Kaitan-Leagran
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| Flag of Kaitan-Leagran | |
| Motto: Unity, Discipline and Faith | |
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| Region | Vasconia |
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| Capital | Freetown |
| Official Language(s) | English, Gaelic, Greek, Ulster Scots |
| Leader | To Be Announced |
| Population | 582 million |
| Currency | Punt |
| NS Sunset XML | |
The Protestant Bailiwick of Kaitan-Leagran (called Anacea by its Greek-speaking population) is a small island in the Gulf of Vasconia. It has traditionally been divided between the ethnically Irish majority and a substantial Pantocratorian minority. The island has, in recent years, been synonymous with ethnic violence and sectarian tension.
Contents
Geography
The geography of Kaitan-Leagran is largely mountainous and volcanic, with a high central mountain chain which leads to hilly ground in the South and East, more low-lying areas in the centre and a smaller mountain-chain in the North. Kaitan-Leagran has traditionally possessed a problem for geologists, since the volcanic soil of the island should, in theory, be highly fertile but instead is not conducive to the support of most plant-life. Despite the temperate yearly temperatures, Kaitan-Leagran receives only between 135 and 250 mm in annual Precipitation, making it one of the driest places in Vasconia. Despite the desert-like conditions, Kaitan-Leagran has a temperate climate with the highest temperature being recorded at 35.2°C (95.4°F).
Flora and Fauna
There are five hundred different kinds of plants on the island, of which 17 are endemic and 180 are lichen. Lichens survive in the suitable areas like the rock and introduce its own weathering. These plants have adapted to the relative scarcity of water, the same as succulents. Plants include date palms Phoenix canariensis which are founded in damper areas of the north, Pino canariensis, ferns, wild olive trees (Olea europaea). The laurisilva trees which once covered the highest parts of Cill Garbháin are rarely found today. After the winter rainfalls, the vegetation comes to a colourful bloom between February and March.
Kaitan-Leagran has thirty-five types of animal life, including birds, falcons, and reptiles. Some interesting endemic creatures are the Oughterard lizards, and the blind Làthach crab.
History
The history of Kaitan-Leagran is a relatively short one, with colonization taking place by Finaran settlers only during the mid 18th century. While some evidence does exist of the prehistoric presence of Vasconian Indians, the harsh climate and difficult soil resulted in these early peoples either leaving or, alas, dying out.
Colonization (1740s)
Though the island of Kaitan-Leagran had been mapped for several hundred-years following its discovery by Portuguese explorers, most people regarded it as a navigational aid rather than as a potential home. This is not to say that the island was entirely deserted, since evidence suggests that some of the caves in the Cill Garbháin Mountains were used by either criminals or pirates attempting to evade Spanish/Nabarran fleets that operated in the Gulf of Vasconia. The first formal colonization, therefore, did not take place until 18th June 1742 when a group of Finaran settlers led by Murchad ó Mordha. Forced from Finara due to a shortage of farmland, the Finarans apparently learnt of Kaitan-Leagran from a Pantocratorian Merchant vessel in the port of Franvan in southern Vyn. Records are sketchy over how they reached the island, but it seems likely that Murchad and his followers gained passage on a Knootian vessel. The place they landed and built their first village is the modern capital of Freetown, so-called because it allowed the Finarans 'freedom' to start a new life.
Though conditions for the settlers were undoubtedly tough, and many were to perish during the icy sandstorms of the first few winters, the Finarans were ultimately to succeed and Freetown was to grow into a small town by the time of the next wave of colonization some 70 years later.
The Arrival of the Orthodox Pantocratorians (1810s)
The second wave of immigration differed from the first in being primarily politically as opposed to economically motivated. Greek Orthodoxy in the Pantocratorian Empire had been under pressure since the imposition of the Latin-rite in 1593. While some were to stay in the Empire and hide their religious affiliations until the liberalisation of faith laws in 2005, many other loyal Orthodox were to flee the Empire and seek a better life elsewhere. While many would flee to Tarasovka, many would ultimately find refugee in Kaitan-Leagran, which they were to term 'Anacea' in their Pantocratorian Greek tongue.
Though the Orthodox were to become an integral part of the life of 'Anacea', legend has it that the destination of the first settlers was, in fact, the area of land that ironically makes-up modern day Pantocratorian Ambara. Unable to pay the full fare, or perhaps due to their unruly behaviour, the captain stranded the Pantocratorians on what he thought was a deserted island. This island was, in fact, Kaitan-Leagran since the captain had been unable to see Freetown due to the steep mountain-range. Though the Orthodox were to call their initial settlement by many names, the term which ultimately stuck was the Gaelic name for the city, that of An Bealach Bui.
