Thornia-Aphthonis

Union banner of Thornia-Aphthonis

Thornia-Aphthonis (yellow) on the world map in April 2022.

**Thornia-Aphthonis** was a political union between Great Thornia and Aphthonis, and later South Aphthonis. Its territories stretched across the entire Goruid peninsula, the northern Greater Ume region, and much of the southern half of Aphthonis. The cities of Palus Bay Area (Great Thornia) and Petrodis (Aphthonis) acted as the capitals of their respective halves of the country. It was the successor of the Kingdom of Thornia and its own unrecognised but de facto successor, the People's Republic of Thornia.

Territories within its countituent states have also formed their own internal trading zones and fiscal unions across national lines. Examples of this include the Palus Bay Area and the Sabara Economic Zone.

The political union was proposed by Aphthonic nationalists at the Thornian Constitutional Convention as a compromise between separatist nationalists and the Thornian nationalist recolonisation movement. This allowed some Thornian institutional overlordship to continue whilst recognising that Aphthonis was an equal partner in the wider empire. The union came into immediate effect without a vote after a majority of the junta and delegates voted in favour of it on 18 February 2022. The union later collapsed on 24 April 2022 after the Republic of Aphthonis (South Aphthonis) and the Province of Elysia agreed to unify, making Great Thornia the sole surviving state.

## History

### Background

The Kingdom of Thornia was overthrown in August 2021 in the aftermath of the Great Plague and the Pillager Wars. The monarchy was briefly overthrown before being restored by the army. Continuous civil strife and civil war across the kingdom led to a renewed wave of the plague, as well as mass famine. On top of this, the army was dealing with a large Aphthonic nationalist movement within its ranks. Aphthonis-based legions led a violent overthrow of the monarchy and the destruction of the Thornian nationalist-aligned legions of the army. By January 2022, much of the country was under the rule of the new ruling junta (and socialist-aligned Golden Trident militias) which had by then declared the creation of a People's Republic of Thornia.

### Reforming the Thornian state (February 2022 - March 2022)

In February 2022, the military junta formed the Thornian Constitutional Convention and invited 300 delegates from around the country to debate the future direction of the nation. During the first formal debate after two weeks of negotiations saw the following decisions being voted on and made effective immediately:

* A majority of delegates agreed that the country must recognise that Aphthonis had grown in importance in the empire and deserved to be recognised as an equal partner to Goruid and Greater Ume.
* Delegates also voted in favour of once again formally dissolving the de facto defunct League of Palus and letting the Thornian rump state annex its member states. Control of the Galinisian Islands was transferred from Thornia to Aphthonis.
* Thornian and League delegates also voted in favour of merging the Metropolitan City of Elysia, Palus Urbem, and Cataracta into a single megapolis known as **Elatz**. Elatz was also designated the capital of the enlarged Thornian state.
* Confirmed the decision of the military junta on its choice of banner for the new nation.

The military junta also decreed the following proclamations:

* The Thornian-occupied Xandunese state was dissolved and Shanjing was incorporated into a new autonomous entity known as the **Free City of Shanjing**. All former Xandunese territories outside of Greater Shanjing would be recognised as a part of the Chen dynasty's lands.
* Tyavyli would receive the Bircan coast (all mainland territories south of Ume City and bordering Tyavyli's east). Historical land grants from the time of the Umic Empire would be recognised once again, meaning that Thornia-Aphthonis recognises Tyavyli's land claims that extend southward towards the Southern Border Mountains, and westward towards the Great Ice Plains. The Ironie Islands were not included in the announcement and thus its ownership remains unclear.

A review of the state of the military by leading members of government in March 2022 saw that the attempt to basically run two armies, the Ground Forces of Thornia-Aphthonis and the Royal Aphthonic Rangers, would be financially unsustainable in the long run. Both armies have been replaced by the Civil Defence Force and a new Logistical Operation Corps was created as a separate entity. The King of Aphthonis cancelled plans to restore the monarchy and subsequently ousted hardline Aphthonic nationalists from government. The King instead took up the position of President (for Life) of Aphthonis.

Instability within the Union of Thornia and Ume led to the Reformist Party taking control of the union's government and restoring the constitution of Great Thornia, albeit with some modifications to include the new rights for the former League of Palus regions.

