Spatial Displacement Disaster
The Spatial Displacement Disaster was an event in 1757 AN that saw Dromosker Island warped through space by its ruling prince in an act of desperation, using a forbidden, ancient, one-time use, base transportation technology otherwise lost to time. Nearly the entire scope of Dromosker Island displaced itself onto the northern half of West Eriador Island. The good news was that it displaced nearly perfectly on the destination island's northern reaches, with the capital settlement coinciding with prior coastal and tidal topography. The bad news was that the destination island's volcano subsequently erupted, devastating the rest of the island and worsening the ensuing disaster. West Eriador was destroyed down to its very name, with Dromosker Island sitting on the wreckage.
The disaster saw Dromosker Island not only relocated across a large stretch of Micras, but subsequently saw the people subsumed rapidly into the large Imperial Federation, whose fresh proximity dwarfed the island's own in every respect and saw its recovery and subjugation under Anarion in the following months and years. The island's people would recover, and gradually assimilate into their vast new ruling country.
Background
From early 1757 AN, it was the 11th year of the reign of Prince Vlad Eru Tepesh, reigning as Eru IV. a Viceroy of Dromosker Island was appointed in that year as part of a defensive pact meant to stabilize the island's defenses in The Hexarchy's lapse of authority and desertion of its obligations to keep the island safe from pirates and others of that ilk. The Viceroy's sole purpose was to represent the Emperor of the Imperial Federation in his new capacity as Overlord of Dromosker Island.
This Viceroy, appointed by Dromosker Command on nonconsecutive 3-year terms on approval of the imperial court, was given veto power over the Prince's motions in specific matters of state. Existing agreements such as the Treaty of Portpur were allowed to continue, and direct Imperial governance was limited to its naval base, a permanent seat on the island's ruling council, and moderate restrictions on the Prince's ability to conduct his affairs as he saw fit (so long as they did not directly conflict with his overlord's interests). The planned transfer was interrupted due to lack of MCS recognition, however. As Imperial Federation authority was not recognized on the island, the Pact of Schaarlecht was struck between the Imperial Federation, Çakaristan, and the Dromosker Island government, designed to ensure the island's autonomy until it could be handed over. The Viceroy position was, therefore, temporarily transferred to Cakaristan, a move done without the islanders' consultation and upsetting both Dromosker and Askerr elites.
Due to the abrupt and confusing nature of the handover of authority, disorder on the island's interior significantly increased during the ensuing months. However, the capital districts and coastal military facilities never came under real threat, giving the Prince time to find alternative solutions to his most pressing problems. Both Dromosker Islanders and Askerr became restless and rebellious, and he needed something far more significant than conventional weapons or even dragons. He got his wish, and his found an ancient device under the catacombs of Imarru-Lugal that the ruling elight thought to be a weapon. (In reality, it was an ancient, experimental device from extraterrestrial origin used for transporting entire locations such as space bases to distant places. Such forbidden technology, unlike the much more stable Hurmu Gate, had not seen since the days of Jasonia and were all lost to the long stretches of time. Not understanding the technology well, and unable to move it due to its immense size, nor knowing its true purpose, he nonetheless decided to use it only in his most dire moment.
Disaster
The moment of truth would come for Prince Eru IV dreadfully soon. In mid-{AN|1757}}, the Pact was suddenly repudiated by Cakaristan following confusion amongst the MCS Council, and it sought to rapidly invade and colonize the island. Openly betrayed, the islanders and Imperial Federation, who had left the island under the Pact's conditions, were caught off guard. Eru IV rushed to the device's location, which conveniently happened to be underneath the catacombs of Imarru-Lugal, which the town had been built over due to their defensive merits. Eru reached the bunker built around the device, and activated the device.
Upon activating, the strange device drew up a topographical map of the world, and only gave similarly sized destination islands that were uninhabited as targets. Thinking that this was a personal travel device, Eru selected a place in friendly territory and attempted to activate it... only to realize that the device first demanded a radius of "area to transport." Hurriedly, he dialed in the maximum value of 256 to ensure his escape, and threw the activation lever. The device roared to life, and a profound, thunderous crash was felt throughout the entire island. The machine immediately melted down and self-destructed in a blaze of melting circuits and fire that Eru only barely managed to escape. The moment he reached the surface, the true extent of what he had wrought slammed into his eyes with force only the divine could possibly muster.
The island's surface, its capital city, and its people had been ripped out of their former location, relocated across space, and superimposed on a large, deserted volcanic island in the Isles of Eriador, known until that fateful moment simply as "West Eriador." ... And it happened to be Eru's intended target for escape. The resulting disaster reshaped West Eriador completely, with the device melting itself down to essentially perform a cosmic cut-and-paste function onto the deserted island. The move wasn't perfect. The device was meant for transporting infrastructure, not the terrain around it. While the entire island managed to move, the southern areas and interior met with an earthquake of unprecedented scale upon landing. The capital acting as the epicenter, the island down to its bedrock had essentially been cut away and placed neatly within its target destination, following the contours of terrain to match both the moving terrain and the destination's geology.
This movement and sudden change in the crust caused the otherwise dormant island's volcano to erupt. This violently filled in the seawater taken in by the island's sudden teleportation, which stemmed the very worst of the lava flow damage. Still, the earthquake paired with the resulting volcanic shock lasted for days, causing immense loss of life on the island. Some 10% of the island's 1.5 million people perished, and another 20% were either seriously injured in the cataclysm or suffered lifelong debilitations.
