NationStates Jolt Archive


An Empire's Last Gasp

The Silver Sky
08-11-2008, 00:38
[OOC: Video documentary of how my nation came to be through the War of Continental Succession, imagine pretty pictures with the voice of some awesome narrator playing through your head, also, comments are welcome.]

An outsider might look at The Silver Sky as the perennial democratic state, the history of the democracy that the Skyian Government is based on goes back hundreds of years to the time when muzzle loaded rifles and volley fire were the pinnacle of foot soldier tactics and the Man of War controlled the seas.

However a deeper look reveals the scars from the many conflicts that helped to unite the continent under on government, one would set their eyes on the remains of once proud battleships that made their last stand in the Scapa Strait, or the rusted out hulks of tanks that litter the Great Interior Plain outside the borders of Silver City, even the bunkers protecting Apito City that withstood the fury of the Nexian Empire for weeks on end will evoke wonder.

We will be concentrating on the just one of these many conflicts, I'm Kevin King, and this is...

An Empire's Last Gasp
The War of Continental Succession

Prologue: The Rumblings of War

To fully understand the causes of this war one has to go back nearly three centuries; in 1710 the Nexian Empire was in the midst of its Golden Age, it spanned from the Aegir and Junius Mountain Ranges in the east to the Nexian Sea in the west. At this point it stood at nearly 500 million souls, twice that of its largest rival, the Kingdom of Sevile and Sapin, and boasted the strongest economy on the continent, fueled by sea trade and the vast resource rich expanse of Canasian Plains and Gideon and Junius Mountains Ranges.

However great the rule of Emperor Augustus was, it would be a sort of "jumping the shark" period for the empire. Over the next one and half centuries, corruption, state quotas, an increasingly out of control armed forces, and dwindling natural resources [not necessarily because of the lack of natural resources, but the lack of technology to get to the ores deep in the mountains and oil deep under the plains] sparked tension across the empire. The tensions came to a head in 1890 when the Kingdom of Sevile and Sapin defeated the Imperial Guard[1] and Imperial Navy[2] at the Battle of Porto Diego in a brief month long conflict for sole control of the Aegir Peninsula.

Then Emperor Octavian was enraged by the defeat of his most prized units and began to purge the ranks of officers whom he viewed as incompetent, he also increased production quotas of mines and oil fields that were already struggling to meet quotas to ensure that his army was the largest on the continent. Some miners who were already forced to work 60 hours a week went on strike. Emperor Octavian was enraged with this perceived rebellion and personally led a brigade of Imperial Guard to put down the rebellion through any means necessary.

Of the 1000 miners participating in the strike and the 10,000 people inhabiting the town, only 1000 survived to tell the tale of the Massacre of Wolf Creek on January 20th, 1891. The town of Wolf Creek was only 30 miles south of Faith Park in the Aegir Mountains, a small town by most standards. However, it was a proud little town with several sons acting as generals in the Imperial Army[3] stationed in Tiber. The news of the massacre sent shockwaves across the province of Tiber.

Immediately the few Tiberian officers rallied their men and the local population against their perceived oppressors. General Jackson Garth led his corps of "Interior Volunteers”[4] against the local Imperial Guard Garrison outside Silver City, the defeat of the Imperial Guard sparked the Tiberian Revolution. Throughout the province of Tiber the local Imperial Army commanders struck out against the Imperial Guard Garrisons. Already weakened by the purges and losses from the Aegir Peninsula Conflict the Imperial Guards folded and their remnants retreated into the province of Oceania.

