Eileada

Eilada Ikgoya (Tainean)
Nation	Faneria
Special Administrative Region	Eilada Territories
Administrative Capital	Port d'Corubia
Area
• Land	142 sq mi (370 km2)
	Odoneru Ocean, Vallos, Sarpedon
Elevation	363 ft (111 m)
Population  (2035)
• Total	34,255
	48.4% Fhainnin 21.0% Tainean 16.7% Burgoignesc 12.6% Coscivian 1.3% Other
Demonym	Eiladan
Postal Code	EI
Area Code	68-916

Eilada is an overseas possession of the Republic of the Fhainn located in Vallos. The modern territory consists of two islands, Eile Corubia and Eile d'Horizon Ardent, and several shoals and islets within their Exclusive Economic Zones near the terminal end of the Capelranco Archipelago. Of the two, Corubia is the larger and the only permanently inhabited island in the territory, as d'Horizon is a low-lying atoll. Eilada is predominantly centered on Port d'Corubia, the only major settlement on the main island, which hosts a large shipping port used for commercial rest and refuel as well as the Eilada Army Naval Base, which is the permanent post of the National Army Navy's Eastern Hemisphere Squadron. Eilada is geographically closest to Equatorial Ostiecia to the south and southeast, and the region is the northermost point by latitude in both Vallos and wider Sarpedon.

History

The island of Corubia was at some point inhabited by migratory pre-Coscivian people, as archaeology on the island has shown a number of artifacts predating the period when Coscivian peoples first made landfall in Kiravia. It is unclear whether the island was abandoned or invaded by Polynesian tribes, as the first written records of Corubia itself by Istroyan historian Heraclus of Peleopolis indicated that the inhabitants had violently repulsed several Heaven Ships arriving from Crona between 700-400 BC. Heraclus believed the inhabitants of the island, whom he named Kereboes after the Istroyan Keres, exercised power over the other islands north of the primary chain of the Capelrancos. He additionally claimed local tribes were forced to pay tribute to the Kereboes in the form of slaves or human sacrifices, though this appears to be sensationalized. Around 120 BC, modern Corubia and its peripheral islands were invaded by Taineans from the southern and central Archipelago. After Tainean settlement, the Tainean name for the area, I-ko or Igko ('Northern Reach') came into use.

Painting by Kratægus Peretin depicting Kereboas attacking a trade ship off Aeonara c. 1590

The territory effectively ruled itself while paying token tribute to a revolving set of polities to the South for several centuries, and even sent tribute to the First Imperium (albeit infrequently) after 742. It was not only a key center of piracy along St. Brendan's Straight, but one of the first pirate states in Vallos since at least as early as 1054, being both positioned perfectly to intercept cross-Odoneru shipping and naturally at the periphery of any organized power projection from the mainland. After the explosion of piracy in the region following Aster's Expedition, pirates based in Igko began to revive the myth of the Kereboes, with the pirate lords operating out of the area eventually declaring themselves under the banner of the Kereboa Fleet. The Kereboas (and other pirate groups claiming to be Kereboas) would eventually become a significant naval force, and were the last military power in the Capelrancos to resist the Kingdom of Oustec.

Oustec Rule

Igko ultimately submitted to the Kingdom of Oustec in 1604 due to Oustec's control of Vallosi timber, though the Kereboes operated as part-pirates, part-merchants, part-auxiliaries for the Kingdom and maintained their own paramilitary identity. Kereboas raiders played a large part in the Vallosian slave trade, including cooperation with Varshan from 1579 onwards. Cooperation with Oustec also came with increased protection from a growing Burgundine presence in St. Brendan's Straight. Kereboas Fleet ships resisted Burgundine expansion outwards from Catavis, including taking part in the respectively failed and successful defenses of Port de Vanse and Pescanice in 1621 and 1629. Following the invasion of Pescanice, the Kereboas Fleet were subjected to a period of infighting and contraction as modernization of the Oustec navy and within the port's heirarchy saw Igko come under stronger central rule and its pirates shift towards acting as a professional mercenary force, with slavery and looting being interrupted by scrambles against Burgundine forces as needed. The need to cooperate with the mainland was cemented by a set of skirmishes aroung Igko in 1655, when the Burgoignesc South Levantine Trading Company attempted to attack the island and dislodge the Fleet from its only permanent safe harbor. The modern name for Eile Corubia comes from the contemporaneous misinterpretation of Kereboas as the name of Igko's port, rather than the pirate forces operating from it.

Despite repeated Burgundine prods at the island in 1688, 1689, 1699, 1726, and 1780, Igko remained insulated against colonization and played a part in resisting King Abey II's centralization of Oustec in the 1810s. The Kereboas, whittled down through the previous century by a combination of pitched battles, hostile privateering, and competing with the actual navy, were reduced to a criminal operation around the Archipelago. Although privateers working for Oustec at this point were broadly called Kereboas, the Fleet itself had effectively disbanded into smaller companies, of which only a few continued to surreptitiously operate in piracy and slavery outside of royal sanction. Igko nevertheless remained heavily fortified, with shore batteries and a dedicated squadron of warships protecting it as the northernmost end of Oustec's tripwires against foreign invasion.

