Sundatano

Sundatano [Akashiren: スンダタノ], officially the Colony and Protectorate of Sundatano, commonly known as Akashiren Sundatano, is a colonial possession of the Akashiro Shogunate in Talasi. It was established when the former Imperial Southern Talasi-Akashiro Company (ISTAC) was transformed into a Akashiren colony in 1874 ACA (49 AU). Officially, the "Colony of Sundatano" refers to the lands surrounding the capital city of Gaaten, while the remaining territories are considered "occupied territories"; the two are controlled as a single administrative unit. The colony was one of the first to be established in Abexilas, marking the beginning of southwestern colonisation of the central continent. Sundatano neighbours Azrael to the west and Calarith to the east. The capital city is Gaaten.
== Etymology ==
The term "Sundatano" is an exonym which originates from the Akashiren term スンダダニオ, or Sunda-danio. It was the official Akashiren term for the Sikoto designated upon the first contact of the two states in the 15th century, translating to 'dark people of the underland'. Soijiran trading groups first referred to the Sikoto kingdoms as Sunt-daimyo, translating roughly to "lords of the cold people". With the development of the Akashiren control over the region in the 19th century, many of the foreign interpretations of the Sikoto nation states, including the exonym Sunda-danio, would be appropriated as the formal name of the geographical region, which would eventually evolve into the modern form of "Sundatano", although former pronunciations are still commonplace, due to a difference in accents between the coastal regions and the hinterland.
Native Sikoto refer to the country simply as Zundu, as a reference to the name of the ethnic group and as an informal version of the paganist local religions' god of the sky.
== History ==
=== Pre-history ===
Sundatano's earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, such as the Natani people. According to archaeological dating of artefacts and skeletal materials, Natanic speakers first settled in the Sundati highlands between in the 2300s BCA, during the last years of the most recent Talasi Greenhouse Event. Natani-speaking people would develop agricultural methods in the 13th century BCA, beginning a series of migrations from equatorial regions to Sundatano around until as late as 450 BCA. Sikoto people settled at the coastal regions and the interior between 250 BCA and 500 ACA. The advancement of Sikoto people groups into the interior dispelled much of the Natani population up into the mountainous highlands beyond the Sudwent River.
Over the first and early second millennium ACA, the temperature and general conditions would drop sharply, and much of the south of Talasi would be transformed into a vast taiga woodland, which would be exploited by small Sikoto kingdoms along the southern coast. Sikoto contact with the outside world began in 1452 ACA (373 BU) with southeastern trading peoples, and effective colonisation of the region began in 1775 (100 BU) during the Akashiren exploration of the interior by members of the Tigoma Clan, which would result in the establishment of Gaaten in 1822 (3 BU). 
=== Colonial rule ===
Modern-day Sundatano emerged from the establishment of company rule in Gaaten by ISTAC in 1835 (10 AU), which would be eventually replaced by direct Akashiren colonial rule in 1874 (49 AU). An encounter with the Shackleton Voyage in 1879 (54 AU) would culminate in the designation of Cape Resolute as the formal name for Talasi's southernmost peninsula. Beginning in 1880 (55 AU), colonial expeditionary forces led by expeditionary Tigoma Sudwent would lead a 600-strong force to map out the hinterland beyond Cape Resolute with the goal of claiming the territory surrounding the Cape as under Sundati protection. Sudwent had expressed significant concern surrounding expansionism by regional powers leaving the colony "boxed in". Sudwent's policy was to instead meet the local powers on equal grounds and expand to cover the contested territory before they did. Large flagpoles would be utilised by the group, nicknamed the Pioneer Column, to stake Sundatano's claims in the surrounding region. Local Sikoto tribes expressed considerable outrage in response to the Pioneer Column's claim-staking over their local villages; despite this, many regional groups would claim loyalty to Sundatano on the basis that they were the "lesser of two evils", and their ability to extract considerable concessions from the colonial administration. 
This would culminate in separate treaties in 1882 and 1883 (57-8 AU) which outlined the technical separation of the territories of the local tribal lords from the rest of the colonial administration. The formal announcement of the end of the Pioneer Column's in 1884 (59 AU) with the Takushima Concessions creating the 'Sundatano Protectorate' over the newly occupied territories, for eventual future integration into the colonial administration. The efforts of the Column eventually led to the colonial administration deciding to formally contest the establishment of Cyrndur's territorial claims on the neighbouring island territory of Waimarama, whom the colonial administration considered to be under the boundaries of the Sundatano Protectorate.
Category:Sundatano
Category:Akashiro
Category:Talasi