Gilgameshan Wedding to the Sea

The Gilgameshan Wedding to the Sea was a Gilgameshan military ceremony meant to symbolize the liberation of the Gilgamesh Free State. Originally performed in by members of the Gilgamesh Free Army upon their liberation of the port of Maizefield. To symbolize having fully freed Gilgamesh by driving to the sea, the troops, mostly descended from colonists from Eastern Europe, looked to their past for some type of ceremony they could carry out, and decided to emulate the ancient 20th century tradition of Poland's Wedding to the Sea. Assembling on the beach, one unit sent out a three-man section to wade into the sea, with one carrying the flag of the Gilgamesh Free State, and the other two carrying two golden rings. As the flag was baptized by dipping it in the water and the other two troops placed their rings in the water, the remaining personnel took an oath based nearly verbatim off of the 1945 Polish ceremony.
As the years passed, the ceremony was reenacted in some capacity annually, and some soldiers from the area would, after finishing basic training, visit Maizefield to carry out the ceremony. The second incarnation of the ceremony came in . As the Free Army became more of a professional force thanks to the aid of advisors and less of a band of ragtag militias, the military high command also looked for traditions to further cement the identity of new troops as defenders of Gilgamesh's freedom. As a result, in , it became official tradition for new recruits to be transported first to Maizefield after graduating basic training, where they would carry out the Wedding to the Sea exactly as it had been done in 2526.
After the fall of the Free State in , the ceremony was outright banned by the authorities, although locals would still defy this rule and reenact the ceremony each year. In , with the reestablishment of the Free State, the ceremony was officially reinstated for the Gilgamesh Armed Forces, although the text of the oath was altered to be more friendly towards the .
Category:Safe Havens