Rema Nova

## **Reman History**

### **Early History: Reman Empire**

The islands that make up the modern state of Rema Nova were first colonized in the year 98, after a severely disoriented military expedition bound for Kijana instead made landfall on the island of Vimotus after a severe storm almost destroyed their fleet. Making the most of a bad situation, General Rufus Magnus Corbulo would go on to conquer the entire island in a two-year campaign where he subdued the primitive native tribes. This would earn him a triumph, much popularity, and governorship of the island in question. In subsequent centuries the remaining three islands, Demos, Nebonia and Veretix were conquered by Corbulo's descendants, and his family would come to be one of the wealthiest in the Reman Empire thanks to the islands' bountiful silver deposits.

In the year 523, the Reman Empire would collapse through a combination of corruption, civil war, and the invasion of northern barbarian tribes. However, while the mainland empire would fall apart, the imperial family was able to flee to the island of Vimotus, where they would come to lead the resulting rump state. The seat of imperial power would rest in Vimotus for only twenty years before it was relocated to Veretix after raiders from both the barbarians and Dengfeng would regularly strike at the northern island.

In the year 609, the first attempt at reclaiming lost territory would be launched. Under the legate Julius Belisarius, the expedition would meet early success after being welcomed by the fellow Reman holdout of Octavia. Plans were drawn up to use Octavia as a stepping stone for the invasion of the mainland, but all this came to an end after the Emperor, Remus Julius Caesarion, ordered the sacking of the Octavian capital and the execution of its leaders under the pretense that they were rebels. Belisarius would refuse these orders, and along with his troops would mutiny and defect to the Octavians. This rebellion would not only end the first Reman attempt at reconquest, but would also directly lead to the fall of the already deeply unpopular Julian dynasty by the year 637.

The second Reman continental expedition would take place in the year 963, under the skilled general, and later emperor, Clodius Nerva Aurelian. Under his leadership, much of modern Tiberi, including the ruins of Rema itself, were brought back under imperial control. Over the course of his life, he would also retake the former Reman provinces of Appia, Atilia, Sextania and Varia, among others. His successor, Titus Nerva Aurelion, would spend much of his rule ensuring that the foothold remained in Reman hands, building many fortifications in the region that stand to this day.

Titus' own successor, Fabius, would lead another series of expansions, acquiring Liotain as a client kingdom and conquering much of Celtica. However, the latter would prove too much for the limited Reman forces on the mainland to handle, and would never be truly pacified. This would lead to two hundred years of local conflict until 1209, when a unified Celtic people forced the Remans out of Celtica. Over the next few centuries, the Remans would slowly lose ground on the mainland until, by the start of the 15th century, they were driven off the continent entirely, never to return. In the aftermath of this the Reman state was once again bankrupt, and erupted into a series of civil wars that ended the Nervian dynasty.

### **New Golden Age**

The civil wars would come to an end in 1249, with the rise of Emperor Aventus Valerian Restitutor, and the subsequent Valerian dynasty. Unlike previous dynasties, the Valerians never made any attempt to reclaim the mainland, focusing instead on developing the islands and bolstering trade. A shift in national identity occurred, with less emphasis on reclaiming the glory of the old empire and more on building their new homeland up to new heights. Under the Valerians, the Pantheon would expand from a single great temple to a massive city, coinciding with the growth of ultra-syncretism.

There was still some expansion going on during this time. In 1390, Emperor Severus Valerian Pellucidus would conquer the island of Caspar to the west, founding a city named after himself on the southern coast. Other smaller islands in the region would also be colonized or conquered by Rema Nova, and would serve as way-stations for merchants travelling through the region, as well as kicking off the trade in guano fertilizer which would make the empire prosper in the 1500s.

However, this golden age would come to a gradual end as infighting between the Senate and the Emperor led to political disaster. In the year 1617, the Crisis of the 17th Century would very nearly destroy Rema Nova.

### **Crisis of the 17th Century**

Imperial succession had always been a weak point in the Reman Empire. Traditionally, the Emperor would appoint his successor, almost always a direct descendant or relative, and the Senate would confirm it. However, there was never an established rule for what would happen if the senate denied the appointment in favor of another candidate. There was also no rule that dictated what would happen if an emperor died with no appointed successor.

