Antonian States

Official Name: The Thirty-Seven States of Antonia

Founded: 1767

Form of Government: Multi-layered representative democracy

Head of State: President Calvin Wilson

Population Level: High

Society Structure: Densely urban

Technological Level: High

Background: The Antonian States were formed on a huge landmass in northern Ereth, consisting of tundra within spitting distance of the polar glaciers and stretching down to a moderately temperate zone at a similar latitude to the nation of Airdrie. It is known that numerous small tribes of natives lived on the Antonian landmass before the arrival of the Bayronites in the early 17th century, but these tribes no longer exist in any sovereign form and almost no archaeological relics have been recovered. For more information, s ee United Bayronite Shires.

Founding: For hundreds of years, men and women of the Shirelands curious about the Antonian landmass set forth to explore its mysteries, but none that successfully made the shore ever left. That did not change until 1621, when King Trevor the First dedicated massive resources to colonization in an attempt to restore the glory of the UBS; for the first time outsiders were able to gain a foothold along the southern coast of the continent. From that point, the expansion of the invaders was swift, and the native people who had survived for centuries with minimal technological evolution were dominated and destroyed as quickly as they were found. By the end of the century, the entire landmass had been conquered, most of it by the Bayronites (Nantes controlled the southernmost tip).

As the colony expanded, and various towns grew in influence over their surrounding areas, the Antonian colony eventually became thirty-seven distinct states under the central leadership of the Bayronite throne. Critical natural resources were sent back to the homeland, as well as anything not immediately needed for the growth of the colony itself. Trade was brisk, and all levied taxes were split between local governments and the crown. Merchant caravels constantly sailed to and from the southern half of the colony, and a few of the more daring merchant lords funded expeditions to investigate reports of precious gem nodes in the frozen north. Most, though not all, of those reports proved false. One family-owned company, Bramson Co. Ltd., had particular success in these explorations and became the world's number one supplier of rare jewels.

In 1738, a small carved statue was found at the bottom of a nearly-depleted Bramson mine. The unknown miner who found the statue, thinking it an old tribal relic, showed it around his camp as they packed up to travel to a new dig site. On their day of departure, he sold it for a fair sum to the traveling merchant who had run trade for the group and was about to return south. The miners of that camp were never heard from again.

When the merchant reached the first major trading hub to unload the spare gems and assorted knickknacks he had acquired from the miners, the city's trademasters discovered they were entirely unable to communicate with him. He approached them with the same familiarity as ever, and spoke as if the words coming out of his mouth were perfectly normal, but they understood not a one. Not knowing the nature of the problem, but determined to carry out respectable trade all the same- the language of coin being universal- the trademasters readied the sacks of coin they were prepared to spend and the merchant readied his goods.

All except the statue, now missing.

Tales of the statue's travels range from the merely implausible to the utterly absurd. Historians generally agree the idol was stolen from the merchant's goods and repeatedly passed along from fence to collector, only to disappear again after spending a short time in the possession of any single person. Why this occurred, or how thieves knew to so readily target the statue's owners, remains unknown.

What is known, though only in retrospect, is that the merchant's linguistic shift became normal amongst all who came into contact with the statue. The change was, of course, obvious, and the mystery consumed more and more of the colony over the months and years to come, but due to the constant thefts and black market sales, the connection to the statue was not made until at least 1740 and quite possibly longer. And, as more and more people came under the statue's influence, talk of dark magic began amongst the unafflicted, creating rifts between the changed, the unchanged who did not care for talk of superstition, and the unchanged who feared what may come.

In 1742 the statue's apparent influence had reached the highest levels of colonial government. Messages from the UBS routinely requested new, sensible information, but the government had lost everyone still capable of communicating in the Bayronite language. Most of the unafflicted, by that time, had fled the cities into an enclave near the southwestern part of the colony, between most of the Antonian States to the north and east and the Nantian colony to the south. (Unfortunately for these survivors, while their territory was well-protected by mountains, especially along the coasts, all ships remained under colony control and they were left with no method for sending word of their plight to the homeland.) Once the cities and towns of the States consisted mostly or entirely of the changed, communication with the UBS halted, and something akin to the dark magic many had gossiped about in months past began to take hold.