Aftermath
Despite the enormity of the damage and the loss of life in the countryside, the central settlement of Imarru-Lugal emerged relatively unscathed, as did much of the former Dromosker area's former topography. These factors assisted in rapid rescue and recovery efforts, especially for the outlying (and mostly outcast) Askerr who had been disproportionately affected in the disaster. The dragon population of the island fared well in the initial displacement, but suffered greatly from the volcano's eruption, as the dragons were inclined to live on the island's southern fringes away from the urban core of the island.
The Imperial Federation came in with nearby forces, the earthquake having badly impacted AL Hamra Island as well, and the smoke plume affecting areas as far as Fei-Jun Island. When the scale of the disaster became clear, every available ship in the Grand Armada of the Sunfire Sea was called in to assist with humanitarian efforts that would come to last for months. As calamitous as it was, the destruction of the island's central volcano proved to be an ecological boon for the island in the following years. The boosted agriculture due to massive gains in soil fertility restored the Askerr people's prosperity despite their sudden relocation so far from home. Proximity to the Imperial Federation's most densely populated regions also helped with speedy recovery efforts. These, and the island's enlarged area, also led to the more vagrant of the Askerr people taking up agricultural lifestyles, and the remainder found work in military contracting companies much easier to acquire, thanks to their proximity to their most relevant employers.
The dragon population remained stable, and some escaped to Al Hamra and Fei-Jun Island, where they found plenty of open space amid the rocky outcrops offered by these places. Transporting these dragons both in and out of these places, like those in Drag'os, was forbidden despite their considerably smaller size (originating from The Hexarchy). This would quickly end the dragon trade on Dromosker. However, there was now far less need of these creatures for security purposes, as the island came under more direct protection from the Imperial Federation and its vast military resources.
Prince Eru IV, however, did not come out of the disaster unscathed. Although he had saved his island and people, it came at immense cost. Not only was he severely injured during the opening moments of the disaster, but he was also blamed just as much for the island's miniature apocalypse as he was for its preservation. Were it not for the staunch defense from the islanders and the threat of a hostile population so close to home, Prince Eru IV kept his life after the trial was held in Gondolin late in that year. However, he wasn't so lucky to keep his personal power intact. Instead, he was forced to answer to an emergency council for similar situations, despite the impossible odds of ever finding another such device in the whole of Micras again. The proximity of Dromosker Island to a nearby major suzerain was also the fate he wished to avoid, and more direct rulership would be imposed via the royal court of Eriador also having a say, having lost a significant territory to the disaster (albeit an uninhabited one). Thus, Al Hamra's royal government would also gain a seat on Dromosker Island's Ruling Council, in exchange for the principality's continued autonomy within the Isles of Eriador.
International Reactions
Nouvelle Alexandrie: The Department of State refused to recognize the account, restating Secretary of State Jean-Michel Durand's earlier rejection of the 14.VII.1757 AN Çakari annexation and adding that it could not credit a second, incompatible claim that the island had been carried across Micras by a device recovered beneath Imarru-Lugal. Officials said the Federation would record only what its vessels and the relief services confirmed, an earthquake and a volcanic eruption in the northern Isles of Eriador with heavy loss of life, and would make no finding on a one-time machine of claimed extraterrestrial make lost since the age of Jasonia. "We have heard from one neighbor that the island is a province, and from another that it has crossed the planet," a senior official said. "Both cannot be true, and the Federation is under no obligation to pretend that either has been shown." The Federation extended condolences and offered relief through the Red Sun Society while continuing treating the island's sovereignty as unresolved. Sources in the Department of State of Nouvelle Alexandrie have confirmed that many inside the department believe this may be "a mass psychotic episode".
Natopia: The Imperial Natopian Government mourned the dead but declined to recognize any transfer of sovereignty arising from the disaster, receiving the report of an island raised from the sea and set down on the far side of the world "with courtesy, and without belief." Natopian Independent Committee for Standardization, an office of the Imperial Chancellery of Natopia, observed that tales of populations carried off overnight by lost devices were a recurring feature of folklore in disaster-struck regions, and that the islanders' testimony of light, thunder, and waters turned to vapor was consistent with the shared recollection of a community that had survived an earthquake and an eruption together, and with the wishes of those who had since come to govern them. The Empire said it held the scholarly view to be the sound one and would continue to show the Isles of Eriador as the natural geography recorded them. "The Empire will not certify a map redrawn by miracle," a foreign affairs spokesman said.
Anglien: The Free Duchy of Anglien offered condolences as a nation lately rebuilt from its own ruin, and deferred on cause and consequence to Nouvelle Alexandrie and Natopia, "on whose friendship the Duchy's recovery has depended." Its transitional government, under Prime Minister Eduard Vogt, said it would not recognize a change of sovereignty established by an account it had no means to confirm and would keep its charts as drawn until the matter was settled "by something firmer than testimony." "A people may be made to suffer, and a people may be made to move," the statement read. "A people is not made to forget where its island stood by being told that a machine carried it away." The Duchy wished the survivors of Dromosker the right, in time, to say plainly what was done to them.
Constancia: At the regular weekly press conference, the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry gave a hearty laugh at a related question put to him, and stated that the official position of the Imperial State on this matter was one of healthy skepticism. The defenses and preparedness of Zylenisí - which, he hastened to remind everyone, was sovereign Constancian territory - were being further strengthened. While foreigners were entitled to their own delusions and professions of faith, not everyone had to respect it. Those who wished to flee such madness were welcome to apply to the Ministry for Diaspora and Refugees or the Asylum and Refugees Commission.
Zeed: The Foreign Minister of the Commonwealth of the Republics of Zeed expressed concern at such an extraordinary occurrence, and issued a travel ban of Zeed citizens to these islands.