Even elements of the Imperial Tiberian Fleet joined the rebellion, pre-dreadnought battleships and armored cruisers fought for control of Port Edwards and the Basset Islands while dodging torpedo boat attacks. The Rebel Tiberian Fleet stunned the larger Imperial Tiberian Fleet when the armored cruiser Alexandria sunk the Imperial Battleship NNS Morgantown, the flagship of the fleet, when a lucky hit from its eight inch guns against a weak portion of the belt penetrated the powder storage of the 12 inch guns, the ensuing explosion could be seen from both ends of the harbor and several miles out at sea and the NSS Morgantown disappeared beneath the waves with all hands. Within minutes the remnants of the Imperial Fleet retreated towards the still friendly port of Basset City with the rebel fleet celebrating in victory.

The only city in which the Imperials were successful in keeping beyond the opening days of the rebellion was Basset City. The Imperial Guard Garrison commander had made the decision to withdraw his forces from the other two islands and mainland in order to put down rebellion on the main island. He was successful but the defeat of the Imperial Navy at the hands of the rebels and their new allies from the Kingdom of Sevile and Sapin in the Battle of Basset Bay left his city wide open for a prolonged siege. The Imperial Commander was hoping to holdout until reinforcements from the mainland. He had not received the news that the new Emperor Nero III (Emperor Octavian had been killed by Tiberian cavalry during the early stages of the rebellion) had given up on the city. The Siege of Basset lasted for three months before the Imperial Tiberian Army, now numbering 15,000 out of a prewar 200,000, surrendered.

The last official battle of the Tiberian Rebellion took place in the Kiril Islands between the newly formed Tiberian High Seas Fleet and the remnants of the Imperial Port Edwards Squadron, the result was the total destruction of the last Imperial naval force in the area, at the cost of the Tiberian Battleship Aegir and three armored cruisers. The rebellion was over and the Confederation of Tibers [a tightly knit alliance of the rebellion city states] was born.

However large the rebellion had been to Imperial Hegemony over the continent had been, Emperor Nero was not about to go down lightly. He quickly began conscripting more men to bolster the ranks of the Imperial Guard in an effort to re-conquer Tiber. The men and materials needed to create an even larger Imperial Guard and the funds needed for the training and equipment were just beyond the capabilities of the empire at the time.

The increased strain on the people, especially those in the Crowne and Oceania provinces once again lead to rebellion. The Imperial Army units all over Crowne province and the local population, led by the descendant of an old royal family, rebelled in July 1895, heavier taxes levied on food a month earlier proved to be the final catalyst. The Imperial Guard units, not wanting to be humiliated at the hands of rebels again, retreated into the Nexian province, the home of the seat of power of the Nexian Empire. The Crownes seized several important border fortifications to protect themselves from any counter attacks.

The final province to pull away from the Nexian Empire was Oceania in 1896. This time the rebellion was very bloody as the Imperial Guard outnumbered the rebelling Imperial Army, only volunteer units from the newly formed Principality of Crowne and the Confederation of Tibers and the fact that every Imperial Oceanian Fleet squadron joined the rebellion. Imperial Guard, having exhausted many units in fierce urban and open field battles units were forced to retreat to the Kirwin Peninsula where they held out against the Oceanian blockade and attacks for two months, only a successful landing by two corps of Oceanian units broke the defenses of the city. Oceanian units captured the city of Morgantown, located on the main island of the Eliot Island Chain, with bloody house to house fighting.

Once the smoke had settled another new nation had been born out of the ashes, the Trader Republic of Oceania. Nexian Hegemony over the continent had been broken, it had fallen a long way in only a few years. At the time of the first rebellion the empires population had been 750 million, now it was down to mere 300 million. The three new countries each sat at around 150 million souls.

Open civil war within the remnants of the Nexian Empire occurred twice, in 1901 and 1970. Also, in the 1920s the Kingdom of Sevile and Sapin split into the Democratic Monarchy of Sevile and the Socialist Republic of Sapin. The First Nexian Civil War resulted in the closure of its borders to other nations. The Second Nexian Civil War ended when a military coup deposed the ruling emperor Augustus II and placed his rival Emperor Junius the Innocent at the helm as a figurehead as the military set about modernizing the military and country. New farming techniques bolstered the population of the Nexian Empire to nearly one quarter the entire population of the continent.

