Serene Duchy of Aeldrum

The , centered on the eponymous trade hub, is one of the major trade and military powers in the cosmos.
== Government ==
=== Serene Doge ===
Aeldrum is nominally a democracy with a chief executive (head of government and of state), the Serene Doge, who is elected by the Serene Parliament.
=== Serene Parliament ===
The Serene Parliament is responsible for selecting the Serene Doge, and has historically been responsible for committing military or police action. In addition to selecting the Serene Doge, is also the highest court in Aeldrumthough it has not convened for that purpose since the First Coalition War, devolving its judicial functions to an active judiciary controlled by the Serene Doge..
=== The Spire Doges ===
The seven Spire Doges serve as governors of the seven Aeldrum Spires, the main population centers on Aeldrum proper.
=== Colonies and Protectorates ===
As Aeldrum has risen in power, so too has its influence over other Pocket Dimensions. The Serene Duchy's territory can be divided into three groups: Aeldrum Proper, the Core Worlds, and the Colonies.
=== Aeldrum Trade Company ===
Historically, The Aeldrum Trade Company was essentially a branch of government unto itself. Riddled with countless semi-private armies, navies and fiefdoms, the ATC was notoriously corrupt and was on the decline for decades prior to its collapse during the First Coalition War. Prior to its decline though, its greatest rival, the Bishant Trade CompanyThe BTC was the state trade company of the Shantine Empire, whose humiliating defeat by Fialta forces essentially gave birth to the Second Fialta Imperium. The Shantine Empire is still a cosmic power, but very much a third fiddle to Aeldrum and the Second Imperium), fared even worse, lessening some competitive pressure.
== Military ==
Aeldrum's army and police forces are organized predominantly around a policy of careful balance, meant to prevent a coup. The structure of Aeldrum's military has changed significantly over time, in particular with many changes occurring during Doge Bareth Aefendt's 50-year tenure and the two Coalition Wars.
=== Early Modern Period ===
==== Aeldrum Dragoons ====
The Aeldrum Dragoons have historically been the elite forces of the Serene Duchy. They answer to the Serene Doge of Aeldrum (who doubles as the Doge of the Aeldrum Spire) and fight not for the Serene Duchy as a whole but for the Aeldrum Spire itself. The Dragoons were able to be deployed unilaterally by the Serene Doge in any "colonial" conflict outside Aeldrum and the core worlds (i.e. against insurgents and locals not recognized as a state by the Parliament), but they could not be deployed against recognized states or on Aeldrum or her core worlds without an act of Parliament approved by the Doge. 
The only exception to this division of power was if the Aeldrum Spire itself were under attack and the Serene Doge had declared a state of emergency within the spire: this power was invoked once in the history of the Serene Duchy, during the Great Galthad Rebellion (, so named to distinguish it from various minor spats) when Galthadi extremists bombed rail lines to the Aeldrum Spire. While technically outside the spire itself, this attack was interpreted as sufficient cause for a state of emergency and used by the Serene Doge to bypass Parliament and launch the "Raking of Galthad," in which the Aeldrum Dragoons infamously brought the Galthad spire to heel, securing "confessions" of support for the rebels from Galthadi dissidents at gunpoint. Though Parliament overturned most of these forced confessions and subsequently brought several Dragoon officers up on charges amounting to war crimes under Aeldman law, only junior Dragoon officers were ever convicted and Galthadis executed during the Raking were not posthumously pardoned. Parliament subsequently voted itself the right to curtail the geographic sphere of a state of emergency.
==== Parliamentary Guard and Parliamentary Navy ====
The Parliamentary Guard is a military police force administered by the Serene Parliament. The Parliamentary Navy is an independent military navy which, like the Guard, is funded by Parliament and its senior officers confirmed by Parliamentary vote.
==== Aeldrum Republican Constabulary ====
The ARC made up the majority of regular forces under arms who were answerable to local republican authorities (e.g. a planetary governor) but ultimately the Serene Doge and the Parliament (thus not counting the countless members of the ATC).
