Sydona: Difference between revisions

<!--** well Kirav, it could have been part of "Recepistan" from late 800's to whatever time year 20385 is kirav  BREAK  well kirav, would you mind Sydonia being "loosely" my territory but influx of Coscivian settlers eventually made the islands a joint dependency of ours until you snatch it? Like a mix how California was lost from the Mexicans and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan  BREAK  but for some time being a joint protectorate, until your navy kicks breaks my balls and takes over BREAK or as said , anglo-egyptian sudan but Sydonas in my case; although being de jure mine territory until early 1300's the rule was loose as the locals had high autonomy kirav. Kiravian settlers eventually starting to cause problems. We only have to agree on the time the condonimium might ||  Slak says: "hey mate, wanna talk about Sydona. The condonimium temporarily ceased at 32 in a surprise attack and removing the Kiravian authorities. After the Great War in treaties signed you are given Sydona in full control"  ** -->

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Early in the Bronze Age, Sydona was characterised by small, scattered settlements primarily engaged in agriculture and local trade. By the Middle Bronze Age, there emerged fortified settlements and relatively larger townes, suggesting increased social stratification. It appears from archæological evidence that by this time Sydona had become integrated into [[Pre-modern_global_trade#Sea_of_Istroya_trade_network|wider regional trade networks]] connecting it to communities across eastern and southern Sarpedon and their associated islands. Bronze Age Sydonan civilisation would come to a turbulent end ca. 1200 BC, falling victim to a series of disruptions that included the destruction of major urban centres and a decline in long-distance trade. The archæological legacy of the Sydonans that survived this collapse shows a dramatic reduction in the size of population centres and a loss of societal complexity, but also a clear continuity with regards to artistic themes and religion.

The first recognisable modern ethnic group to settle in the Sydonas were the Pregoshans, an independent {{wp|Indo-European|Japhetic}} offshoot people, related to today's Pelians. Pregoshans of the Sydonas were among the first Japhetic-speaking communities other than Istroyans to begin adopting Christianity, and according to tradition the Christian presence in the islands dates back to the Apostolic Age, albeit with a limited geographic and demographic footprint in comparison to more northerly and easterly areas of coastal Sarpedon. The Pregoshans would subsequently be conquered and absorbed by invading Flurrian people fromt the Sarpedonian mainland, who would themselves gradually adopt Christianity by cultural transfusion both from above (through continental elite networks) and from below (from intermixture and cultural contact with the conquered Pregoshan subalterns), and be absorbed into the modern Pelian people. Slavic peoples would subsequently enter the archipelago's ethnic mélange by sea from the northwest, with the ancestors of the Thrakoslavs colonising the western shores of the archipelago and establishing fortified enclaves in other areas of the islands.

The Iddryitine Despotate was a nominal dependency of the [[Caphiria#The_Second_Imperium|Caphirian Second Imperium]] that functioned for all intents and purposes as an independent state. Ruled from the island of Idyres, in 1080 AD its domain would extend to all of Sydona in the South, northward into the hinterland of modern South Solis, and also westward to encompass the southeasternmost corner of what is now Greater Salesia, including its offshore islands Elvanum and Bores. The Despotate's elite were Istroyan-speaking with Caphiric cultural pretensions, and its court conserved the symbolism, ritual, vocabulary, and pageantry of the Caphiric state system despite being isolated from the rest of the Istro-Caphiric cultural sphere of Sarpedon by Slavonic and Audonian conquest of the lands to its north and east. In the Sydona Islands under Iddrytine rule, the rural population was predominantly Pelian, while an Istro-Caphiricised, mainly coastal urban populace dominated commerce and politics.

During the Second Crusade, the Iddryitines would take advantage of the Audonian states' preöccupation with the Crusader threat on their northern flank to capture the island groups of Prevoy, Savoy, Tyadoæa, and the Tetyres from Audonian emirs by 1140 AD, as well as to enlarge their mainland holdings eastward in modern South Solis. It would continue this strategy during the Third Crusade, but with more mixed results, gaining the isles of Diakronum in the Founders' Sea and some additional mainland territory at the expense of the Audonians in South Solis, while also losing some of the same to the Slavic Ticheskan Kingdom by 1160 AD.

During the [[Crusades|Fourth Crusade]], the Iddrytine Despotate, particularly the outer islands, was beset by an island-hopping Crusader offencives led by the [[Elamite Order]] that sequentially captured Diakronum, the Tetyres, Tyadoæa, Prevoy and Savoy, and Elaiussa. The Elamites established a {{wp|crusader state}} in the captured islands, ruled from Elaiussa, which they renamed ''Mar-Kśaver''.

[Free Kitties]

Archduke Terentius married his daughter to the [[Duchy of Bourgondi|Duke of Bourgondi]] and gifted the Bourgs the [[Great Prince's Own Royal Thračician Foot Guard]] as dowry.

Of the immigrant peasantry, most Istroyan homesteaders hailed from Xelphia, the [[Melian Isles]], and the islands of what is now North Solis. Most Coscivian immigrants had roots in [[South Kirav]] or [[Great_Kirav#Baylands|the Baylands]], where population pressure was strong and land prohibitively expensive. These were the same regions from whence a plurality of the Elamite crusaders had come, so ancestral and cultural-linguistic ties helped facilitate the immigration and absorption of southern and southeastern Kiravians. A small but notable contingent of settlers came from [[Fiannria]], including Fiannrian {{wp|Albanian people|Illyrians}}.

After the death of Grand Duke Sorditur the Pockmarked without heirs, the Coscivian law doctrine of ''nohúr'' ({{wp|escheat}}) dictated that his domains would revert to the [[Marble Emperor|Emperor]]. And so they did, with the Sydona Isles becoming a Kiravian possession.

[[File:Soviet-Era Hammer-and-Sickle on Bridge - Kharkiv (Kharkov) - Ukraine (44001551492).jpg|thumb|It took way too long to find this picture.]]

During the early 20th century AD, socialist movements that had taken root in Great Kirav in response to the poor conditions of the labouring classes spread to Sydona. Here the socialist message was more warmly received among the large Sydonan mineral and industrial workforce, in contrast to other Kiravian colonies, which tended to be more agrarian and commercial.

By 21184 the Kirosocialist administration in [[Great Kirav]] was spiralling toward collapse, struggling in vain to reverse the implosion of its economy and stave off emboldened opposition movements. In Sydona however, despite the presence of various increasingly visible opposition movements, the Kirosocialist status quo remained reasonably popular. Sustained demand for Sydona's energy resources and the semi-autonomy afforded to the antipodean republic in economic planning sufficiently insulated Sydona from the mainland's mounting economic crisis, and its public ration-distribution system had always performed better than the mainland's due to less cross-regional inefficiency and a smaller disparity between supply and demand. In addition, many in the Coscivian population and certain minority groups who might have been otherwise uncommitted to socialist ideology were wary of deviation from the status quo, fearing that an overthrow of the established régime and the decidedly pan-ethnic socialist formulation of Sydonan identity that it sponsored would open the door to ethnic unrest and radical movements such as the Apocatasarpedians, who sought to turn Sydona away from Coscivian civilisation and towards a Sarpedon-centric cultural ethos and geopolitcal alignment.