This meant that when Emperor Augustus Valerian died under mysterious circumstances in 1617 with no appointed heir, the Senate seized the opportunity to play kingmaker and come out victorious in their struggle with the imperial throne. The day after the death of Augustus, they appointed his five year old son, Rufus Valerian Augustulus, to the imperial throne, seeking to turn him into a weak puppet to advance their own agenda. This appointment, however, enraged Augustus' cousin, Julian, who had imperial ambitions of his own and saw himself as the most suitable successor. Julian would gather an army of loyal supporters and marched on the capital city of Rema Nova, quickly capturing it, slaughtering the senatorial guard, and ordering the deaths of both Rufus and the entire Reman Senate.

The surviving senators would flee to the outlying islands and raise armies of their own, initially as a coalition to depose the tyrant emperor. They initially held the upper hand, and by 1618 controlled the islands of Vimotus, Demos and Nebonia, as well as the eastern portion of Veretix, while Julian controlled the capital and much of west and central Veretix. Finally, the southern portion of Veretix was under the control of a pretender who claimed to be the regent for Rufus Augustulus, stating that the child-emperor had miraculously escaped the carnage at the capital.

Even then though, cracks were beginning to show in the Senatorial coalition as the senatorial representatives of the colonial province of Pellucidus, rather than join the coalition, became warlords and established the so-called Pellucidan Empire. This empire would quickly drive Julian's own loyalists out and take control of the island. It would prove a grim sign of things to come, as the senatorial coalition would soon begin to squabble amongst itself. Though they would eventually retake the capital and depose Julian, they were unable to elect an Imperator from amongst themselves, and by 1635, their coalition had shattered into a collection of warring states, each lead by a senatorial warlord that claimed to be the true Imperator. The largest of these was the Empire of Thrax, which controlled much of Vimotus, and the Pellucidan Empire, which had by then conquered the entire island before moving south and taking the Peludo island chain as well in a brutal series of island-hopping invasions. Fearing that they would be next and seeing no aid forthcoming from the squabbling senator-warlords on the mainland, the citizens of modern-day Tierra de Gaviotas would end up signing a treaty with the Firoccans, becoming a colony of theirs in exchange for military protection. For their part, the Pellucidans were already exhausted, and outside of some minor raids, would never make an attempt to take the islands.

This state of warfare would continue for nearly fifty years. The Empire of Thrax would collapse almost immediately after its founder's death, as his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, refused to rule as co-Emperors and split the nation into two halves, Arcadia and Honoria, and fight a bloody war among themselves while Commodria, taking advantage of their weakness, invaded from the North. The Pellucidan Empire would expand as well, taking Apollomon and attempting to invade Demos. Heraclia, once the strongest of the successor states on Veretix, would prove unable to withstand war on multiple fronts on both Nebonia and Veretix and would soon lose all its holdings on the former and almost all on the latter. Pupiena, Balbina and Gordia would engage in a struggle for control over Nebonia in a three-way war where alliances shifted almost as often as the borders. In the midst of all of this, Titus Theodoric would ascend to the Rufenian throne. He would quickly prove a capable politician and an able military leader, who quickly reformed the Rufenian legal structure, abolished indentured servitude, and launched a series of military campaigns that, by 1680, would bring most of Veretix under his control.

By the time of Theodore's in 1704, the entire island of Veretix had been brought under his banner, earning him the epitaph of Imperator Restitutor. His successor, Flavius, would build on his predecessor's success, capturing the island of Demos and inflicting several devastating defeats upon the Pellucidans, from which they would never truly recover. In the end, however, the empire would not reunite, as the cost of a century of near-unbroken warfare had taken its toll on the islands. More than a quarter of their population was dead due to a combination of war, famine and disease. Eventually, logistics would bring about what a century of unbroken warfare could not, and the various leaders of the Reman subcontinent would meet in the See of Magnus and agree to an armistice in 1733, with the exception of the Pellucidans. After a century of war, the armistice stated that the nations would have a century of peace to rebuild before the question of succession could be brought up again. Undoubtedly, it was the hope of many that by the time the armistice expired, the question of succession would be resolved at the negotiating table, and not on the battlefield.

### **The Great Peace**

With the reestablishment of a stable imperial dynasty in the capital of Rema Nova, and the Great Armistice of 1733, recovery from the conflict could begin. However, optimistic hopes that this would be the end of war were very soon dashed as in 1737, Balbina would be the first to break the peace and invade the Gordian-held Nikan Spur in the southwest corner of Nebonia. Pellucidan raids on Demos would lead to the short Island War of 1744, where Reman ships would decisively crush the rebuilt Pellucidan navy and take both Apollomon and the Peludo Islands. Further conflicts would break out in Vimotus, and it was quite clear that the armistice was only partially successful in stopping the warfare of the previous century, and ended up trading the open warfare for small, short, localized conflicts and slowly rising tensions.