==== Aeldrum Volunteer Army ====
In times of crisis, the Doge of Aeldrum could issue a decree calling on the able bodied men of each spire to take up arms in defense of Aeldrum. With the ATC supplying Aeldrum's colonial forces, and the Dragoons providing specialized applications of force for the sake of Aeldman policy, it was very rare that any "volunteers" were taken; however, in times of need, the Serene Doge could request that the Parliament raise new regiments either through volunteer recruitment or a draft.
The most significant use of an Aeldrum Volunteer Army was during the First Coalition War, with the volunteer army colloquially known as "Harwel's Heroes", created by Doge Bareth's War Volunteers Amendment.
==== Aeldrum Trade Company ====
Prior to being nationalized and broken up, the Aeldrum Trade Company raised forces of wildly varying composition, function and quality to protect or extend its colonial interests. The ATC even had regiments on the books raised entirely from various native populations with only an elvish C.O.
=== Sixth Century ===
In the post-Bareth era, Aeldrum's military forces have continued to follow a long tradition of organization, marked by the political balance of power between Parliament and the Serene Doge. These structures have been revised and distorted, however, by the needs of a much more complex Aeldman economic sphere and in some respects have become effectively semi-privatized.
There are three major branches in the modern Aeldman military: the Aeldrum Dragoons, the Parliamentary Navy and the Parliamentary Guard. The Dragoons may be deployed at the discretion of the Serene Doge in defense of the Serene Duchy (including in defense of Aeldrum Industrial State Cooperative Assets abroad if recognized by treaty with the host country), but can be recalled by a majority vote of Parliament. The Parliamentary Navy and Parliamentary Guard are funded and deployed by act of Parliament and do not answer to the Serene Doge except as provided by wartime authorizations for centralized command.
==== Aeldrum Constabulary ====
These branches are supplemented by the Aeldrum Constabulary, a semi-militarized police force with various historic responsibilities and overseers but currently answering to the Aeldrum Office of National Security. The Constabulary manages affiliated local police forces, secures certain critical infrastructure and provides counterterrorist and other high intensity crimefighting functions (clawed back over the last decades from the Aeldrum Dragoons, whose operations are now once again more intensely foreign-oriented).
==== ISC Forces ====
In addition to these government entities, Aeldrum is supplemented by a wide variety of private security forces authorized under the Aeldrum Industrial State Cooperative Board, which serve to protect shipping and major industrial assets within Aeldrum and its wider economic sphere. These ISC-authorized forces include local security but also naval escorts (though these are restricted in terms of tonnage, armaments and stealth capabilities), as well as extensive privately held armories and privately managed reserve forces to be deployed in the event of large-scale civil unrest or foreign invasion. Many national armed forces of the minor republics and commonwealth worlds under Aeldman protection are integrated into this same apparatus, receiving equipment and logistics support from the ISC Board (though not, they will hasten to stress, their authorization). In effect, ISC acts as a platform for the management of private and semi-private force wherever Aeldrum maintains a dominant security interest.
==== Parliamentary Guard and Parliamentary Navy ====
The Parliamentary Navy serves two peacetime functions; the first is to protect shipping within the Aeldman Navigational Community (the collection of nations that have granted Aeldrum navigational and fleet basing rights to the exclusion of all powers not in the Community), and the second is to act as a vast, threatening deterrent to rogue action by other powers. Hence, the Navy maintains a large number of patrols throughout its navigational range, as well as robust surveillance capabilities to detect intrusion; in addition to these forces, Aeldman Strike Fleets are publicly positioned at critical commercial junctions and launch-points to strike at potential hostile powers with overwhelming conventional and null-bomb force. Unlike powers such as Alusia which work carefully to preserve the anonymity of key naval bases and null-bomb capable fleets, the Strike Fleet doctrine rests on intimidation through visible force. Strike Fleet compositions are dominated by mid-sized ships with planetary mobility capabilities to support ground invasions, amphibious operations and null-bomb deployments to planetary interiors. The Parliamentary Navy is heavily equipped with advanced etheric weaponry and shielding and acts as a major customer of the Aeldman ISC Board: while conventional chemically-powered weapons remain a secondary feature of Aeldman naval armament, rail guns and etheric ray-guns (lances) predominate, with extensive computer-assisted targeting and systems management to ensure optimal balancing of shipboard resources between defensive and offensive measures. Many of the larger Aeldman ships are equipped with null-batteries, which can provide hugely powerful temporary boosts to ship energies and may be used to circumvent ordinary etheric weapons challenges such as overheating (Aeldman "null-lances" have been reported but unconfirmed).
