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Discovery of Atlantis
First Empire-(1) to 261
Second Empire- (1) 361 - 409 |
The nations around the Empire, and their relationships with Atlantis. ATLANTIS AGAINST HELVRIS From the time of its initial expansion after 200, the Kingdom, later Empire, of Atlantis, was always surrounded by foreign powers, whether full states or anarchic tribes or nomads. Between 200 and about 450, Atlantis was able to swallow up many of these into her Empire, but thereafter, she was unable to expand much further, or conquer other peoples on any permanent basis. But at the same time, none of these surrounding states was able to conquer very much of the Atlantean Empire, either, whether acting singly or in alliance with others, at least until the time of the Final Wars. Here we shall try to account for this, and to outline the character of these other states and their relationship with Atlantis. In the third and fourth centuries, Atlantis came up against, in turn, the Helvran Empire, the various Chalcran kingdoms and republics, numerous Yalland city and other states, the Keltish kingdoms, the Phonerian, Marossan and Eliossien republics, and the Dravidean peoples. All of these she incorporated into her Empire, usually by military conquest. In most cases, Atlantis achieved this by superior military skill and organisation, and often better weaponry. Distances were not too great: these countries were within relatively close, or at least reachable, distance from Atlantis city. Finally, many of these nations were Juralic like Atlantis, and had many aspects of their culture in common; hence they were not too difficult to absorb. The first of Atlantis’ conquests, Helvris, was in some ways the most formidable. The Helvran Empire was a long-standing and highly centralised state, a kingdom run in a very authoritarian way, and also strongly militarised. At the same time, it shared a number of common Juralic traits with Atlantis, such as languages, and a set of religious beliefs which were related to each other. At the same time, Helvris stood for a number of practices which were utterly inimical to Atlantis, and which she believed it was her duty to extirpate – these included human sacrifice, which had never been part of the original Juralic mythology, torture of prisoners of war, and a frighteningly efficient, phalanx-style method of waging war. The war of 250 onwards was almost inevitable, given the closeness of the two countries, but it took 17 years for Atlantis to finally beat the Helvrans, and then attempt almost to wipe them from the face of the globe. OTHER PEOPLES CONQUERED UP UNTIL 450 The Chalcrans and Yallands. The Chalcran states, a mixture of republics and kingdoms, presided over by extravagantly living rulers and an exotic and disparate array of customs and armies, proved less daunting on the battlefield. Moreover, they were much more closely related to Atlantis, both in language, customs and religion, and were more malleable when taken into the Empire. The Yallands were the other peoples of Juralic origin, which the Atlanteans came up against south of the Helvengio. Distance was more of a problem here, but on the other hand, Yalland states were small and scattered, and quite easily overcome either by battle or by diplomacy. Once the Atlanteans reached defensible borders here, they made little serious attempt to go beyond, and hence took over only those peoples of Southern origin who were intermingled with the Yallands. Eliossie and the Lio-Marossan statesThere were other, relatively small, nations to the north of Atlantis, which were also quite close to the heart of the expanding Empire, and again Atlantis felt the necessity of incorporating these. The Phonerians were essentially a trading people, but militarily adept, and part of the Lio-Marossan group, which were usually staunchly republican and rationalistic in their beliefs. Conquest of the Phonerians was difficult and long-winded, and involved the development by Atlantis of a navy and good cavalry. The Marossans, often at odds with their neighbours, proved less of a problem. The third of the Lio-Marossans, the Eliossians, were never taken over by the Atlanteans. They were, for one thing, too far north to worry about from a military point of view. But the Atlanteans also developed a strange awe, almost reverence, for this country. They saw them as philosophers, a naturally "good" people, who did not believe in religion or the gods. They evidently lived in republican and rationalistic peace, taming the nearby barbarians in the Protectorate to the east. The liberals of the later fourth century, especially Atlaniphon I and his circle, admired their political constitution, their freedom from religious dogma and superstition, and their whole way of life, and were content to stay in a perpetual amicable alliance with them. In fact, the Eliossiens still preserved the superstitious and astrological beliefs which characterised all the Lio-Marossans, but had managed, at least amongst the better-educated, largely to bury them in favour of philosophical rationalism. In any case, traditional Lio-Marossan astrology led the Eliossiens and Phonerians, in