Then, in 1772, tensions between Pellucidus and Rema Nova would boil over due to Pellucidan-sponsored privateers raiding Reman trade routes with Kijana. Rema Nova would invade Pellucidus, and after two years of warfare, would conquer the island in its entirety, dividing it into the administrative zones seen there today. With this island taken, the path from the Reman mainland to Kijana would be clear, allowing for a great increase in trade with the Burjian Empire and eventually leading to the colonization of South Kijana.

The Great Armistice would formally expire in 1833, but at first, to the surprise of some, there was peace. Rema Nova was committed to the Burjian Intervention in Kijana, Pupiena and Balbina had just finished fighting a border war and were taking time to recuperate, and the three nations of Vimotus had signed their own local treaty that was keeping the peace as well. Once again, the optimistic among the Remans cheered, believing that peace had finally triumphed, but it was not to last.

### **The War of 1850**

In the year 1850, Emperor Gordian IV of Gordia believed his position to be untenable. His kingdom's armies were small and barely able to hold the border against Pupiena and Balbina's periodic raids. He had no sons and only one daughter, Gordiana II, who was sickly and unable to lead. Thus, knowing that his realm would be invaded and divided up between Pupiena and Balbina, he made a secret agreement with Imperator Tacitus Theodoric of Rema Nova. Gordiana II would be arranged to marry the Reman Imperator-Designate, Claudius Dexippus, and in doing so the two realms would join together in a dynastic union. Unfortunately for all involved, information on this arrangement would make its way to the leaders of Pupiena and Balbina. Not wanting Rema Nova to gain a foothold on Nebonia, the two feuding nations put their differences aside, and their armies crossed into Gordia on the day of the wedding.

Reman forces rushed across the channel to respond, and were able to stem the tide after three months of brutal fighting, pushing the invaders back and even taking some of their land before the war ground into a stalemate in early 1851. Several inconclusive battles followed, with Rema Nova lacking the numbers to exploit their victories, while Pupiena and Balbina proved unable to break the technologically superior Reman army.

However, in 1851, the Kingdom of Honoria would be struck by a large-scale uprising against its aristocracy, which had grown corrupt and tyrannical. The Honorian people would rise up under the Yellow Banner, and many Honorian army units would side with them, quickly securing the nation's largest cities and winning victory after victory against the disorganized and poorly-equipped Honorian army. More importantly, though, this revolution inspired other, smaller insurrections in Rema Nova and Balbina, centered on the city of Palmyra in the former and the Nikan Spur in the latter. Already stretched thin by the wars in Kijana and the conflict in Gordia, Rema Nova was forced to allocate forces it could not afford to spare to contain and put down the Palmyrene Insurrection.

With Rema Nova's forces occupied, the Pupienan military overwhelmed its remaining strength in Gordia, overrunning the region and driving the Remans out of Nebonia by 1854. Over the next three years, several attempts would be made by Rema Nova to regain its foothold in Nebonia, but none were successful, with the only silver lining being the capture of Balacoa from Pupiena in 1856. In the end, Gordia would be taken over by Pupiena, an act that Claudius Dexippus, later crowned Imperator Claudius Theodoric I, would never forget or forgive.

The war would come to an end in 1857 with another armistice signed between Rema Nova, Pupiena and Balbina. By then, the nation of Honoria had been destroyed entirely, and in its place was Liberius, whose revolutionary ideals would, to some extent, spread across the northern island. The borders set by the 1857 armistice would remain more or less unchanged up to present day.

### **The Burjian Intervention**

(Section TBA, late 18th century to mid-19th, colonization of South Kijana)

From this territory, Rema Nova joined in the trend of colonizing Kijana, and by 1850 would control almost all of the southern horn of the continent. It would even claim land as far as Gangapur and Bab, though in 1905 this was sold off to Octavia after being deemed indefensible. The Reman approach to colonization has been one of long-term investment with the eventual goal of total annexation. In their minds, this land is now Reman, therefore all in it must be brought to the Reman standard. (Rewrite this)

However, this colonial endeavor has also led to problems back home, as the sight of Rema Nova's empire next to the nonexistent colonial holdings of its neighbors is, in the minds of many Reman citizens, proof of its legitimacy over territories that are still officially seen as rebel states. (Rewrite this)