Aeldrum, despite (or perhaps in concert with) the intimidation factor of its Strike Fleets, has perhaps the most visible defensive infrastructure of any great power. The Parliamentary Guard is relatively large and responsible for defending key Aeldman worlds as well as rotating through the worlds of various Aeldman security partners; it favors advanced defensive technologies such as permanent and mobile gate-closing installations to deny planetary invaders access to a world. The Parliamentary Navy controls similar and coordinated installations in the ether itself and appears to exercise the best hope of a defensive naval posture in the current strategic environment. Aeldrum's vast and highly sophisticated ethernet network is widely believed to include early-warning systems to allow extremely rapid protective closure of key planetary gates and even navigable lanes. In effect, Aeldman defense doctrine seeks to buy its way out of the mobilization race and terror threat of the translane age, wagering that a devastating counteroffensive and significant loss-reduction from defensive measures will allow it to survive the next great power war relatively intact.
==== Aeldrum Dragoons ====
The Dragoons retain their historical function as a rapid deployment force, favoring power-armored ground troops with overwhelming amphibious support and the capacity to operate in hazardous chemical and biological environment;The Aeldrum Dragoons were historically recruited from human and elvish orphans (or children given up for adoption from the poorest families) and trained to serve for life. The Dragoons maintained a strict culture of loyalty to the office of Serene Doge and a militant defense of their own corps identity and perceived centrality to Aeldman culture. Seeking to expand the corps and reduce its associations with Aeldman conservatism and especially racial hierarchy, the Aeldman government undertook a policy of racial integration of the Dragoons in the 460s, relaxed (though still decades-long) service terms, age limits and broader-based recruitment from Aeldman protectorates and immigrant populations. Several Dragoons divisions mutinied in response and were pacified by a hastily scrambled combination of Parliamentary Guard and Constabular Officers; a subsequent purge of the Dragoons was carried out under Parliamentary act, with up to a third of Dragoons forcibly discharged from the service (many going on to become mercenaries in Celestial Space). The Dragoons were indeed subsequently expanded, however, and became the cornerstone of Aeldman security policy in the new Aeldman Commonwealth and Aeldman Navigational Community. the Dragoons serve an additional function in small-unit power projection, acting as special operatives and long-range naval forces outside Aeldman territory. While large capital ships and superweapons are the province of the Parliamentary Navy, the Dragoons retain a sizable translane and stealth fleet for "small scale" operations.The Aeldrum Dragoons were historically confined to a ground and amphibious role, such that their deployment abroad was effectively dependent on the Aeldman Navy and hence on Parliamentary authorization. During the height of the Aeldrum Trade Company's power in the 3rd-4th centuries, this Parliamentary stopgap was circumvented through use of ATC transports and escort craft; prohibitions on capital ships for the ATC (notoriously relaxed during CW1) nevertheless ensured that the Dragoons could not be effectively deployed in foreign territory belonging to a great power, generating a tacit allowance for dragoon deployments as a colonial measure but not against peers or near-peers. Ironically, the dismantling of the ATC under Serene Doge Bareth ensured that his 50-year-long virtual dictatorship was constrained by Parliamentary authority over the navy. Such operations see Dragoons acting as liaisons to Aeldman client states, countering pirates and performing covert activities. While historically viewed as the cosmic fighting elite along with the Saldanese Janissaries, the Dragoons have lost some of their luster in comparison with the equally highly mechanized Fialta Imperium Marines and the dramatic theatrics of the Shantine Seraphim and Alusian Chem-Troopers. Nevertheless, the image of an airborne dragoon in a mechanized suit presaged by a cloud of toxic gas and wielding an etheric cannon remains terrifying to most conventional forces.