particular, to study astronomy as well, and learn much about the stars: this was very useful to the sea-faring Phonerians. But in the centuries preceding their contact with Atlantis, Eliossien thinkers and artists had built on the idea that there was no such thing as the gods or a God, and astrology, whether true or not, reflected the natural and basically chaotic structure of the universe. They proposed that humans should create their own morality, way of life and culture, by living according to man-made rules, which formulated an orderly rationalism. The arts followed suit, and artists, especially, architects, sought a cool and light-filled classicism. Marossan followed Eliossie’s lead to some extent, although it was usually the leading power from a political point of view. The invasions of the barbarians in the sixth century eventually did for Eliossie and Marossan. The Eliossiens had hoped at least to be able to pass their rationalist and artistic ideals on to their conquerors, but the Skallands had little understanding of or interest in the pursuits of the Eliossiens, and within 50 years or so, the culture of the Eliossiens had sunk out of sight, and the people themselves subsumed in the Skalland Empire. The Kelts. It was a different matter with the Kelts nearby, a naturally warlike and unsettled people, who were descended from the ancient Marossans and placed themselves voluntarily under Leaders or Kings. Their greatest strength was the rugged nature of the country they occupied, especially the North Kelts, who lived amidst high and half inaccessible mountains. The Atlanteans might have been content to let them be, but the Kelts themselves repeatedly raided into Atlantean territory, and finally war led to the conquest, first of the West Kelts, and after 400, of the North Kelts. However, it was only at this point that the Atlanteans really began to understand something of the remarkable society and beliefs of this people. The West and North Kelts were in fact far from being simply wild and simple-minded warriors, who eked out a primitive existence amongst cold mountains. Their highly sophisticated beliefs and world-view actually moulded their whole societal order and way of life. These beliefs evidently were akin to and probably came from those of the ancient Marossans. The Kelts believed that the whole of life and our waking world is in fact a dream or simulation, and not reality at all. We are able to approach the real world in our dreams sometimes, or by thought and meditation, or at times, in everyday life, if it involved hard and tiring action, for example trekking across mountains or fighting. Keltish society was thus divided into three groups: the scholars or thinkers, who lived a life of seclusion in isolated buildings, often towers; the warriors, whose purpose was partly to protect the thinkers, and other Kelts, but partly to attain knowledge of reality for themselves; and the rest of the ordinary Kelts. The latter lived ordinary family lives, of course, but were also supposed to make an effort several times during their lives to "see" reality, and escape the dream-world by study or fighting or travelling over the mountains. The North Kelts were perhaps more extreme than the West Kelts with regard to every aspect of this way of life: their warriors fought more ferociously, their thinkers mortified themselves, (whereas West Keltish meditators tended to believe that personal comfort helped their thinking), and ordinary North Kelts spent more time trying to escape from this world. The thinkers, especially the West Kelts, also included scribes, who wrote down the insights of the thinkers, and these written texts had long percolated west to the Eliossiens, who also came across the Kelts across the Protectorate. Although the beliefs of the Kelts were very different from their own the Eliossiens valued them and studied them. The Atlanteans, up until around 400, tended to see the Kelts only as ferocious warriors, although they were aware that buried in the mountains, there was also a hard core of what they believed to be seers or druid-like priests. Later in the Second Empire, the Atlanteans came to a truer understanding of the Kelts’ beliefs, but there was no real resonance in Atlantean minds until the time of the Romantics after 500. After 600, the Atlanteans again tended to press down on these "deluded" heathen, but recognised the military strength of the people, and their perpetual desire to escape from the overlordship of other nations. Many were killed or persecuted at this time, and by the marauding nomads of the north. A deeper understanding of this people only developed again in the Fourth Empire, by the philosophers of that time. But it was almost too late, as the Tyrants subsequently persecuted them almost to annihilation. The sad remains of the Kelts were finally valued at their true worth by the spiritual thinkers of the Fifth Empire after 828. Finally, in the years before and after 400, the lands of the Dravideans were overrun – these people were naturally of strong military stock, but had no formal political or military organisation, and hence were easily taken apart and overcome individually.
