leaving the treatment to be distributed by the private market.

At 15, Callac was taken on as a shopkeep's apprentice, and gained practical experience in budgeting and records. He worked through and after his public education until he could afford to apply for universities, being accepted at the Sathlagen Technical Institute's School of Economics and gaining a scholarship under the Marcus Foundation, funded by Faena Chemical-Electric (then Faena Chemical Production Co.) on contract to work for a minimum of four years as comptroller at the company's sulfa plant in Sathlagen after schooling.

During his schooling, Cananach joined the North Levantia branch of the World Socialist Party, attending meetings and discussing literature and theory on economic systems and representative government. He later broke ties in late 1886, claiming the Socialist Party was obsessed with transforming Faneria into "a monarchy without a face, where the State is an unchecked king that cannot die."

Military Career
At the outbreak of war on February 18th, 1888 with Fiannria, general conscription took effect, with Callac being counted as an economically noteworthy and thus draft-immune person. At 25 years of age, his contract with FCPC had expired the year prior, and Cananach signed up for the position of quartermaster of the 113th Royal Infantry Regiment due to his cousin Collin Macnyth being conscripted into the 113th. He was trained as Leftenant-Quartermaster of the 95th Artillery Regiment for a month, arriving to the front in May mere weeks before the armistice. In the final days of the war, his regiment took part in the disastrous Gaoth Offensive, with the regiment's headquarters seeing direct combat after the Army of the North was cut off and captured by the Fiannrian army. Cananach refused to speak of his personal combat experiences beyond acknowledging his status as a veteran, repeatedly downplaying his role as being "nothing but a bureaucrat with a rifle". Cananach's cousin was killed in the fighting along with 514 others of the regiment's eight hundred men, as the 113th endured significant artillery bombardment and skirmishing on the southern flank of the Army of the North. Cananach reportedly suffered no physical injuries.

After the war, Cananach, like many in the army, received an honorable discharge and returned to his prewar job; however, the loss of significant territories along the Vandarch coast caused a dramatic economic downturn along with the loss of connection with many peoples' family members in the territories ceded to Fiannria. Common among the public was the idea that the Rih had surrendered as soon as the war he started had turned against Faneria, signing a disproportionate peace. In fact, the Rih had been captured during the same offensive Cananach participated in, and had been forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty at riflepoint. Cananach's own job was secure, but he devoted a significant proportion of his time to feverishly writing his first work, Crown of Bayonets.

Political Activism and Early Writing
Cananach did not participate in the Teindun Factory Riots, but ingratiated himself with its organizers and helped organize an associated veterans' strike in Mwynsdún in December of 1888. The strike was broken by other veterans desperate for work, but the event put Cananach's name into a local spotlight, which he used to leverage his way into more notable circles.

Crown of Bayonets, being a short, raging piece on royal incompetence, was never officially published out of concern for treason charges, but gained him some recognition in Socialist and Republican factions throughout the country. It would remain one of his poorest-selling works due to its hasty writing, something the man would express regret for in his later years. In 1890, Cananach joined the Free Society of Faneria, which sought to model the Fiannrian republic as the goal of slow political reform; however, the group was too passive for Cananach's views and he founded his own group, the Republican Front, along with two dozen fellow veterans at a meeting at Lar Dún. The group swelled around the idea of preparing for the long-planned voting reforms promised by Faneria's 1830 Constitution, which included a 1900 deadline for allowing landed men to vote for their provincial governors, or Vicars, and expanding the powers of the Senate, which was in effect a powerless body at the time. The group would rapidly establish political power and attempt to form a centrist party aimed at removing the powers of the Rih by degrees, leaving the royal family a figurehead without considerable say in state affairs eventually. The group explicitly rejected Socialist ideology's redistributive tenets, but embraced cooperation with Socialist parties due to convenience and a general acceptance of some form of welfare and general anti-aristocracy sentiment. Opinions on economic elites in the Republican Front were initially mixed.

In June of 1892, Cananach struck a deal with the Free Faneria Press, an underground federalist and Jacobin publishing group, to print and distribute a remastered and greatly expanded version of Crown of Bayonets titled Republican Ideals and Their Application in Northern Levantia. This work would become a central piece of Republican literature in Faneria, running through a range of grievances with the State and the Fhainnin monarchy and detailing several types of republicanism, including federalism, centralized republics, and hybrid systems and summarizing the advantages of each. The work also covered state powers, individual rights, notes on public welfare and numerous other topics relating to the various ways a republic could be designed. Republican Ideals would become the seminal work for Cananach's ideology, as many of the ideas he would incorporate into his later governance were introduced, albeit alongside other options, in the book. It also became a bestseller despite attempts at censorship by the Throneswatch, which tasked several agents with tracking the author as a potential revolutionary.

fit in first meetings with Kalma here somewhere

In June, 1894, he married Maria Frynwyrth

other books, launched by second and party formed around the third

marches and 1900 voting scandal

1901 rih suicide

His final major work on republicanism, Effective Governance in the 20th Century, solidified the core tenets of Cananachan Republicanism and was published openly in defiance of the monarchy, with prints being smuggled into Faneria from Kiravia and Fiannria. The book added fuel the contemporary constitutional crisis, and it was subsequently decreed that possessing the text was treason in and of itself, causing its popularity to explode in an early example of Psychological Reactance.

