Grand Unification of the Senyan Peoples
The Grand Unification of the Senyan Peoples is an ongoing campaign to annex the lands north of Senya for the Society, bringing the final untapped bastion of the Senyan people under the green banner of the Senyan state. Following the success of the campaign in Senyan Arboria, and once again with the diplomatic go-ahead from their Craitish neighbours, the Senyan state began the undertaking of this even more challenging endeavour in the year of 1706, with the aim to bring under their control these lands by the end of the year and establish a fully functioning society within a decade, ensuring the continued success of the Senyan state.
It had long been the ambition of the government to unify and bring in all the ethnic Senyans of northwestern Apollonia into the Senyan state, and as such no expense was spared in trying to do so. The project had widespread support not only from Senyans already within the state and ethnic Senyans in the green, but also from a number of ethnic minorities within the Green who sought to benefit from being citizens of an internationally recognised state.
Background
Following their success of the annexation of the cities of Feldberg and Northwards Ho! in 1704, the Senyan government, capitalising on a wave of fresh nationalistic sentiment, saught to obtain the long awaited desire of all Senyans, to see the unification of the Senyan people under the one Senyan state, and in doing so secure the eternal victory of the Senyans, providing a perfect paradise in which the freedoms of all men and women shall be ensured.
Previously, northwards of the border, whilst many Senyans had successfully established client cities, these were often dependent on aid and smuggled good permeating the northern border, from which the previous government in Senya had spent serious amounts of money securing, especially due to the establishment of railway lines connecting the cities of Saint Christopher's and Lükanburg to the Senyan Rail and Apollonian Express networks. Though this did afford the residents of these cities an above modest lifestyle, they also had to contend with the realities of living outside of a state in The Green entails. Many lived without electricity and regularly went hungry due to water, power and food shortages that plagued the North. Whilst some settlements close to the new border near Klements and Port Puglisi were able to leech off of the culture of those existing Senyan cities, many others, particularly those in the former Gotzer territories saw high levels of resource scarcity, and frustrations in those cities saw an increased political desire to join an internationally recognised state.
In these lands, a few cities had remained, barely surviving. Those were Feldberg, which was annexed in 1704, alongside Regensberg and Marieberg. Some smaller towns and villages from the Gotzer days also remained in that area, and as such were eager to join an internationally recognised state. These cities had also looked to Craitland's establishment of a protectorate over Victoria as a possible model for Senyan integration, however it was clear by this point as many ethnic Senyans had moved to cities from other parts of the Green to escape from the harsh realities of life in the non-sovereign areas of north-western Apollonia, These cities had been connected to Senya by aid corridors that had been established by charities based in Dyas and Eprat, who regularly ventured deep into the Green to secure supplies for the residents of these cities, such as providing medical care and re-supplying foods, as well as occasionally sending out technicians to assist the various cities with their infrastructure, but obviously the efforts of these charities were nowhere near enough to ever provide enough to cover everyone in these cities.
Out to the east of these former Gotzer cities, many newer cities had been founded as refuges for ethnic Senyans in the regions. These cities had some semblance of connectivity to the Senyan state, though not as much as the former Gotzer cities. However, lands bordering the northern panhandle towards Tiana were already somewhat integrated towards the state, in particular the city of Apolonëa, which took advantage of formerly Gerenian and Kyrovistani roads which had been left abandoned following the collapse of those states. Whilst some of these roads had been well maintained, many of them were in need of repairs, and many more had become overgrown or even destroyed in the decades following the collapse of those nations.
The successes of these Senyan cities varied. Whilst some thrived, especially those who were able to trade with the state, some could not sustain a good quality of life for their residents, often times people left to work on nearby farms to become self-sustainable. However, this rarely amounted to places becoming run down, as the ethnic Senyans were able to build up their own pseudo-state functions, including their own police and justice forces, and some cities even collected taxes that were spent on schools and public infrastructure.