Of the foul rituals that stained the land for the next twenty years, little is known. Reports from scouts affiliated with Thomas Haines, the leader of the unafflicted, describe expected cultish behavior in some cases- fire dances, hours of chanting, blood rituals up to and including human sacrifice- but also bizarre tales involving terrible creatures: great lion-headed hawks summoned from a breath of wind, or tentacled beasts lashing out at followers from massive pots of boiling water. The more extraordinary tales, being entirely inconceivable to the scientific minds that had gained prominence over the old superstition mongers, brought all these reports into question, and little physical evidence exists today outside of banal items such as ritual robes or unstained knives.

At some point in the early 1760s, long after the UBS had written off the Antonian colony as lost, the ritual behavior ended. Within a year all language use reverted back to the original Bayronite, and the colonists were left to salvage whatever remained of their society. Buildings were generally unaffected, though drastic cleaning was often necessary, and much of the infrastructure (especially roads) required vast repairs. But despite being ignored by an extremely wary UBS, the Antonian population had grown sufficiently over the past century to allow swift rebuilding.

Successful contact was eventually made with Thomas Haines, whose people had also evolved their own basic system of governance and culture over the past generation. Once convinced the Antonians had returned to their senses, though reasonably skeptical that the sickness would never return, Haines agreed with the Antonian leadership to an official, mutual split both from the UBS and each other. The unafflicted enclave retained its small but resource-rich territory, and the Antonians maintained control of most of the land, which was officially declared the sovereign Thirty-Seven States of Antonia in 1767. (The story of the colony's original naming, after the ancient explorer Antonio, had apparently been forgotten.) Each state elected its own government, which in turn elected members to a national legislative congress, with that body choosing a single unitary executive. In this way it was hoped any future problems could be rooted out and quarantined early, before the old sickness- or any new one- could take widespread hold.

The statue was never again seen in Antonian lands.

Pre-Melt: For the first few decades of existence, the main strengths of the Antonian States were their people and their natural resources. The steam tech era was in its infancy during the troubled times, and most of their advanced technology had fallen into absolute disrepair. The UBS and its allies refused any official contact until approximately 1810, and the Bayronite navy ran long blockades along their northern coast to dissuade attempts at travel.

However, while ill feeling amongst the leadership lingered, the private citizens of the Shirelands became curious as to the actual state of the Antonian colony. One of the first to initiate contact with Antonian authorities was none other than Nicolette Bramson, inheritor of the Bramson estate and maintainer of its old wealth. Though certain aspects of Bramson's dealings remained shrouded from Antonian intelligence, the Antonians acquired significant technological upgrades from Nicolette and her brother Peter in return for access to resources less commonly found in the Shirelands, or gold from the twin lodes found in the hills along the edge of the tundra.

Between the Bramson contacts, other minor trading partners, and the simple fact of a large population producing a fair quantity of capable scientists, the States attempted to stamp their dark origins into history through the swift accumulation and development of steam tech. In this they were more successful than any young nation could have hoped to dream. Rationales for development spanned from the mundane to the militaristic: producing viable farmland in northern climates, greater efficiency in gold mining, or building a navy to stand up against the Bayronites across the sea, should matters ever come to that. The beginning of manned flight sent the Antonian scientific community into a frenzy, and steamplanes became cultural icons, both the real machines and wildly imagined concepts which rarely saw light outside of an artist's sketchbook.

Though the States continued to be a somewhat withdrawn society, resource trade with Nantes and the Shirelands grew throughout the 19th century, and Antonian merchant ships began to dominate cross-ocean trade with the eastern nations. New technological designs acquired from other lands, especially involving steamplanes, continually sent the country's engineers into sprees of invention, leading the Antonian States to be a potentially dominant force in world affairs once cross-ocean plane travel became the norm. Even when the seas began their slow ascent, the Antonian impulse was not evacuation, or even caution; rather, the nation's inventive focus became building newer, bigger, and more effective walls and levees to keep their shorelines intact.