1903 constitutional crisis

1906 royal train bombing

On April 28, 1906, a private train carrying Rih Ruaridh Suthar-Màrtainn and former Banrih Rethysear Suthar-Màrtainn to Sethsport was derailed over a bridge by Socialist extremists, killing both of them as well as the heads of the *Thronewatch* and the Vicar of Srathlann. The attack prompted a riot surrounding the Senate Chamber in Oirthidún, snowballing into a street battle between the army and armed citizenry. A state of emergency was declared, and the mob stormed a munitions plant, arming themselves as the fighting in the capital spiraled further into chaos.

Fhainnin Civil War
In response to the attack on the Senate Chambers, the Vicars of Vrael and Connsmonann declared their support for a temporary pause on the coronation of the next in line to the throne, one of Rethysear's nephews, Glen Wynnys-Màrtainn, along with a faction within the Senate known as the Reformists. Their movement was struck down, but the Reformists abandoned their seats, leaving the Senate to be unable to arrive at the threshold required to pass acts without them. Instead, the Reformists met with the Republican Front and other likeminded groups, accepting Cananach among others as members and rebranding themselves the National Republicans, calling for a general strike demanding the Senate pass the promised voting reforms as well as granting more powers to the Senate.

The Royalist faction ultimately caved after thousands of deaths across the country and months of martial law when paramilitaries and elements in the military and police became increasingly unwilling to fight their own people, voting (under a great deal of duress, but voting nonetheless) to pass the voting reforms and additional extensions of the franchise to any citizen, landed or unlanded, as well as formally making women citizens - another movement which had added steam to the Republicans' voting bloc. The head of the Republicans, John MacRenyth, called for immediate elections, which were held without preparation within certain areas of Oirthidún only and conveniently brought a supermajority of Republicans into the Senate - bringing Cananach into the inner circle. The Royalists decried the blatantly fraudulent elections, and the Throneswatch stepped in to break up the Senate, facing off against Republican militias which ended in a firefight in which MacRenyth was killed.

Cananach quickly claimed leadership of the National Republicans with his loyalists in tow, with the Free Faneria press supporting him in its publications as he fled to nearby Teindún, Faneria's largest city and a hub of Republican activity. Rousing the citizenry with a call to arms, Cananach spun the events at Oirthidún as a calculated purge by the Royalists, a position he maintained he truly believed for the rest of his life. Enraged, the locals fought off the pursuing contingent of Throneswatch and declared the city a safe haven for Republicans.

The new Rih, Wynnys-Màrtainn, surrendered himself and his relative, General Jonah Lohr-Màrtainn, along with the majority of the Royal 6th Army to the Republicans, turning the civil conflict into a proper revolution as Republican forces began to secure the western and central Ninerivers. With the military situation in hand, Cananach focused on the politics of the revolution more than its military functioning.

Cananach spent his time during the bulk of the Civil War setting up his own government, replacing institutions from scratch on paper and using his rubber stamp Senate remnants to approve any changes and reforms he wished. after the fall of Rihsport to the National Republicans in May 1907, he felt he could effectively do as he pleased, as republican militias and revolutionaries increasingly became better-equipped and just as experienced as the standing army that had split between the two factions. With Faneria's geographic core secured, Cananach called for and succeeded in a vote to dispand the Vicarial system entirely and replace is with a system of elected Governors without aristocratic trappings, as well as formally disbanding the Senate and creating a new legislature. It was no mistake that the new legislature and positions of power were packed with his closest followers first, allies second, and his enemies left excluded entirely.

Itheachan and Srathlann fell to the NRPA in March 1907, and Gleathan was captured by late May, securing the Republic as the legitimate Fhainnin government. The Socialists made considerable gains during this period, and saw success fighting Royalist forces, but were unprepared to themselves be purged from the Senate and the revolutionary movement, with many of their supporters peeling away to join the Republicans or breaking down into infighting over leadership. Their temporary alliance with the Republicans had allowed Cananach's men to gain an awareness of their operations, making rooting out their cells a matter of tipping off local anticommunist veterans' organizations. In addition, some elements within the Republicans themselves were cast out, though not violently as the Socialists were.

Death
Cananach became seriously ill with a fever in March of 2025, and gave up his position as Despot to ________ due to his ill health. Despite care, his condition worsened dramatically, and he was hospitalized at St. Jude's Hospital in Oirthidún. He lost consciousness on the 7th of November and was declared dead on the 8th, with the cause of death being ruled as sepsis. An investigation was launched into his death and ruled out the possibility of assassination after rumors circulated ______ may have poisoned Callac, and medical records made public to deter theorists from gaining traction.

Legacy
Cananach is featured on the one Barra note and on state-issued checks, as well as having a stamp dedicated to him. The seals of the Government Ethics Regulatory Bureau and the 6th Army Bragadt bear his image. His books remain in print, particularly Republican Ideals and Effective Governance.