The Deluge
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| The Deluge | ||||||||
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.jpg) Urcean Royal Navy ship HMCMS Attendant firing a missile at military assets in Varshan | ||||||||
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 Algoquona Varshan Alpachnia | ||||||||
The Deluge describes a series of conflicts and geopolitical tumult that occurred in northern and central Crona from 2008 through 2024. As a series of related incidents, it began with the War of the Northern Confederation in 2008 and ended with the Treaty of Electorsbourg in 2024. The Deluge saw the significant Occidentalization of central and northern Crona as Urcea and Alstin in particular greatly expanded their spheres over Cusinaut and the Orixtal region respectively, while Daxia and Kiravia also made major inroads in the eastern Nysdra Sea region, sometimes in collaboration with Urcea. Most importantly, the ancient Cronan great power of Varshan, which had dominated the continent geopolitically for a millennia, was destroyed by an international coalition that included most Deluge participants as well as the first direct military intervention by the League of Nations.
Nomenclature
Background
At the dawn of the 21st century, many of the global powers that would come to be engaged in Crona had relatively limited influence and presence in the region. Beginning in the east, Kiravia's Mid-Atrassic Crona territories were limited in scope to the island of Atrassica itself and some small coastal ports adjacent to it in nominal Alpachnee territory. On the Nysdra Sea, Daxia possessed Cao and a relatively small amount of land in what would become Xisheng. In Cusinaut, Urcea possessed the small Rectory of New Harren and also exercised limited control over the League of Nations mandate of Venua'tino on the northern coast of the Nysdra. New Harren was bordered by Porfíria to the west. To the south, Alstin had existed as a full-fledged Occidental colonial nation since the 16th century, but exercised a relatively limited buffer zone on the Cronan mainland. All of these possessions were relatively obscure or remote parts of their respective countries. Crona had long been anchored in stability with the Northern Confederation dominating Cusinaut and Varshan exercising control of some variety practically over the entire continent. The coming decline and fall of the Northern Confederation would have a dramatic effect on Cronan geopolitics that would, in time, drag most of the Occidental world into major military conflict in Crona and inaugurate the bloodiest armed conflict since the Second Great War.
Regions
Cusinaut
During the Deluge, Cusinaut saw the greatest number of conflicts, border changes, transfers of sovereignty, and general diplomatic realignment in terms of volume. The War of the Northern Confederation is considered by most to be the beginning of the Deluge. Cusinaut was active during the entire duration of the Deluge, and in the span of sixteen years the region was entirely transformed. The conflicts here are distinctly divided into three phases of fighting that occurred during the Deluge, each instituting major territorial and social changes in the areas affected by them. The impact of the Algosh coup, and subsequent responses to it and the state it created is considered to be one of the major unifiying factors of events in Crona during this period.
First conflict
Second conflict
Although relations between Urcea and the nascent Algosh military state were governed by the Treaty of Narasseta, the diplomatic relations between the two countries never reached a point of balance. Between 2012 and 2016, full ambassadors were exchanged by the two countries only intermittently and for a period of eight months total.
Third conflict
North and Central Nysdra
The sudden appearance of massive Occidental power in the Nysdra came as a political and cultural shock to Quetzenkel. In the 1960s, they had leveraged Daxian influence to annex the Brudxaan Province, roughly modern New Veltorina, but those efforts constitued the extent of Quetzenkel's interactions outside Crona since the Second Great War. Traditionalists and those concerned with Quetzenkel's continued neutrality urged a more radical anti-Occidental stance combined with rearmament, although these concerns were leveled among many other historic cultural concerns. These factions eventually assassinated the sitting Archchief, Honau V, sparking the South Nysdra War. In addition to being a dynastic civil war, the war had the complication of endangering the Veltorine minority in the region, who had settled there in the 20th century; Urcea's various historic obligations to the Veltorines led public opinion to favor intervention on their behalf, spreading the potential of Occidental armed intervention.
On the northern shore of the Nysdra, the League of Nations Mandate of Venua'tino had already been under the influence of Urcea for four decades with little impact. The region had received economic investment on a limited scale as well as significant diplomatic attention through the decades. However, the warring groups and rival factions which dominated coastal Venua'tino life were largely more content to continue to do safe business under loose Urcean oversight than to band together to establish cohesive national states. The War of the Northern Confederation, led to a definitive policy change in Urcea with respect to the Mandate. Its stated policy goals elsewhere in the Nysdra region, as well as increased obligations and the financial cost of those obligations, meant that forging viable states and withdrawing from the Venua'tino area became a priority.
East Nysdra
The sudden collapse of the Northern Confederation in the West Nysdra with a year of relatively minimal Occidental military pressure exposed significant weaknesses in other Cronan confederations, most especially the Alpachnee Confederation. Located between Daxian Xisheng and Kiravian Atrassica, the Confederation began to undergo significant domestic turmoil as minority groups saw the relative weakness of the ruling majority Sugondese people through the lens of the upheavel in Cusinaut.
Orixtal-St. John
Varshan
The most influential event of the Deluge occurred in north-central Crona, where the ancient great power Varshan - which exercised soft power over the entire continent - was destroyed. The destruction of Varshan was not directly intended or envisioned by the Deluge's participants; Varshan's reactive foreign policy, responding to the rapidly increasing foreign interventions that constituted the Deluge, led it to intervene in Cusinaut. This decision sparked the Final War of the Deluge in 2021.
Legacy
The Deluge had the effect of completely reorienting most of Crona geopolitically. Prior to the conflict, Varshan was the great power in the region; most happenings on the continent had either Varshan's direct influence or at least tacit approval. The final destruction of Varshan as it was and the continued influence of the Occident and Daxia everywhere brought about a political, cultural, social, and religious revolution in the region. The area, which had never been under direct Occidental colonization, was integrated into the Occident's global economic, political, and cultural footprint over the span of two decades.
Demographic effects
The emergence of Urcea as the largest power in the Nysdra Sea region led to significant out-migration of people from Urcea, reducing and stabilizing its population growth while leading to an explosion of population growth in Crona. As of the 2020 census, it is estimated that slightly more than 30 million people within the NSTA sphere are either from Levantia or are of Levantine descent, including Nysdrine people. These migrations lead to the further expansion of Nysdrine people and intermarriage between Levantines and Cronites. Populations analysts projected, as of 2020, that the Levantine-Nysdrine population of Urcea's Crona possessions could reach nearly 200 million by the year 2100.