Metropolitan Thornia

**Metropolitan Thornia** or the **Thornian Homeland** is the area of Great Thornia regarded as being largely or predominantly culturally Thornian and are generally ruled by the central government (or under autonomous governments loyal to the Reformist Party). Metropolitan Thornia is regarded to geographically encompass the Palus swamps (the birthplace of Thornia), the northern half of the Goruid peninsula (though sometimes the entire peninsula is counted), the Dobresian Highlands and Lowlands, southern Aphthonis, and the Galinisian Islands; its area accounts for nearly two-thirds of Great Thornia's land mass.

The territories of Metropolitan Thornia do not use the provincial system used by others such as the Province of Ume and the Province of Porta. Instead, their regions and districts are directly governed by the central government via the **Metropolitan Thornia Commission**. The head of the commission is regarded as the Prime Minister of the nation as a whole due to the immense political influence of Metropolitan Thornia. The commission does not have a formal capital city, though Elysia and Petrodis both function as joint de facto capitals due to the head of the commission frequently travelling between both.

The ruling Reformist Party is considering reviving the informal *confederation of provinces* arrangement so that it could remain in power in at least Metropolitan Thornia in the event it loses a future presidential election.

## History

### Background

Thornia long-regarded itself a colony of the city of Ume. It was seen as a distant outpost of a nation that looked much more toward its continental neighbours westwards and southwards, and thus little mind was given towards it. The lack of support from Ume and the surprising industriousness of the colonists eventually led to Thornia's successful independence movement. Ume City was still regarded as the homeland of the Thornians, but Steaker's Island (or Thornia Island) in the Palus swamp was seen as the birthplace of what became Thornian culture.

However, the lack of large fertile land and the frustratingly difficult-to-manage swamp lands made it difficult and awkward to call the Palus swamps a new homeland. Thornia expanded its control into the Goruid peninsula in what is now the Elysian Rivers district where it established an agricultural colony known as Elysia. The bountiful natural resources and placid landscape inspired nationalist to regard the area as the country's new homeland. The founding of the State Secretariet to coordinate the governance of both Palus and Elysia gave rise to the notion that the Thornian homeland need not be restricted to one settlement but across many settlements. Later Thornian imperialism pushed the Thornian homeland further and further north, eventually reaching southern Aphthonis.

As Thornia's economy, military might, and diplomatic weight overshadowed its former homeland of Ume, both Thornia and Ume were looking at ways to reunify. This would provide Ume the economic benefits it missed out in early colonial Thornia, and likewise Ume would provide Thornia a foothold into the continent. Both nations awkwardly attempted to embrace each other under one national identity, rotating through various identities such as Paludumia and the League of Palus.

Frustration with the lack of industriousness in their Umic partner led to Thornian nationalism's second rise, this time this frustration led to the founding of Great Thornia. Great Thornia (and later its splinter-state of Aphthonis) intensified colonisation efforts in Goruid and southern Aphthonis. The construction of railways and highways, rapid industralisation, and Thornia's involvement in the Pillager Wars cemented the idea that Goruid and Aphthonis were lands that the Thornian people were now actively developing for themselves and fighting to defend.

Further anger at the lack of support from its ally, the League of Palus, during the Pillager Wars eventually led to it using political mechanisations to eventually annex the league. Despite democratic reforms in the aftermath of the Thornian Civil War, Great Thornia has continued to treat the Province of Ume itself as a colony or junior partner with much more favourable economic and law enforcement support being provided to Goruid and Aphthonis.

### Founding

Metropolitan Thornia was defined in the aftermath of the Sea of Temples Crisis. The crisis led to the collapse of the Aphthonic state which relied on the belief that the interior of Aphthonis was largely uninhabitable desert that provided a natural defensive barrier. This previous deterred Ume from accepting the entirety of Thornia's colonial empire into its own. The eventual evolution and acceptance of Thornian nationalism has meant that Thornians have long turned away from willingly wanting to re-integrate into the Umic world. Now that there was little in the way of preventing it, the Thornian government moved in to firmly re-establish boundaries between Umic and Thornian regions in the nation.