THE UGHAN STATES 1. Till 600. So it was that around 400, Atlantis had made the last of its permanent conquests, and came up against the Ughans. There is little doubt that Atlaniphon I or II would have been quite content to attempt to conquer this people too, if they had been able. But now geography put a spoke in the wheel, and the distant and mountainous areas that the Ughans inhabited made a conquest of the whole of their territories unachievable. The Ughans themselves were part of the Basquatic peoples, which included the Basquecs, Vulcans and Razirans – their affinity is obvious from their related languages. Initially a haphazard group of tribes occupying the northern part of the area west of the Gestix Mountains, the Ughans gradually spread down to Psajegargros after 300. By 350 the northern region consisted of one large kingdom, containing a loose federation of fiefdoms and a precariously placed king, the Waka. They were essentially a "tribal" people, fiercely independent and keen on their traditional ways. This included a religion which recognised the king as the head of their faith. But the king himself was not regarded with any particular awe, and whoever became king or "Leader" (Rutha), would be seen as the head of the faith. The faith itself was based on a series of supernatural stories about natural gods and goddesses, and was loosely supervised by a large network of priests. After the 300s the history of Ughrieh all the way through till the 800s is one of periods of more or less firm control by a king or Emperor (Zuka), and the collapse of the centralised kingdom into a number of independent fiefdoms. The core area of the state remained the northern area, with the capital at Gargros, and for much of the time, the southern area, with the main city being Psajegargros, was also part of the kingdom. The whole area was very secure from enemy invasion by Atlanteans or Vulcans from the north, west and south-west, because of the Gestix Mountains, and the river Gestes. Lines if strong forts were also placed on the eastern bank of the river, and up the tributary rivers which led off to the east, and could act as invasion routes into the interior for Ughrieh’s enemies. To the south, a number of small independent kingdoms acted as a barrier against incursions by the Basquecs or others. However there was no comparable barrier to the east, and nomads and barbarian pressure from this direction was a frequent worry for the Ughans. The Ughan Army was initially a small Royal Army with local feudal levies, and it was this force that the Atlanteans met and defeated in the first two Ughan Wars, and which the Vulcans had often fought. Thereafter the Ughans adopted the crossbow and reformed the military structure into a number of Governors, responsible for raising troops if requested by the King. These were the armies which at first defeated Atlantis in the third Ughan War. During the 500s, Ughrieh was heavily involved in fighting off the advancing nomads, and indeed encouraged most of these to move on to Atlantean territory. After 599, it took advantage of Atlantean internal chaos (the divisions between Republicans and Imperialists), and crossed the Gestes. Ughan soldier, c.540
2. 600 – 749. The Ughans’ involvement in Atlantis’ internal affairs did not last long, as after about 625, the whole country broke into pieces, rather like the Atlantean Imperialists, as individual nobles rebelled against the king. Furthermore new barbarian attacks swamped the north of the country. It was not until after about 642, that a semi-feudal form of oligarchical government reasserted itself, with power divided between three or four great nobles, who "elected" the King from amongst themselves. The Ughan Armies roughly followed Atlantean practice, with some decades’ delay, as was always to be their practice, albeit their forces were always slower, heavier and often more infantry-heavy. After the 640s, they adopted heavy gunpowder artillery, also with infantry skirmishers, and heavier cavalry. Their forts were now completely vulnerable to the new Atlantean artillery when Ruthopheax I invaded Ughrieh, and their armies were quickly beaten in the open field. Following his success, Ruthopheax saw to it that Ughrieh was again split up into many individual princedoms, some of which were under Atlantean control. However, Ughrieh managed to reunite itself again by about 700, and armies were again centralised and increased in size. It also started to re-equip itself with rifles, thanks to Basquec secret aid. It seized the opportunity of the Basquecs’ attack on Atlantis in 743 to join in the war, partly for revenge on Atlantis for the humiliations of the 650s and after, and partly because the Ughans were always great opportunists. The Great Continental War saw Ughrieh’s biggest military effort to date, but despite the modernisation of its armed forces, and the alliance with Basquecieh, its armies remained rather their traditional slow-moving selves, led by barely competent generals, and with little strategic ability visible at the higher levels. Defeat in 749 led again to the break-up of the whole State. 3. 