Annexation of the new territories
Many of the ethnic cities north of the established border were contacted about the potential annexation following the annexation of Feldberg in 1704. The unsurprising and unanimous agreement of the cities to come under the Senyan state convinced the government to pursue this new annexation and to fast-track the procedure from what it was under the previous annexations. To help with operations, a new railway track was commissioned between Feldberg and Ōstbarn, with two branch lines connecting up to Marieberg and Cape of Heroes. These lines would function as high speed lines once construction and necessary transport was complete. In the east, it was decided to ship component parts from Vancona to coastal cities, whilst dirt roads would be used by trucks to transport goods and materials to the inland cities.
It was then decided by the various cities to sign a contract with the Senyan state, underlying their rights as cities and what the new political structure would be in these areas under the Senyan state.
The provision of services such as healthcare, food and education was an immediate concern of the government and resources were dedicated towards those immediate areas. Upgrades were also to be made to the water supply systems, and jobs in construction, as well as within the trades suddenly became in demand. As a result, a lot of training programmes were established in these new areas to train up stuff to do these jobs, as well as staff with expertise being recruited in from the rest of Senya and some other XC countries.
To the pleasant surprise of the contractors, much of the road network in the west was of high quality, and allowed them to move quickly to provide arterial routes from the railway lines, allowing for work to be completed much more quickly than had been originally predicted. Materials were imported in from other countries, and additionally a quarry was opened in the centre of Upper Senya to establish further resources for construction and to minimise costs. This new quarry would also be linked by roads and railway lines, which after its closure would provide quick east-to-west transport across the region.
Political divisions of the new lands
Prior to the addition of these new lands, Senya was comprised of five primary subdivisions; three regions (Northern Senya, Senya proper and Senyan Arboria), one territory (Lamantia) and one protectorate (Tiana). It was decided that the vast majority of the new territories would form the new region of Upper Senya, after several names were rejected for being 'too-Gotzer' and not reflecting the wider region. Furthermore, the ethnic Gotzers that remained had very little political desire to have a separate Gotzer region within Senya, despite the offer being made to them. Despite this, the city of Apolonëa and some surrounding rural districts were to be placed within Northern Senya, due to their already close economic links to that region.
| Map | Flag | Region | Capital | Language(s) | New regions added in expansion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Lamantia | Colgrad | Lamantian, Common tongue |
None | |
 |
Northern Senya | Sanyanska | Senyan, Common tongue |
Addition of a couple of rural districts and the city of Apolonëa | |
 |
Senya proper | Svorgas | Senyan, Common tongue |
None | |
 |
Senyan Arboria | Zvarëen | Senyan, Common tongue |
Minor alterations to northern border | |
 |
Tiana | Vancona | Tianan | None | |
 |
Upper Senya | North Ellum | Senyan, Common tongue |
Entirety of region |
Issues
The integration of these new lands into the Senyan state was not without its difficulties, with many issues needing to be resolved before to ensure the smooth transition into Senyan sovereignty of these lands.
The Vanic Question
One major worry for many Senyans was the influence of the former Vanic state of Stormark upon some of the remaining survivors of Gotzborg. Between 1657 and 1685, Gotzborg had come under the protection of the Vanic horde, to which many crimes against the Gotzer people had been committed. Whilst Senya had been one of the few nations on Micras that continued to trade with Stormark at this point, including allowing the Storish airline Loftleiðir to use Svorgas International Airport as a hub for connecting domestic Storish flights, ensuring a sizable chunk of Storish trade was passing through Senya. Eventually, this semi-dependency later became increasingly one-sided, with Stormark running up a trade deficit with Senya. During 1685, with the Storish government overspending on their commitments in the Frankish Empire, an untimely tax hike in Senya saw Stormark finding it suddenly much more expensive to conduct both trade with Senya and within their own borders. This led to an economic crash, which became a contributing factor to the unravelling of the Vanic web and the subsequent pacification of Lyrica.