==== Military Leadership ====
Across the branches of the Aeldman military, senior positions are essentially political, authorized by the Serene Doge or Parliament. This arrangement was true of the Parliamentary Navy and Guard for centuries but has been extended to the Aeldrum Dragoons since the purges of the 460s. In the case of the private paramilitary, these roles are filled by corporate appointments with oversight from the ISC Board. High levels of corruption and entanglement are alleged to exist among the ISC Leadership, Parliament and various military commanders, but the intended function of this close political management of the military is to prevent the emergence of isolated and autonomous military command structures such as the Fialta Imperial Navy or Alusian Brass that are believed to rival the authority of their respective states. The political dependence of the Aeldman armed forces on the economic and electoral leadership of the country is indisputable.
== Society ==
Aeldman society is stratified into five major layers: non-citizens, colonial subjects, citizens, gentry, and the aristocracy.
=== Aeldman Citizens ===
Under the regime of Doge Bareth, extensive property and voting rights have been extended to the inhabitants of the Aeldman core worlds, and Aeldman citizens enjoy some of the broadest rights in the cosmos. They may vote in parliamentary elections, travel freely throughout Aeldman territory, own land and other property, start businesses, represent themselves or obtain representation in court, enjoy widespread free speech protections (except in times of war or national crisis), and are protected from indenture by bankruptcy reforms. While citizenship was historically restricted to elves and humans, it has been broadened significantly through programs of citizenship through military or civil service: Aeldman citizenship is hereditary, and so the gains of various minorities in achieving citizenship are expected to endure. Non-citizens and colonial subjects have more restricted freedom of movement, and while they may own land and other property, they typically do not enjoy the same legal protections as Aeldmen citizens. Colonial subjects in particular are in the unhappy position of having parliamentary representatives but not voting for them, as these are elected instead by citizens living in the colonies.
=== Gentry ===
The distinction between gentry and citizens has eroded significantly since the beginning of the Coalition War: historically, there was no "gentry," only the racial distinction between "high" and "low" elves in gradations of social superiority to non-elves – High Elves were those who could trace their ancestry to the first elvish exiles to settle the Aeldrum spire, and they enjoyed special courts, legal immunities, preferential rights to buy stock in the (now defunct) Aeldrum Trade Company and other ventures, the right to aristocratic elevation and the right to bear arms in public. With the policy of "racial promotion" for military service adopted by the Serene Duchy to encourage military volunteers during the Coalition War, extended by Doge Bareth post-war to include civil service, the distinction has become less racial and more strictly social, and the high elf class has largely been replaced, legally, by the gentry (though most gentry of course remain elvish): the remaining privileges of the gentry are the right to stand for elected office, hold appointed executive office (e.g. colonial administration), hold senior military commissions in the Parliamentary Guard and the potential for aristocratic promotion.
=== Aristocracy ===
The Aeldman aristocracy is the last and highest stratum: the core of the aristocratic class is the "Titular Aristocracy," consisting of barons, marquises, and counts (in ascending order of station). These titles confer their holders hereditary voting rights in parliament, and in the core worlds give their holders the power of a colonial governor over their hereditary domains; moreover, though not constitutionally enshrined, every single Serene Doge (including Count Bareth Aefendt) has belonged to the titular aristocracy. Beyond this very small circle of titular aristocrats (no more than 150 or so titles exist), the rest of the aristocracy consists of direct, legitimate descendants of titular aristocrats who are recognized by the current holder of the title from which they claim descent: that is, the great-grandson of a Count is an aristocrat only if his second cousin the current Count certifies it (though this certification cannot then be rescinded). Unlike the gentry, whose judicial rights have been extended to the citizenry, aristocrats may still only be judged by a jury of their social peers, producing a parallel system of justice (one often decried): this judicial isolation extends further still for titular aristocrats, who may only be judged by aristocrats of the same or greater rank, or by Parliament. Aristocrats must also be capable of holding the title with which they are associated, should the need arise: historically, this measure has been taken to exclude non-high elves (as only high elves could hold titles), and without any expansion of the titular class, there have been few opportunities for a legal test under the current regime (though the tradition of "adopting" a non-high elf into a family to qualify them for the aristocracy in return for some service suggests a potentially strong case for eventually extending aristocratic status to non-elves).
