Marley

Public Security Agency

**Marley**, also refered to as the **Principality of Marley** or simply **Marleyan Empire** is a superpower beyond the walls that is hostile to the Eldian Kaiserreich. Marley was once conquered by Eldia in ancient times, but during the Great Titan War, the Marleyans rose up and subjugated all of Eldia's territory with the exception of Paradis Island. Marley sustained its global power using the power of the Titans possessed by the Warrior Unit, but began to lose its status due to lagging behind other nations in technological progress.

Marley serves as the main antagonist to the Eldians inside the Walls and filled Paradis Island with Titans to keep them inside. In year 854, Marley officially declared war on Paradis Island.

## History

Marley was a powerful nation in ancient times; however, around 2,000 years ago, a slave of the Eldians named Ymir gained the power of the Titans. King Fritz used her abilities to defeat Marley and force their surrender. One of the Marleyans attempted to assassinate Fritz several years after their defeat, but Ymir intervened and was killed instead. After Ymir's death, her power was split and passed down to her descendants in the form of the Nine Titans, with Hajime Azumabito passing down the Tenth Titan through his Hizurian line of descendents, who subsequently built the Eldian Empire and Hizurian Shogunate respectively. Using the Titans, the Eldians and Hizurians waged war against Marley and many other nations, utterly destroying them and obtaining complete rule over nearly four entire continents. This is considered to be the start of the Dark Ages, a period of time during which the Hizurian Shogunate and Eldian Empire remained as the two sole superpowers of the world.

About 1,200 years ago, the large Marleyan city of Lago was destroyed by Titans of the Eldian Empire over the course of a single day. The Titans would continue their advance and went on to commit "The Devastation of Monte" and "The Ravaging of Valle" which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Marleyans. Grisha Yeager claimed these are all lies; however, he was in denial of Eldia's brutal history of war and slavery.

Eventually the Eldian Empire began to run out of enemies and the nine aristocratic families who possessed the power of the Titans grew resentful of each other, creating a state of constant bloodshed. This eventually led to the Great Titan War. According to Marleyan legend, a legendary Marleyan hero named Helos turned the tides of war to his people's favor by manipulating the Eldians against each other, which allowed Marley to claim victory in the war and even succeed in obtaining seven of the Nine Titans that were in Eldia's possession. The first of these Titans was the War Hammer Titan, held by the Tybur family, who had turned against their king and sided with the Marleyan uprising.

Over an unspecified amount of time, Marley gradually gained control of the continental mainland that once was ruled by Eldia until only Paradis Island remained as King Karl Fritz's undisputed territory. In the year 743, King Fritz moved as many Eldians as he could to Paradis Island, and used the Founding Titan to guide a massive number of Colossus Titans in the raising of three concentric Walls around Eldia's remaining territory. In order to force peace between Eldia and Marley, King Fritz gave the ultimatum that any further act of war against Eldia would be met with the releasing of the countless Titans within the Walls. With this, the Great Titan War ended.

However, the truth of the matter is that Eldia's defeat during the Great Titan War was actually orchestrated by Karl Fritz himself, who took pity on the oppressed people of Marley. Believing that the sins of the Eldians were too heavy to justify his rule, he joined forces with the Tybur family and elements of the Hajime Family, then proceeded to manipulate the other families against each other to destroy his own empire and reinstitute Marley. To that end, both the three parties fabricated Helos to facilitate the myth that it was the Marleyan people themselves who won the war.

At that time, the king also took a vow renouncing war, forbidding the Eldian people from hurting the world again, as well as renouncing the right to defend themselves if Marley or other external powers grew strong enough to invade Paradis Island. The ultimatum was never meant to be enforced. Instead, its purpose was to allow him to spend the remainder of his reign in peace. To enforce this, he used the powers of the Founding Titan to wipe the memories of the outside world from most of the Eldians on Paradis Island. Karl Fritz wanted to ensure his vow would be followed by the future generation, so he made it so that his descendants—the only people who can use the Founding Titan's absolute power—will also inherit his ideology alongside his memories. Although it had surrendered sovereignty over the continental mainland to the Marleyans, the Tybur family remained the real seat of power behind the Marleyan state, but the house chose to withdraw from active politics, being content to observe events and allowing the Marleyans complete freedom of governance.

Following the collapse of the Eldian Empire, the remaining Eldians of the mainland would then be forced into internment zones, where they would be treated as second class citizens. The nation of Marley would then become an expansionist state with colonial policies and would utilize the Titan powers in order to become the world's major superpower. With the power of the Titans possessed by the Warrior Unit, a select group of Eldians who serve Marley, Marley would invade various neighboring countries, annexing and adding them into the large colonial empire.

Marley would later recognize the Power of the Titans would not be enough to maintain its position as leader of the world in an age where military power is backed by fuel and began to turn its attention to Paradis Island which is said to have massive amounts of fossil fuels. However, the island is also home to the remnants of the former empire of Eldia, ruled by the Fritz family which possessed the Founding Titan.

In 832, the Public Security Authorities managed to capture and dissolve the Eldian Restorationists with the assistance of a young Zeke Yeager, who informed on his parents.

In the year 845, Marley launched the Paradis Island Operation. Four of its Titans were sent to the island in order to infiltrate the Eldian kingdom and retrieve the Founding Titan from the king of the Walls. The operation resulted in a failure: the Colossus and Jaw Titans were lost with the Cart Titan losing it's entire Panzer Unit, and captured Marleyan weapons were reverse engineered and were made into superior weapons by the Eldian Kaiserriech, and the Founding Titan still remained in the hands of the Kaiserreich. Out of the original five, three warriors (Reiner Braun, Evangelica Tybur, & Annie Leonhart) returned alive from this operation.