749 – 900 The country was again split up, this time into three states, all with much outside interference. After 770, the country collapsed into civil war, with Atlantean, Basquec and Gestskalland armies all intervening. When the war finally ended, the country was even more chaotic than before it had started. Further internal fighting in the 790s led to many Ughan refugees seeking asylum across the Gestes in Atlantean territory. Finally by about 805, the country subsided into a sort of peace: several semi-independent kingdoms agreed to call themselves the equivalent of dukedoms and recognise an overall, fairly powerless Emperor (Zuka). Relations with Atlantis remained very poor throughout the time of the Tyrants, as their compatriots across the Gestes were persecuted, transported and eventually wiped out. The Ughans intervened to protect them from time to time, with minimal success. After 825, much of the north of the country was assaulted by a collection of little states, and by 850, the area was split into three wholly independent kingdoms. These were eventually united by diplomacy, force and bribery after 860, in time for Emperor Ladrubith to take part in the attack on Atlantis in the Final Wars in the late 870s – 880s. As in the 740s, the participation of Ughrieh in these wars was largely at the behest of another country, this time Rabarrieh, for the Ughans had no firm ideological hatred of the Atlanteans: rather, they again seized an opportunity which presented itself to try to gain more territory and, as they hoped, finally do away with their overbearing neighbour. BASQUECIEH/ Uariltteccoth. 1. Till 585. The Basquecs, linked to the Ughans and Vulcans by race and language, became one of the strongest rivals of the Atlanteans after about 500. The Basquecs were by nature a military and expansionist people, much more willing then the Ughans to be centrally organised and led. They did not impinge on the awareness of the Atlanteans until the middle of the fifth century, but for centuries before that, they had been fighting and expanding to the south, having originally meandered south from an area north and east of later Vulcanieh. By the late 480s, they had taken reached some of the southern coastline, and now turned against the Polder Folk to the east, who they fought and conquered over the next century. Their society had from the beginning been dominated by warlords and tribal, later regional, chiefs (Ruitha: plural ruithoth). The country was centralised under a king and then an Emperor ( Zuic) early on, supported by a ruling class of wealthy civilians and successful military leaders, and run in a militaristic and authoritarian style. Strong codes of honour and valour developed, and were important at first. Their religion, originally similar to that of the Ughans, was soon perverted to serve the ideals of the ruling class, and became a means of glorifying war and the state. Victorious generals became idols, especially after the wars with the Polder Folk and Atlanteans began. Nevertheless, the country was not at this stage run by the military as such, but there was an increasing rivalry and antipathy between the civilian rulers and the military class which was supposed to serve them and the Emperor.
The Army originally fought in a "Roman" style, with armoured, sword-wielding foot-soldiers, and light horsemen with bows and arrows. The infantry marched and fought in rigid bloc formation, in several ranks, the front three with swords, the rear ones with protective long pikes. Earth forts were built to guard territory. When Atlantis took over Razira in 465, they shared a common border with Basquecieh. And clashes between the two were not long in developing. In a brief war in 475, Atlantis was shocked when she was twice beaten by the aggressive cold steel of the Basquecs, despite the Atlantean crossbows. A second war took place in 492-3 over some islands in the south, where Atlantis was fighting pirates. This time Atlantis increased its firepower still further, and overcame the Basquecs. At the same time, the Basquecs were involved in fighting the Polder Folk, in a flattish landscape of woods, rivers, lakes, polders and dykes. For this, as against the Atlanteans, their tactical organisation seemed to be weak, and they were quick to copy the Atlanteans’ use of the crossbow, as well as smaller, more mobile formations and heavier cavalry to oppose the Polder Folk. By the time of the 582-585 war with Atlantis, they had also set up a line of stone fortifications along their northern border. They remained wary of encountering the Atlanteans in the field during this war, but held them at bay from within their fortresses and field works. 2. 585 – 750. When they saw the Atlantean Empire break up into civil war after the Revolution, they declared war again in 594, claiming the peace-treaty of 586 was invalid. They soon overran half of Razira, and precipitated the split in the Imperialist ranks in 596, in which Vulcanieh, Razira and Yall Thiss under Yeasor broke away from Emperor Norro, and concentrated their armies against the Basquecs in their own territories, rather than have them sucked away to the centre of the Empire to face the Republicans. During the 500s, Basquecieh grew more and more divided between the older, traditional and civilian north, dominated by big landowners, who ruled the country, and the newly conquered more militarised south, full of younger generals and most of the army. The wars with Atlantis after the 580s led to a militarisation of the north as well. Their military art reached its apogee, as they worked out how to beat the Atlanteans. They gradually overran all of Razira, south Vulcanieh and the non-Atlantean peoples to their west. To do this, they adopted smaller, more flexible units and carefully entrenched all military gains. They were quicker than the Atlanteans to experiment with gunpowder weapons, especially rockets, which were used