Promotion into or within the aristocracy (which must be approved by a majority of Parliament) has been increasingly rare in the last century: since the last string of aristocratic promotions at the end of the Coalition War, there has not been a single promotion into or within the aristocracy. At first, conflict between Aeldman and core-world aristocrats kept the cycle of promotions frozen, and since Bareth's rise to power, a policy of reducing aristocratic influence has led not only to a freeze in promotions but a concerted effort to disband "defunct" aristocratic titles (i.e. titles whose holders have died without a direct heir). Despite this mutual hostility between the Serene Doge and the aristocracy, the Doge has tended to preserve the "petty tyrannies" (so-called by democratic agitators) of core world aristocrats against demands for elected government, tipping the scales only when particular aristocrats have actively sought to confront him politically.
=== Culture ===
Aeldman culture is inherently tied to the legacy of its founders, the first colonists of the Aeldman Spire. They were a fleet of elvish refugees who fled the sacking of an elvish "Paradise World" by orcish invaders some three thousand years ago. Their perceived abandonment by the elvish gods (the Triad) led them to renounce all service to divinities of any kind: to this day, Aeldrum remains a fiercely secular state, tolerating the influence of foreign churches but quick to deploy vast legal and propaganda resources against faith movements that appear to undermine the secular state and culture of the Serene Duchy. Religious factions such as the Kirvan Church and the Lords of the Pentacle have both intervened to defend their disciples in Aeldman territory from persecution, and used them as political tools to weigh their foreign policy interests into the Aeldman democratic process.
Combined with significant technological leadership, Aeldman culture and society is also characterized by a strong attitude of exceptionalism: though still somewhat wedded to elvish conceptions of racial superiority, exceptionalism is an increasingly broad-based national attitude, viewing the internal distinctions of Aeldman society as comparatively minor compared with the gulf between Aeldrum and lesser powers. Aeldman cinema, literature and art contain strands of an almost messianic view of Aeldrum as the exemplary culture of the cosmosAeldman culture generally is heavily influenced by its Enclave elvish origins: old traditions of public music and theater have evolved into a major operatic and musical scene. Outlying territories of the Aeldman empire make themselves known in the capital first through their music, and then through the various accessories of their fashion which augment the fashion style of the season (still Aeldman "in all the ways that matter," as politically conscious designers insist). Aeldman material art and design carry these fashion principles forward: bold, Enclave-inspired lines predominate, but often as stages for the owner to show off unusual foreign acquisitions. Art is a personal rather than public object (public art is often an act of politically calculated largesse), and it serves to represent the owner, ideally just at the edge of conservative acceptability. Cinema has expanded the cultural reach of the stage, and with the proliferation of radios and at-home "play-screens," the great epics of the day can be enjoyed from the comfort of home. Themes of intrepid heroism and trailblazing individualism dominate: even if the ATC is gone, every Aeldman knows that there are (perhaps unlikely) fortunes to be made in even the lowest station of great national commercial enterprises. Wealth is status to a point, but elvish culture and heritage still retains the ultimate cachet in the highest cultural circles.. Everything from the Aeldman language to Aeldman fashion is extolled. Of course, the only way to enjoy the fruits of Aeldman life is to become Aeldman, a process which, in the Aeldman view, most non-Aeldmen certainly could not manageA perhaps awkward case for the Aeldmen are their fellow elves hailing from the Enclaves: unlike the Shantaran elves or "wild" elves scattered throughout the cosmos, the Enclave Elves are the progenitors of a culture which still looms large in Aeldman values and aesthetics (though the Enclaves are unimpressed by Aeldman commercial preoccupations). Many Aeldmen will consider Enclave Elves as a sort of relic culture, to be cherished like a politically incorrect grandparent, and perhaps protected, but not emulated. Others reject the Enclaves as slave societies in the thrall of uncaring gods: Enclave Elves who come to Aeldrum are refugees of that system, and those who still believe must be infiltrators and politically dangerous evangelists.. To an Aeldman invested in this cultural view (representing perhaps not a majority of Aeldmen but certainly a strong plurality), the Fialta are infighting barbarians, the Shantine are decadent zealots and the Alusians are a charming but ultimately doomed attempt at emulating Aeldman greatness (to say nothing of the far lower esteem in which Aeldmen hold the leadership and people of secondary and minor powers). It is perhaps unsurprising that Aeldrum's trade policy focuses on extracting goods from colonial holdings and selling "obviously superior" Aeldman finished goods to foreign markets that are often forcibly exposed to Aeldman commercial interests. 