### The Sabara Miracle (early to mid April 2022)

The renewed peace and stability provided by the more economically liberal, infrastructure-first governments of the Reformist Party in both Great Thornia and Aphthonis had brought about a period of sudden and extreme economic growth not seen since the founding of the first Thornian settlement in 2016. Drastically improved mining infrastructure allowed the Aphthonic government to nearly quadruple its holdings in the span of 2 days. This has the cascading effect of finally allowing it to trade liberally with Great Thornia - providing it the resources to resume work on the Great Thornia Metro.

Both governments also launched initiatives to create economic zones on top of administrative divisions to make internal trade far more efficient. Some of these include the new megapolis of the Palus Bay Area (which became the collective capital of Great Thornia) and the Sabara Economic Zone.

### Sea of Temples Crisis and collapse (late April 2022)

On 15 April 2022, the Armed Forces of Thornia-Aphthonis formally ended its occupation of the Shanjing area (though most forces had already left the city long before, the country was still under de facto administration by Thornia-Aphthonis), leaving the Free City of Shanjing on its own. On the same day, Great Thornia adopted a new constitution which introduced a reformed, more democratic Parliament of Great Thornia.

Owing to the server's upgrade to version 1.18, terrain generation was altered considerably. It was discovered that much of Aphthonis' unexplored north was suddenly replaced with a sea, lush plains, and beaches. The Aphthonic government was forced to restrict was real area of control to the area of South Aphthonis, more or less leaving Aphthonis as a rump state.

Between 20 to 23 April, the city of Petrodis suffered wave after wave of attacks by pillagers. The city's iron golems managed to repel all attacks successfully, but many golems and villagers were lost. In the aftermath of the attack, another land survey discovered that much of the Province of Chamos in Aphthonis has suffered a similar fate to North Aphthonis as a new sea was discovered to the north and east of the village of Meros. The Aphthonic government suffered a final, severe collapse in morale and finally agreed to restart rapid-fire unification negotiations with the Province of Elysia. The central government of Great Thornia joined the negotiations and offered to grant some nation-spanning powers to the new joint-government. On 24 April, all three parties agreed to form a unified territory loosely known as **Metropolitan Thornia** (or the United Administration of the Districts of Metropolitan Thornia). Politicians in the Province of Ume attacked the agreement as a blatant sign of favouritism by the central government for both provinces. Regardless of which, both Aphthonis and the northern half of Goruid had become the centres of Thornian culture after the founding of Elysia and the resettlement of Umic citizens in the Palus Bay Area.

## Government

Thornia-Aphthonis consists of two constituent countries, the **Great Thornia** and the **Republic of** **Aphthonis (South Aphthonis)**. Both countries are governed autonomously with Thornia being a constitutional democracy (realistically, an oligarchy) and Aphthonis being an autocratic dictatorship. Despite these differences, both share the same military and a confederal treasury. There was no singular head of state or government, but in times of crisis an emergency *Supreme Commander* would be selected by both constituent governments, together.

### Military

The Armed Forces of Thornia-Aphthonis are responsible for the defence of the country, with military command under the collective oversight of the Council of Governors.

## Administrative divisions

 **South Aphthonis**
***Republic of Aphthonis***

## Symbology

### Etymology

Most members across all factions in the Thornian constitutional convention agree that *Thornia-Aphthonis* would best represent the nature of the state union. The name '*Thornia*' would represent the fact that many existing institutions would continue operating in Goruid and New Ume (Palus and Cataracta), instead of using the names '*Goruid*' and '*New Ume*'. Some members have gone as far to say as it being logical to rename the Goruid peninsula itself to Thornia. More pedantic members have suggested the name the *Union of Goruid, New Ume, and Aphthonis*. Ethnic Umic nationalists have gone as far as to propose reviving the more general name, the *Umic Empire*,

### State symbols

Almost all factions (except for the pro-monarchy faction) have agreed that the former Eight Arms banner would no longer be appropriate to use as the symbol of the state. Proponents of the state union proposal are split between requiring both the flag of Aphthonis and *a* flag for Thornia to be flown side-by-side instead of having a single union flag, and creating a new flag from the colours of the old Goruid flag and the Aphthonic flag.

On 18 February 2022, the military junta over-ruled the constitutional convention and announced a new blue-green-red banner as the official banner of Thornia-Aphthonis. Blue represents classical Ume, green represents Goruid, and red represents Aphthonis. On world maps, yellow was still used to represent the union. On 11 March 2022, the shade of blue in the national banner was changed to the lighter Palusian blue to symbolise how the political and economic centre of Ume had shifted from the historical Ume City region to the Bay of Palus. A new banner for democratic Thornia was also adopted on the same day.