in some of the sieges of the war of 582-585. After 600, they also copied the Atlanteans’ use of cannon, but in fact preferred rockets. Their advances continued at a slow pace till about 612, held up by the Atlanteans’ fortresses, which they were unable to breach with the gunpowder weapons of this period. After about 615, the Basquecs were riven by long civil wars, caused by a series of coups and conflicts between civilian governments and military uprisings. Finally after 644, an unstable civilian government took power, which relied on a volunteer army, and the south was largely demilitarised. For most of this time, conflict with the Atlanteans ceased, though State "A" fought several wars after 635. The Basquecs were still quite successful, and took over all of Vulcanieh, and raided Manralia. In 658, Ruthopheax declared war, and smashed the Basquecs in a series of brilliant campaigns. Atlantis showed great superiority in artillery and heavy cavalry, breaking down the Basquecs’ fortresses, and overwhelming their armies. After the war, Atlantis propped up the civilian regime in Basquecieh, and partly took over running the country. For the next fifty years, the Basquec armies were limited in size, and forbidden to experiment with gunpowder handguns or any other military novelties. After 703, a more military clique took over the country, until in 724, the brilliant general Gosscalt seized power. From here until the 740s, the Basquecs secretly, then openly, built up their armed forces, and experimented with gunpowder cannon, muskets and rifles. Conscription was reintroduced, and in 732 showed the prowess of his armies by declaring war on Rabarrieh, and decisively defeating it. His real aim, all along, was revenge on Atlantis, and it was now only a few years until the Great Continental War of 743-750. 3. 750 – 900.Ultimate defeat in the War led to the breaking up of the country into a number of different states, and ultimately to civil war in the 770s, with much outside intervention. By 774, Rabarrieh had virtually taken over the government of the reunited country, which now called itself Uaruilttecchoth. However, Rabarran domination ceased after the later 780s, when Rabarrieh underwent a religious revival, while the Basquecs kept the older Rabarran religion, enforced on them in the 770s. The country remained under the rule of strong Emperors for the next sixty years, and after 808, the country allied itself with Atlantis against Rabarrieh. However, in the 820s, Emperor Ruiltac was so shocked by the massacre of the Rabarrans in 816, that he allied himself with the Rabarrans against Atlantis. The Basquecs now advanced to the Gestes, and it was not till Pareon overthrew the Tyrants, that a peace-treaty was agreed between Basquecs and Atlanteans, which left the Basquecs with most of the territory they had conquered. There followed another 25 years of peace, until in 844 Rabarrieh, with the connivance of Atlantis, who wanted to protect her rear during the forthcoming war with Skallandieh, treacherously invaded and conquered the Basquecs. Henceforth it became a part of the Rabarran Empire. RABARRIEH 1. Till 750.The origin of the state later known as Rabarrieh was in the "Yciel Tuaince Mandagge", the continent south of the Eriphicko sea. Many of the peoples and tribes of the southern area of the Great Continent to the north were racially and linguistically akin, and much movement and trade had always taken place between the two areas. A great monarchical state had been built up in the southern continent, as also the one to the north of the Eriphicko, which was federated. After about 550 civil wars led to the overthrow of the king, and his replacement by a regime led by local tribes. These usurpers imposed their own unique religion and way of life on both states. The basis of the regime was a profound mystical religion, the Athulkulta, the revelation of an earlier prophet, which was also messianic and imperialist. This religion taught that all the Southern peoples, who were racially of similar origin, should be forcibly made part of the Rabarran Empire and converted to its own style of religion. Initially much stress was laid on austerity, purity and the virtues of desert life, as opposed to the luxury and corruption of town-dwellers. In due course, however, towns were found to be necessary to the overall economy, and by the 700s, the state had developed from its original austere republicanism and partial tribal democracy to an oligarchic monarchy. North of the Eriphicko, Rabarrieh expended northwards, with occasional skirmishes with the Basquecs to the east, throughout the seventh century. At the same time, it won over many of the small independent southern tribes in the area, (the Araishim in Rabarran), linked by language and race. It also gradually abandoned its rather unsophisticated weapons and military organisations in favour of the standardised crossbows, later rifles, and cannon of the northern states. After 732, the Basquecs under Gosscalt attacked Rabarrieh, and defeated it, forcing it to give up a great deal of hardly won territory. Fighting was renewed in 743 in the Great Continental War, though this time Rabarrieh was aided by her ally Atlantis. After a desperate struggle, and with much help from south of the Eriphicko, the Rabarrans overcame the Basquecs, and were able to impose their peace terms on them, even at the expense of the Atlanteans, who had many fewer soldiers in the area, and were anyway about to be convulsed in the overthrow of the Third Empire.