== Economy ==
In keeping with Aeldrum's strategic trade position, and the transient history of the first Aeldman colonists, it is a highly trade-oriented society (though "free trade" is perhaps an abuse of language in describing Aeldrum's strongarm mercantile tactics): commerce, and industry to support commerce, are the cornerstones of the Aeldman economy, and deeply enmeshed in its cultural attitudes toward wealth and social advancement (accelerated in some ways by Serene Doge Bareth Aefendt's democratization not of status but of social promotion). Since the abolition of the Aeldrum Trade Company at the end of the Coalition War and the disbanding of the Guilds (large enterprises on the Core Worlds which enjoyed significant local legal control, held contracts on millions of indentured workers and exercised those workers' right to vote to obtain direct control of Parliamentary seats), Aeldrum has entered a more binary model of economic organization, with the state developing increasingly significant bureaucratic capabilities to replace the decentralized administrative patchwork of past centuries while also taking a leading role in major industrial and technological enterprises. However, compared with past centuries, the choking effect of vast, legally privileged institutions such as the ATC or the Guilds has been considerably relaxed, encouraging a vast proliferation of medium to large enterprises that now form the growth engine of Aeldrum. The very largest companies, approaching the production output of the Guilds or some branches of the vast ATC, look more like the economic institutions of old, however: they are almost always connected closely with the Aefendt administration and enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the enormous contract-economy of the Aeldman state. Though less formal than the special status of their predecessors, these mega-corporations are undoubtedly pillars of the Aeldman state unto themselves.
== International Relations ==
Aeldrum's grand strategic objectives are an extension of its cultural attitudes and economic system, and they are largely unchanged since the great Fialta-Shantine wars of the mid-300s A.U. (and indeed the Coalition War was certainly the ultimate expression of Aeldman foreign policy doctrine). Aeldman military supremacy must be convincingly preserved (ideally by spilling the blood of foreigners against each other and involving Aeldman lives to make a definite point), Aeldrum's access to and domination of its colonies must be unchallenged, Aeldrum must retain the means to pry open and profit from foreign markets, and Aeldrum must have the economic prosperity to keep its politically conscious core-world population pacified. Aeldrum continues to maintain the largest navy in the cosmos, and its Dragoons keep the Aeldman Manticore banner a symbol of terror for many. 
Internationally, Aeldrum is entrenched as a guarantor of trade norms and a frequent arbitrator of colonial and influence disputes: the so-called "Leopold Doctrine" which built the Coalition (of the eponymous war) remains a watchword of Aeldman foreign policy, connoting Aeldman leadership but not unilateralism. Though ultimately focused on the same grand strategic objectives, Aeldrum has slightly adapted its appearance, to play the role of peacekeeper (though it has in fact significantly outsourced the actual peace-keeping function to its client state, the Orcish Directorate – the Directorate was a minor Aeldman ally in the Coalition War and has, in a bid for modernization and relevance, hitched itself ever more closely to Aeldman imperial politics as the willing foot soldier of the Leopold Doctrine). 
