New Alba

New Alba, 1995

New Alba, formally the Union of New Alba, is a North American country situated on the Crystarix archipelago. It borders Rosland to the south and has a maritime border with \_\_\_ and Alaska. It’s biggest cities are Bristow, followed by Scotiaport and Newcastle.

## History

Before British and Russian colonisation, Alba belonged to a few scattered tribes that shared the deathly cold landscape mostly peacefully.

### Imperialism

New Alba was taken from it's native inhabitants starting from the middle of the 18th century, though Russian sources state they were aware of the land and had already claimed the area around the Quarry Isles at the turn of the 17th. The first official settlement was a Russian trading outpost that had slowly grown to a sizeable village by the time the British had shown up. This village would later become the center of the Novaya Rossiya colony, or the New Russia Colony. British settlers finally showed up not long after Russians had already started exploring inwards. Only by the time that the Russians had founded the future capital of New Alba, Bristow, did the British finally manage to settle on the mouth of the \_\_\_ River.

Russian exploitation was mostly centered around the defensible Quarry Isles and the inner country that was rich with gold. However all the land they possessed was still dreadfully cold.

British exploitation was exclusively located in southern Alba, which was less frigid and had fertile land galore. However the land wasn't blessed with many other resources, besides a substantial amount of pyrite that caused many a failed gold rush over the years. The reason why the tiny New Alba colony managed to stay independent from the mightier Rosland colony it neighboured is actually in it's name. New Alba, meaning New Scotland. The New Alba colony was home to overwhelming amounts of non-British settlers, and in many places they vastly outnumbered the British. Most non-British settlers of the colony were Scots, Irish, Welsh and Russians. It also acted as a second tier destination for undesirables from the homeland, New Alba was a penal colony.

### The Crimean War

As the war raged on in the old world Russia had to defend itself on numerous fronts. They fought Ottomans, Brits, French and Italians all at once all over Europe. They fought in Crimea, had skirmishes in the Baltic Sea and fought in the Caucasus. During the war another short-lived front opened up in North America. British colonists and the government they answered to had been eyeing up Novaya Rossiya for years, and now, they felt, was the time to strike. British Crystarixean colonies had not had any conflict with the last remaining non-British colony on the archipelago, Novaya Rossiya, yet. However this would soon change as conflict began to brew in border towns.

When a group of drunken settlers waltzed out of a pub in Newcastle, took up arms and strutted into Russian land there was an outcry when these men were shot on sight by the Russians. The colonial governor quickly formed a volunteer army and invaded Novaya Rossiya, they broke through the badly-supplied Russian army immediately and had already sieged Bristow before getting bogged down. Only then did the British army show up. The governor was let go and the volunteer army replaced with the British army who eventually fully surrounded Bristow. Russian morale was through the roof however, so they didn’t show any signs of capitulating. The British navy blew up oil refineries in the cities of Nicholas and Pskov (Plescow) which set the city to flame. This was the final straw for the Novaya Rossiya colony, and the colonial government capitulated. In the following Clearwater Accords New Alba was granted all of land of the now abandoned Novaya Rossiya colony. Most Russians left the once flourishing Novaya, but the war left behind a sizeable minority of Russians who now integrated to life in the New Alba Colony.

### The Novaya Famine and the First Winter Revolt

Life as a Slavic-born Albaner was incredibly unforgiving. A Novayan had but two job opportunities, a miner or a beet farmer. Miners often faced treacherous conditions and lifelong ailments from their time in the gold-mines. Beetroot farmers’ day to day lives were usually a lot saver, but the condition in which they lived was absolutely dreadful. The average beetroot farming Novayan lived on the land of a rich southern English-speaking landowner, usually British. This landowner almost never made the trek up north to visit their farm, instead their land was being taken care of by a “higher-class” Novayan who spoke English. Life on one of these farms was hard. Most of the beets they farmed were sold and brought back south. And while this farm life wasn’t a slave or serf situation, it almost was. The farmer could leave whenever they wanted, but the landowner offered protection against the elements and guaranteed salary and food. While the conditions were unbearable, there was no where else to go in Novaya.

This was how it was done for decennial

## Politics

   New Alba is a constitutional parliamentary monarchy. The authority of the Windsor crown is manifested into three offices. The Alba Council (the cabinet), parliament and the judiciary.