2. 750 – 900. Rabarrieh and Atlantis remained on generally friendly terms until the great religious revolution of the 780s in Rabarrieh. This was an uprising by the lower classes and tribes of the state of Rabarrieh north of the Eriphicko against what they considered to be the luxurious and decadent lifestyle of their rulers. Taking their inspiration from the original writings of the founder of their religion, they succeeded in overthrowing the old regime, and imposing a new one, which was a fundamentalist reversion to the old religion. Although it extolled the virtues of communal, tribal and desert ways, the country as a whole was by now very urbanised, and in fact the new regime turned out to a sophisticated, authoritarian theocracy, which was once again keen to evangelise amongst the southern peoples of the region. Rabarrieh broke off relations with its kindred state to the south of the water, which had suppressed an attempt to overthrow the regime there, and by 790, had begun the so-called Southern Revolt against Atlantean rule. There followed decades of war with Atlantis, which led by 828, to the loss of nearly all her territories south of the Helvengio. Thereafter the two states preserved an uneasy peace for some while, although both sides were completely opposed to each other’s religion and ideology. Ever since the 750s, in fact, Atlantis had seen itself as a bastion of free thought and speech, rational thought, and open and democratic government. In later years it would recognise Quendelieh, and only Quendelieh, as its political and moral equal. It perceived the Rabarran state as the exact opposite, and there grew up a great mutual dislike. The period of the Tyrants taught the Atlanteans that there were problems with complete freedom of thought and action, without moral constraints, but the profound ideological gulf between the two states remained as unbridgeable during the following decades. After 844, Rabarrieh conquered the Basquecs while the Atlanteans were involved in war with the Skallands, and the potential threat from them seemed to grow still greater. Finally in the 860s, the Rabarran state underwent another internal revolution, in which the new rulers resurrected their hatred of everything for which the Atlanteans stood, and determined on war to the death. In the Final Wars after 870, Rabarrieh was thus the leading player in the complete overthrow of the Atlantean Empire.
SKALLANDIEH The Skallands were originally one people out of many nomads, most of whom were related racially and linguistically. They started migrating and fighting their way westwards across and round the north of Ughrieh after 500. There were three waves of these barbarians: the first, fighting largely on foot, moved via the Ughan Marches, on through and round Keltish territories, as far as the Eliossien Protectorate by the 570s, where they settled for a time. A second wave of fast-moving horsemen followed after 570, conquering the areas settled by the first wave, and forcing some of them to move on themselves into Eliossie and Marossan. The second wave was Skallands and settled in the western parts of the later Skalland empire. A third wave arrived after 600, settling in the areas north of Nunchalcrieh and Dravidieh I, and these later coalesced into the Gestskalland Empire. Both groups of tribes were bound separately into the two states by the 660s, and ruled by kings, (though often referred to as empires by the Atlanteans.) They remained semi-feudal for some time, with large and important aristocracies, but were also quite centralised by the kings. Their religion, as befitted recently nomadic people, was pantheistic. The main difference between the two states was that the eastern one remained more agricultural and feudal, with few large towns, while the western state, which inherited the already well-settled areas of Eliossie and the Protectorate, was more urbanised and quicker to develop industries in the later 700s. The two states were frequently at loggerheads before and after 700, and they fought on opposite sides in the Great Continental War, and following the defeat of Skallandieh, Gestskallandieh soon took over the whole area. Prior to this, Skallandieh had largely friendly relations with Anauren until the 730s, but was always mistrustful of Atlantis. Gestskallandieh, knowing its own vulnerability to Skallandieh, was much closer to Atlantis, and sought protection by participating eagerly in the International Conferences of the late 600s and early 700s. In 833 the united kingdom, now called simply Skallandieh, fell into civil war, and a new Gestskallandieh won independence. Following the Great Northern War with Atlantis, Skallandieh was completely defeated, and split up into small kingdoms. After the 860s, most of it reconstituted itself as a united country, federated with Gestskallandieh, and seeking revenge on Atlantis, joined in the Final Wars. For details of the geography of the Great Continent from a military point of view, go to Military geography |