It was during this time that the sectarian violence that would later characterise the island became apparent. The two communities existed, ultimately, under separate jurisdictions with no unifying structure above them. This meant that communal violence could neither be prevented nor punished, and as such the two groups operated like two 'tribes' that would seek revenge for wrongs inflicted upon them.
Communal violence, however, has still essentially a cultural phenomenon during this period and not a religious. It would be ironic, therefore, that the introduction of Protestantism would prove the catalyst for this.
The Arrival of Deasrarglann Protestantism (1840s)
Protestantism was a relatively late arrival on the island but was prompted by the persecution of Presbyterianism within the Kingdom of Finara during the reign of Daniel II. Of the three great periods of immigration, the third and final was the most organised with companies in the Duchy of Deasrargle offering a new life in the, aptly named, New Deasrargle. The name stuck and level of sustained immigration over many years eventually resulted in a Protestant majority on the island.
Though early settlers found their first homes in the now-flourishing town of Freetown, most travelled to the still largely unpopulated North. This has meant, therefore, that Presbyterian colonists have never possessed a single town which has encompassed their struggle on the island, as the Pantocratorian Orthodox have in An Bealach Bui.
Such was the relative size of the immigration from Finara and Pantocratoria that it was during the mid-late Nineteenth Century that the first discussion of conquest was made by interested foreign powers. Pantocratoria was the first power to suggest adding the island to the Empire, though the scale of the operation and the large Finaran presence led the delegations to reject the proposals in July 1873 (see in particular the famous speech by Count Pierre de Montaigne). More concrete proposals were formulated and passed, however, by the Kingdom of Finara. Finara, after all, had provided the majority of the citizenry of Kaitan-Leagran and thus had a strategic interest in taking the island.
The second reason, however, was more political in nature. Though the Finaran King, Sean I, was to relax restrictions on Protestantism at home, he was worried that Kaitan-Leagran would provide a place for the fermentation of radicalism in the Duchy of Deasrargle. Warships were launched, therefore, with the task of 'civilising' the island and, hopefully, reducing and eliminating the Orthodox and Protestant Presence on the island.
'The Fifth Duchy', The Finaran Colonial Period 1884-1963
The 79 years of Finaran dominance represents an important, if controversial period in the history of Kaitan-Leagran. At a political level, the imposition of government from Arra provided the first pan-communal structure in the island's history and, for the first time, subjected all the ethno-religious factions to the same laws. Culturally, the Finaran Colonial Government also saw the creation of many of Kaitan-Leagran's most important and beautiful buildings, from Freetown Castle to the National Presbylutheran Church in the capital. It could be argued, therefore, that the Finaran Colonial Period marked the start of the foundation of the modern nation-state.
For others, however, the legacy of the Colonial Period is less positive, particularly when one considers the state that the Government in Arras was attempting to build. The ultimate failure of the Finarans was their inability to recognise that, unlike at home, Roman Catholics were in minority on Kaitan-Leagran. The new Laws, which bound the people together for the first time, now served to alienate them even further with the persecution of Protestants and Orthodox. The new Palace of the Oireachtas, constructed in time for Tin Anniversary of the Coronation of Sean II, was to be populated by Roman Catholic politicians, elected solely by their Roman Catholic constituents. Such a situation would be bad enough, were it not also the plan to appoint Catholic peers for the island in order to create an aristocratic Seanad.
The proposals for the Seanad proved too much for some members of the Protestant community, and a campaign of intimidation and assassination was organised in order to dissuade any Finaran or islander from accepting a peerage. This campaign, known by Protestants as 'The Winnowing' and by Catholics as 'the Great Betrayal', succeeded in killing many Finaran peers and Government Officials from 1919 to 1942, when the Finaran forces were forced to admit defeat for their constitutional plans and declared martial law. Though traditionally seen as a Protestant exercise, one should not forget that Orthodox Kaitan-Leagrans also committed acts of violence, the public dismemberment of the Lord Mayor of An Bealach Bui in 1926 being a notable, if particularly gruesome, act.
'The Winnowing' was to eventually end following the assassination of the Governor General Sir James McFadden in 1942, bringing as it did the imposition of direct martial rule. The situation on Kaitan-Leagran continued to degenerate, however, as now many Catholics began to see the Finaran presence as a hindrance to their political objectives and, in some cases, began to adopt the same guerrilla tactics that proved so devastating to those military units stationed in Protestant and Orthodox areas.
Military rule was not, of course, the solution that the island's myriad of political problems required. Nor could such a drain on time, money and human life be tolerated indefinitely by the relatively small nation of Finara. Though the final soldiers were to leave over twenty years after the death of McFadden, in truth the Finarans had begun to recognise the hopelessness of the situation and had, for the most part, abandoned the countryside to the warring factions. With no communal reconciliation, and no political solution in sight, the end of the Finaran Colonial Period was not to end in a bang, but very much in a whimper.