Military wise the continent had seen progress by leaps and bounds, especially considering the last continental conflict was in the 1930s, involvement in several foreign military conflicts and an arms race beginning to form on the continent had pushed military technology to a level similar to the end of the Cold War. However, unlike the Cold War between NATO and the Warsaw Pact/Soviet Union nuclear weapons played a back seat to conventional arms. The military buildup set the background for the diplomatic struggle between the Nexian Empire and the states that had won independence from it. Emperor Junius the Innocent had promised to return the Nexian Empire to its glory days, but treaties with the other nations on the continent and the Nexian Empire, that would have given the Nexian Empire an economic advantage, were getting refused left and right. Emperor Junius had fulfilled his promise of making the Nexian Empire a strong power, but the hard fact was that no one respected them anymore.

With the government, military, and plotters growing anxious for results Emperor Junius the Innocent began drawing up plans for the largest military conflict ever on the Nexian Continent, all of the continents 4 billion inhabitants would be drawn in one way or another.

Thanksgiving Day, 1982, the Nexian Continent looks like this ( http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/68157Silver/NexianContinentThnksgvng1982.png), all is calm and high level talks between the Nexian Empire, the Trader Republic of Oceania and the Principality of Crowne over fishing rights and tariffs have just ended for the day. However, unbeknownst to the other delegates, the Nexian delegates have boarded a flight to Mons Urbs in the late hours of the night and would not be returning the next day.

The pieces were in place for the Nexians, the majority of the Crowne and Oceania militaries were on leave for Thanksgiving weekend and their satellites and reconnaissance aircraft had missed the buildup of Nexian military units in bases near the border, and those that had been noticed were dismissed as the elements of the rotating guard[5] that had stayed due to the annual winter training exercise, the fact that the units were in combat formation facing the border was lost on the intelligence officers. Also, increased naval activity in the area was attributed to the yearly naval exercises, despite the fact that they were startlingly close to Oceanian and Crowne maritime boundaries.

No one would know that the Nexians were once again going to war until the first tanks crossed the border and the first shots had been fired.

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End Notes:
1. The Imperial Guard was originally a well funded volunteer force of subjects extremely loyal to the Empire, it was limited only in size, however after their defeat at Porto Diego Emperor Octavian began conscripting men from the country side to bolster its ranks. At the time of the Tiber rebellion they consisted of around 800,000 men in four armies. They were responsible for keeping order and fighting in enemy territory. Joined with the Imperial Army in 1971
2. The Imperial Navy was the sole naval force of the Empire, it was the largest naval force on the continent in the 19th century, and however, it focused on fire power came at the cost of speed and armor helping its defeat at the hands of the Sevilian Navy's faster more armored battleships at Porto Diego. The Imperial Navy was composed of 27 squadrons[3 battleships, 6 armored cruisers, and 6 torpedo boats] in three fleets. Of the nine squadrons in the Imperial Tiberian Fleet five rebelled and most of one was sabotaged by Imperial sailors as the rebels attempted to seize them at their piers.
3. The Imperial Army made up the bulk of the Imperial ground forces at the time of the Tiber rebellion, an all volunteer force recruited from the local country side they were 1,200,000 strong divided into four provincial armies, they received second hand equipment but their command structure was not heavily affected by the pre-rebellion purges, some of the brilliant military minds on the Nexian Continent of the 19th and 20th centuries came from their ranks.
4. Imperial Army Corps that largely consisted of men from the Great Interior Plain around Silver City and Faith Park.
5. In 1971 the Imperial Army created a rotational basing structure where units would be on duty for seven months and on leave for five months, the result was that there would be 4 weeks and the beginning and end of their rotation there would be twice as many units on base. [Rotations were second week of October through the second week of May and the second week of April through the second week of November]
Sarzonia
08-11-2008, 01:33
[OOC: Looks good so far.]