Fanerian Colonization

During the opening month of the Odurian War, Igko was attacked in a daring night raid and subsequently put under blockade by Burgundine warships. The marines present could not take the island, nor did the quick succession of invasions of mainland Oustec by Caphiric and Urcean forces allow for a prolonged siege. It was at this point that Faneria's Royal Western Squadron, at the request of the South Levantine Trading Company, took over the blockade and the duty of intercepting returning Oustec warships. In exchange for sending forces to serve as a rearguard and free up ships for the wider war, Rih XXXX would gain a personal claim to the island.

An attempted breakout by Oustec ships in July of 1959 failed, with the brand new Fanerian armored steamers Seba and Gwaeron playing a pivotal role in the battle and proved their survivability against cannon; after this point, sporadic and indiscriminate shelling by the two ironclads became a regular feature of the siege. The conditions on Igko worsened significantly after a fire caused by one such bombardment burned down several warehouses and gutted the western side of the port. On October 4th, 1859, the island's governor formally surrendered the island. Despite this, the remaining population on the island, particularly the garrison, continued to fight, forcing a landing by Fanerian naval infantry.

While Fanerian forces operated in theory under Burgundie's umbrella in the Oustec War, the Fanerian Throne purchased the rights to Igko and its surrounds after the war's conclusion for a single pound of silver. Under the Port d'Corubia Colony Charter, Corubia and d'Horizon Ardent were renamed and became a direct posession of the Rih. The remainder of the port of Ikgo was leveled, and vacation estates, a naval coaling station, and public housing for the population were constructed for the influx of laborers and colonists brought in to Fhainicize the main island, while the locals (over half of whom had died of starvation alone during the last month of the siege) were forced to move to the northern end of the island opposite the colonial settlement or accept deportation to Equatorial Ostiecia.

The colonization of Corubia allowed for the independent support of merchant convoys to and from Orastir without relying on foreign ports, increasing the control of the Throne over its colonies' economies and serving as a stop for regular antipiracy and antislavery operations. In addition, the possibility of recolonizing Asteria with a much closer base of operations was considered, though this ultimately never occured. The establishment of a Fanerian colony on Corubia was reported in the press in Levantia as ending the capture of Fhainnin mariners by Varshani raiders, though in reality the closer settled populations of the Cronan colonies had made the Varshani slave trade a lesser part of the waning piracy around St. Brendan's Straight decades prior.

Burgoignesc rule

Eilada remained a Royalist posession during the Fhainnin Civil War, and while it played no role in the war itself, Corubia served as a holdout for the Rih's government after the fall of the mainland. Antaine Lohr-Martainn resided on the island from 1909 to 1913, at which point his lifestyle required the sale of the territory and the remnant government moved to Orastir. Eilada was sold to Burgundie and administered by the provincial government of Equitorial Ostiecia after its purchase. The largest events of Burgoignesc rule were the Second Fratricide and Second Great War, which lasted from 1934 to 1943. While tensions with the settled Fanerian population caused concern during the war, fortifications uptaded and added in the 1910s, local jobs added by the import of Cassava, tropical hardwood, especially Mahogany, and sugarcane for industrial cultivation and harvesting kept Corubia preoccupied. Eilada served as a coaling station with a smal garrison during the war, and did not see any significant action aside from being one of several points of weapons smuggling to the Capetian resistance. After the war, the much-reduced Equitorial Ostiecia and further development of the mainland and other islands eclipsed any need for the facilities in Eilada. As a result the 1950s and 1960s saw the islands relegated to a backwater and become a liability, rather than an asset, to the Burgoignesc crown. With rapid expansion of the wars in Alshar and Audonia that would later become Operation Kipling, Burgundie welcomed an offer from Faneria to buy the island back in 1967, the formal handover taking place at the close of the federal fiscal year Sept 30, 1968.

Satellite view of Eile d'Horizon Ardent. Since 1983, permanent habitation of the island has been banned due to the frequency of flooding and potential reclassification as a vanishing island.

Modern Day

Port d' Corubia underwent significant expansion beginning in the 1980s after the development of Faneria's space program, with a military presence in place for security reasons. Corubia National Exolift Center and the Eilada National Army Base, the two largest government properties on the island, were developed on the island's less developed agricultural areas, and a greater emphasis on the island's position as a time-saving measure for the St. Brendan trade route became a key factor in encouraging economic renewal on the island. In 1983, permanent inhabitation of Eile d'Horizon Ardent ceased entirely after a tropical storm swamped the atoll and killed several people; Eile d'Horizon and the nearest islets were subsequently rezoned as d'Horizon National Park.