Whilst many Gotzers saw the Senyans as liberators for their role in the collapse of the Vanic empire, there remained some concerns by ethnic Senyans about whether Vanics were still present in Gotzborg, especially considering the recent failed terrorist attack in Nouvelle Alexandrie and the subsequent Vanic insurgency in Hurmu. Whilst Gotzborg had never fully become part of Stormark so to speak, remaining largely a vassal state of the Vanic empire, the Senyan government was eager to avoid any terrorism and become an extensive security and espionage campaign in the former Gotzer lands to try and seek out any potential members or supporters of Freyja's Battlers, whilst simultaneously declaring the group a terrorist organisation, allowing Senyan security officials to spy on their members without having to go through the courts.
As the expansion began, the Senyan government declared that anti-Vanic education was to be made mandatory in all ethnically Gotzer schools, and opened up a museum in Regensberg devoted to educating the public about the horrors of Vanic rule. As many Gotzers were either victims of, or were sympathetic to the victims of the Vanic crimes, thankfully this was not too much of a problem of the Senyan state, however the government were eager to arrest the justifiable fears of the Senyan population about possible penetration by the Vanic taint, and as such allowed for a great pro-Senyan and patriotic campaign that was dismissive of the Vanics, including of their awful cultural practises.
Beginning in 1706, many ethnic Gotzers, who by now only constituted a sizable minority in the western cities of Regensberg, Marieberg, Feldberg and the areas surrounding the Victorian border, began taking part in anti-Vanic demonstrations, many of whom were eager to present themselves as pro-Senyan, given Senya's positive economic and cultural ties to the pre-Vanic Gotzborg nation, and were able through these demonstrations to win the hearts and minds of Senyans living south of the already established international border.
Discrimination and public tension
Although many ethnic Senyans were willing to see their brothers incorporated into the Senyan state, there were apprehensions about preferential treatment, from both the Senyans already living in the Senyan state about those from these new lands, as well as in reverse. The government was aware of the poor handling of the incorporation of much of Northern Senya into Senya years before, that had led to a Northern Senyan movement that had demanded recognition of the Northern Senyan dialect and which rallied against the perceived advantages and structural imbalances in favour of Senya proper in the government, media and sporting worlds. As such, the government was cautious about the annexation and conducted a study into how the mistakes of the Northern Senya annexation could be avoided this time around.
Football pyramid
Following the announcement of the annexation of these new lands, the Senyan League and FADESS began discussions with fans and clubs about how to integrate clubs from the new territories into the Senyan football league system. The previous time this had happened, the Senyan FA invited winners of regional qualification tournaments to join the Fourth League ahead of the 2020–21 season, whilst taking the opportunity to expand their league system from 48 clubs across four divisions to 64 clubs across four divisions. However, with the number of new clubs coming in.
Proposals currently include;
- Expanding all four divisions to 20 teams (ensuring 80 teams in the Senyan League, allowing space for 16 teams from the new territories to enter, and entering them all in the Fourth League, alongside the four promoted teams from the Senyan Intermediate League.
- Creating a new division at the fourth tier for teams from the new territories (which would ensure 16 teams from the new territories to enter, but increasing the relegation spots in the Third League from three to four.
- Expanding all divisions to 20 teams AND creating a new division at the fourth tier. This would allow for 20 teams from the new territories to enter, but would involve relegation/promotion alterations in the ongoing season. All relegations would be reprieved, with four teams being promoted from the Second League, 8 from the Third League, and 12 from the Fourth League.
Time zones
Senya is split between using CMT-4 and CMT-3, with Senya proper and Senyan Arboria following the former and Lamantia, Northern Senya and Tiana following the latter. Upper Senyan lands are currently split between the two time zones and the prospect of having one region using the two different time zones could potentially cause administrative problems, however it may be a necessary evil. The decision on where abouts the exact split should go however is yet to be made.