Melt: Sadly for the Antonians, the prime years of the Melt came upon them with a suddenness all their scientific knowledge could not hope to fight. The monstrous, perfectly angled and immoderately reinforced breakwalls stood strong as promised; the ocean simply topped them many, many times over. Several miles of southern forest were wiped out, but the greatest loss was in the north: the tundra and the cool temperate band south of it, having no real rises in elevation, were completely obliterated. Where one southern state was drowned out and two others combined due to territory loss, thirty northern states were wiped out of existence by the Melt.

Furthermore, the Canabraid prison encampment set up on a small, mountain-ringed eastern plateau was abandoned to the inmates during the general evacuation call. While a force was left at the lone pass entering and exiting the prison to keep the inmates from escaping into the general populace, the area was effectively lost to the country. Legislative debates from the time show some of those in favor believing the prisoners likely to keep their own population low due to general murderous tendencies and a huge majority-male population, such that it could be easily retaken once the calamity had been dealt with.

That prediction did not come to pass. In 1884, at the height of the Melt, Canabraid prisoners formed themselves, however temporarily, into a coherent army. This force managed to crush the dwindling guard presence and push their way into eastern Nogero State, the largest left in the union. The prisoners were not able to enact a full escape- the prison's location was chosen, in part, due to the fact another ring of mountains sat outside the first and could be used for a blockade in a worst-case scenario. As such, Antonian troops blockaded the two entrances to eastern Nogero, stifling the inmates' advance but ceding to them a much larger area than the original prison camp.

Between the Melt and the prisoner outbreak, estimates of Antonian territory lost during the 1870s and 1880s total approximately eighty-five percent.

Great War: Despite the tremendous territory loss, the Antonian population was not so significantly reduced. The tragedy of losing thirty percent of the national population was compounded by the fact the survivors piled into what cities remained, nearly tripling the national population density within the span of a decade. Furthermore, queries for assistance to the Shirelands and Nantes returned word that the greatest need of the States- food- was no longer as plentiful and the Humanitarian Covenant dictated that whatever remained be distributed to all devastated nations.

For a time, given the battles breaking out across the world, Antonian authorities considered attacking the Shirelands. This was dismissed as foolhardy, however; even the greatest possible success would probably entail a loss of farming resources that would render the whole escapade futile. Instead, the country poured significant profit into the reinvigorated Bramson Co. in exchange for smuggled food while scientists set to the task of mastering hydroponic farming.

Though the vast majority of the air force had been destroyed by the Melt, many of the remaining planes- nearly all except the highest-tech prototypes were sold off to eastern nations to support the people during the food crisis. Despite stern warnings from some legislators that the sale of wartime goods could create enemies willing to take advantage of the country's depleted state, at no point were the Antonians directly involved with any conflicts of the Great War.

Post-War to Present: When Roy Falco's ARI proposal made the diplomatic rounds, the Antonians were the first to sign. This surprised no one; the States' fervent interest in science and nearly utter destruction during the Melt made them arguably the country with the most to gain from such a style of diplomatic resolution. With the art of hydroponic farming close to mastered, the country's resources focused on finishing its major steamplane prototypes in anticipation of again becoming a player in world affairs.

This strategy has mostly worked out as intended. Though the Antonians do not dominate as they had hoped and in some ways expected, their share of strong finishes in the competitions have given them clout beyond what their current size would allow in a more traditional world. National pride revolves around not just the pilots, but the mechanics and engineers behind the phenomenal plane designs that lead to the Antonians' generally quality performances.

But even now, though they maintain at least good diplomatic relations with other nearby nations, the States and the UBS remain on chilly terms. Given that the UBS is the largest and possibly the most technologically proficient of their neighbors, the Antonian leadership continues to keep a close eye on the health of Queen Marjorie, the only major national leader who has still not signed the AeroKnight Armistice. When she passes, the Bayronites will almost certainly take to the skies, and the Antonians plan to be ready.