Geography

Eilada covers a combined land and sea area of approximately 7,030 square miles (x km²), of which Eile Corubia covers approximately 114 square miles, Eile d'Horizon Ardent covers another twenty, and the ancilliary isets and shoals an estimated eight square miles combined at the most. The island rests inside of Equatorial Ostiecia's tropical monsoon belt and recieves significant annual rainfall (as much as 12 inches a month average during between January and June) though its position spares it from the oppressive and permanent humidity of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The islands are naturally overgrown with foliage, with human activity on Corubia significantly cutting down on native vegetation. Eilada hosts several hundred endemic species, many of which are considered endangered or only extant on a single island or islet, similar to the biodiversity in other tropical regions. This includes species with ancestors in Sarpedon, Crona, and even Audonia, though Audonian and Levantine species present in the territory are overwhelmingly present by human introduction. In particular, Eilada hosts a number of native small birds such as the Crona-descended Grey-winged trumpeter and the Kereboric Tropicbird, a relative of the much wider-ranged Red-billed tropicbird.

Demographics

Mabao, the second largest settlement on Eile Corubia, is located on the western coast.

The overwhelming majority of the population (98%+) of Eilada live on Corubia, and the majority of these live in Port d'Corubia itself. The remainder of the population live along Corubia's coast, mainly concentrated in small hamlets along the western and eastern coasts, with the center of Corubia being sparsely populated and broken up by patches of tropical rainforest. d'Horizon Ardent has a small nonpermanent population of park and emergency service station staff. Due to its nature as a trade station, Corubia hosts between two to three times its permanent population in vacationers and ship crew annually.

The census of 2035 recorded self-reported rates of 44% Catholic, 26% Protestant, and 4% Caphiric religious practice, with the majority of the Protestant community belonging to Tainean members of the Ecclesiastical Assembly of Sarpedon. In comparison, 11% of the population reported no faith and 6% reported a local faith, with the remainder spread across small communities from every region in the world. In this respect, Eilada is one of the least irreligious parts of Faneria, second only to Namhe.

Government and Politics

Eilada is one of a small number of Special Administrative Regions, or colloquially, Territories, of Faneria. Its government consists of a county-level administration and an appointed Military Governor, the office of which has considerably less power over the Territory than a member of the civilian government. Citizens and residents of Faneria living on Eilada are represented by a non-voting member of the National Assembly, while the island has relaxed regulations compared to the metropole for guest workers and customs in order to accomodate the shipping industry.

Eilada's Military Governor is primarily responsible for local security and approval of permanent residency on Corubia. The island hosts a military garrison including military police and a local Sheriff's office that doubles as the municipal police department. Due to its small size, Eilada does not have any municipal police forces, and military police take on the typical duties associated with the National Police and Civil and National Guards.

As of 2035, Arcerion posessed military docking rights in Port d'Corubia through a bipartisan treaty; The Cape and Kiravia posess wartime military docking rights by treaty but in practice are welcome at any time due to the 'special relationship' of the three states in relation to South Crona.

Economy

Eile Corubia is the only island in Eilada with developed infrastructure, primarily consisting of roads. The island does not have any highways, and only a minimal commuter tram system in Port d'Corubia itself. The local economy of Corubia is primarily centered on supporting the Eilada National Army Base and Port d'Corubia Commercial Stockyards, which bring more transient customers annually than live on the island itself. A growing tourist industry centered on prestige fishing, scuba-diving, and some commercial fighing in the outer islands of the territory have lead to several small resorts opening up on Corubia, including the restored Royal Estate on the north end of the island.

While previously the site of commercial cassava and mahogany farming, most agriculture on the island today takes the form of sugarcane cultivation due to it being the most accessible and profitable of Corubia's historic crops given the climate and space.

Corubia Commercial Stockyards

The largest landowning entity in Eilada outside the Fanerian government, Port d'Corubia Commercial Stockyards, dominates the central and southeastern shoreline of the territorial capital. PCCS was founded in 1965 is jointly owned by Target Price, O’Shea, Highpoint, and several other maritime and infrastructure corporations invested in global trade. PCCS acts as the closest port of call for much of the southern Odoneru Ocean, and operates as a transfer point for cargo and crew, rest and refuel stop, and emergency repairs station for trade crossing between Sarpedon and Crona and St. Brendan's Straight more broadly. Stockyards also benefits from Corubia hosting over a dozen foreign embassies, as well as the territorial jurisdiction of Faneria mandating the military to protect commercial shipping in Fanerian waters from sinking or seizure by another government.

See Also

Other Special Administrative Regions of Faneria:

• Mharnsgate
• Whiteglen

Neighboring Regions:

• Equatorial Ostiecia
• Æonara
• Porta Bianca