The experience of the Coalition War exposed a glaring weakness in the Aeldman model: the relatively extensive political liberties of its people made it difficult to sustain a costly war over long-term strategic goals insubstantial to the public. Aeldrum faced extensive unrest over the enormous cost in blood and treasure of the Coalition War, and the inability to pass a draft act left the state heavily reliant on volunteers, and hence a colossal media machine to keep up morale. Aeldman supremacism is perhaps the greatest liability of the nation: a paradoxical combination of profound anxiety about remaining the premier cosmic power and a cultural inability to conceive of a superior enemy threaten both Aeldman strategic foresight and national will. Today, even the political stranglehold of Serene Doge Bareth may not be sufficient to compel the population to sacrifice what is necessary to win the next cosmic conflict.
=== Fialta Confederacy and Fialta Imperium ===
Fialta Containment has been a priority of the Aeldrum government since even before the Coalition War. To the Fialta Confederacy, Aeldrum is alternately an economic predator and oppressor or a guarantor of independence against the Fialta Imperium: to Aeldrum, the Confederacy is the best means of containing the Fialta imperium, a lucrative market and a compelling demonstration that no international system can survive without a powerful backer (naturally, Aeldrum). To the Fialta Imperium, Aeldrum is the architect of unfair containment and the shackler of the Fialta people: to Aeldrum, the Imperium is an upstart and revisionist power, whose devotion to the Lords of the Pentacle and to a competing cultural supremacism makes it at best a wary partner and at worst an existential enemy.
=== Shantine Empire ===
To the Shantine Empire, Aeldrum is a familiar if not particularly well-loved partner on the cosmic stage: as the two great trade powers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.U., Aeldman and Shantine interests historically clashed (especially as then upstart Aeldrum outmaneuvered Bishant's historic trade monopolies), but rarely to the point of outright military conflict (and never to the level of total war), and the devastation of the Shantine Empire in the 4th century A.U. sufficiently separated Aeldrum's scope and level of power from Bishant's to turn the Shantine into respected but usually junior partners in a distinctly pro-Aeldman cosmic order. Since then, Bishant has recovered much of its power, and while still weaker in many respects than Aeldrum, has forged a parallel rather than directly competing base of power, focusing heavily on diplomatic influence and the soft power of its religious ideology, which Aeldrum cannot match. To Aeldrum, Bishant's diplomatic and religious strategy is difficult to reconcile with the Aeldman model, making it an object of increasing suspicion, especially as it becomes increasingly clear that the Shantine cannot always control the "mad dogs" of Kirvan religious radicalism on which much of their soft power rests: the Shantine are consistent partners, but both sides have had frequent cause to complain bitterly that the other has not carried their share of the burden (Bishant has not forgotten Aeldrum's lukewarm assistance in the Fialta-Shantine wars a century ago, and Aeldman policy in the Coalition War rested heavily on the expectation that their Shantine allies would drop out if the tide ever turned against them).
=== Despotate of Alusia ===
To the Despotate of Alusia, Aeldrum has so far been a useful engine for its own imperial expansion and economic development: however, the benefits of this follower model are rapidly depleting, bringing Alusian and Aeldman relations to a possible head as Alusia defines itself as a truly autonomous great power. Alusia was pleased to serve as the extra leverage that Aeldrum needed to overcome Shantine resistance to certain aspects of the post-Coalition War order: having achieved relevance, Alusia is now likely to increasingly exercise its leverage independently, perhaps weighing the scales against Aeldrum rather than in its favor. These same shifts are equally apparent to Aeldrum, which has been content since the Coalition War to use Alusia as a subordinate partner, often preferring straightforward Alusian imperialism to the complex diplomacy of Bishant. With the evolving status of Alusia as a great power in its own right, Aeldrum is likely to shift its view of Alusia from subordinate to rival, though in the Aeldman view the resulting tensions promise to be far less bitter than the rivalry with the Fialta and less fraught than the ever-present religious zealotry of the Shantine.
== Notes ==
Category:Nations