Talas

The **City of Talas** (Yunusian: **Baled ilu Talas**; Arabic: **مدينة طلاس**) is a major frontier city just on the border with the Kingdom of Fiore, with a Fioran town of the same name (see the other Talas). Talas is the capital city of the Abdilahi Peninsula Region of YunusLand, and the second-largest city in the country by land area. Talas has a military base on Frontline Border Road, just in case Fiore's army invaded again, as they did in 1985, 1992, 1997, 2001, and 2015. Most Yunusian Talasis generally accept Fioran refugees that climb the Border Wall into Yunusian refugee camps and buildings, but will have suspicion against legal immigrants from Fiore that spoke Yunusian, Arabic, or the Yunusian dialect of English. Most of those "Fioran immigrants" turned out to be terrorists.

Talas is a very industrialized/militarized city on the Yunusian side, and is avery rural and sparsely inhabited town on the Fioran side.

## History

The City of Talas was established by the Mesa Kingdom following the Conquest of Hilifinya. The Mesa Kingdom established a trading post in what is now Fioran territory. It was meant as a connection for the tribesmen of the Northern Fioran Highlands, the Mubarak Tribe of the Abdilahi Peninsula, and the rich businessmen of Mesaville and Sayf-al-Bahr. Following the demise of the Hilifinya Kingdom and the rise of the Kingdom of Fiore, Talas was given as a gift from the Mesa King to Fiore. Talas served as the capital city of Fiore from 1295 to 1382, before the capital was relocated to Hel due to its strategic and beneficial location.

## Great Fire of 1395

In 1382, after the abandoning of Talas by Fiore, a radical group called the Hmuris took over the government of the city, launching guerrilla attacks on the Mesaese and Fioran troops and government officials in the city. The Hmuris then declared independence from Fiore, and immediately declared war on Fiore and the Mesa Kingdom. The Mesa King responded in 1385, and the Hmuris were ousted from the city in 1394. The Fioran Royal Family decided not to get involved in the fight due to its disinterest in Talas, which led the Mesa King to take over the city in 1395.

In a desperate attempt to go out in a blaze of glory, the Hmuris set the Government Connection Building on fire, hoping it would make the Mesaese angry. Their action, however, ended up setting a huge fire on 13 June 1395, and the summer heat didn't help with combatting the fire. The Mesa King intervened into the Talasi Government's responses by ordering a mass evacuation of the city on 15 June, 1395.

225,000 people were evacuated to nearby Razzanille, which became a major city in 1395 because of the fire. The fire burned the city completely down in a span of 2 years (the fire burned from 13 June 1395 to 27 December 1397), and Mesaese Nobles and the King declared that no one was allowed to go near Talas for the next 10 years.

In 1407, the King announced the rebuilding of the city.

## The Rebuilding of the City

In 1407, construction began as investors looked to take benefit from the closeness of Hel to Talas, opening up business opportunities. The city was completed in 1429, and the city of Razzanille dropped from a population of 800,000 in 1407 to 12,000 in 1429. Razzanille had a lot of money from the taxes in between those years, but chose not to expand the city (which later shrunk and became a town in 1854).

Talas became a thriving city once again, and in 1604, it became the first city in the world to reach a population of 1,000,000 inhabitants. Hel followed in 1631, Mesaville in 1653, and Zitropolis in 1695.

In 1723, the Mesa Kingdom ended and the Kingdom of YunusLand began, making it so much easier for Talasi people to travel and trade within the country.

In 1738, Barkial V and the Kingdom of Fiore were overthrown by the Democratic Republic of Fiore, which made it even easier for Talasi businessmen to negotiate with the Fiorans, and for Talasi citizens to find jobs in Hel. For the 223 years of the democracy/aristocracy in Fiore, Talas grew up to reach a population of 2,000,000 in 1759, and 3,000,000 in 1864.

## Eastern M'is'i and Tyelorian Revolutions

In the beginning of the 1900s, the Kingdom of YunusLand was slowly sliding into national tensions as the Eastern M'is'i Tribe in present-day Yaqubia wanted independence from the kingdom. Reserves to fight the rebels were called in from Talas, and a military camp was built in the city. Later on, Archduke Espera Tyelor I, the direct descendant of the final king of Fiore, started brutally attacking Fioran cities like Talas, Fehnrir, and Hel. Yunusian Talasis had to remain vigilant and agile at all times due to the attacks they kept suffering by the Archduke, and eventually, Fiore and YunusLand agreed to build a steel Border Wall between them, to keep the Archduke out of YunusLand.

On 24 November 1961, the Archduke assassinated the president and declared himself the new King of Fiore. He launched a genocide against anyone who opposed the Royal Family in the 1960s and 1970s, but he tried to maintain good relations with YunusLand, even though the nation was completely hostile towards him. Afterwards, when all rebellion was crushed, he passed away, leaving the kingdom to his son, Duke DeFrancesco Espera Barkial, in 1981.

## The Hell-Fire Rain

In 1985, the Army of the Fiery King (Fiore's armed forces) invaded YunusLand under the Duke's instructions. YunusLand retaliated with a counterstrike force of Talasi Police in the highlands just 50 km south of Razzanille, who were wiped out by the Fiorans. The Fioran army advanced through the Abdilahi Peninsula with the intent to reach Sayf-al-Bahr and Mesaville. The government declared a DEFCON 1 throughout the country, and conscripted every man between the ages of 18 and 60 to fight against the Fioran army. Eventually, YunusLand mustered up a force of 1 million soldiers who halted the Fioran troops in the Battle of Ribanda, and chased them all the way back to Hel.

The Duke was furious, and, in extreme anger, ordered the King's Fiery Air Force (Fiore's air force) to flatten the city of Talas. His order was carried out on 29 December 1985.

An eyewitness report by a surviving author (Sami Abdur-Rahman Jahfi) goes like this: "*Minding my own business that day, writing a book, going to the market and walking back home, when suddenly, everyone stops because they hear a sound. A droning sound. We Talasis knew what that meant, as we had all served in the military. And the fear of the sound kicked in when everyone realized that the sound was coming from the direction of Fiore - the west.*

*"The beautiful city had just been rebuilt from a blazing fire not 400 years ago, and here it was now, so vulnerable to an attack. Women and children started screaming and crying, men fell on their knees and prostrated, praying for a quick and painless ending.*

*"When the bombing started, everyone started running east, as the city was being rained upon with fire and buildings were burning everywhere. Even the military people, whom one woman begged for them to save her and her kids, said wide-eyed that there was no hope, no coming back from this. The Armed Forces then started running along with the people.*

*"Eventually, the bombers reached my position in the city, and I expected the worst. One single bomb landed at the bottom of my building, and the blast shook the world as the building started falling down with me in it.*

*"I fell unconscious afterwards, and then, the next thing I remember, an emergency worker who looked like an Eastern M'is'i dragged me out of the debris of the fallen building. We were evacuated to Sayf-al-Bahr by helicopters, and then the death toll began by rollcall to see who was alive.*

*"When they concluded the toll, they had announced on national television a day of mourning for the 3 million lives lost. When I heard the number, I fainted, and I resolved never to go to Talas or Fiore again, except with the intention to kill the king of Fiore."*

YunusLand's government retaliated from that devastating genocide inflicted upon them by sending Talasi assassins undercover into Fiore, and, in March 1986, they assassinated the Duke, leaving the throne for