Timeline of Modern Benacia (1675–1679)

A timeline of Benacian events in the aftermath of the Kalirion Fracture (1671–1675) which upended the longstanding continental balance of power.

1676

I

• 3: Elwynnese prince Ander Avon-El, furious after the Council of Eliria voted to repudiate the Treaty of Concord against its own provisions, calls the decision illegal, and instead publishes an instrument of government confirming the validity of the Treaty of Concord. In a statement released along with the instrument of government, Avon-El states that if the Council of Eliria still wishes to withdraw from the treaty during the twelfth year after its implementation, the Council of Eliria may so decide at that time in accordance with law.
• 4: The Ayreonist Independence Party, the Communist Party of Elwynn, the Amokolian Freedom Front, the Conservative Historical Party and the Mishalanski Party for Democratic Socialism release statements in support of the Prince's interpretation.
• 5: With the Verionists having lost control over Monty Crisco and Elsenar's authorities and civil service (except in Chryse) and therefore begun a huge evacuation to Keltia where apparently now the Verionists have found a land of milk and honey, the Imperial Regency and the Verionists agree to a transfer of sovereignty of Elsenar (except the Chryse area) and Monty Crisco back to Shireroth. It is rumoured that because of Shireroth's inability to administer parts of these territories, that the Regency is therefore in negotiations with other Vulture States on how to proceed with these territories. One option on the table, leaked to the press in Eliria, is that Elsenar in its entirety would be granted Ransenar while the Guttuli Protectorate would have an option to take parts of Monty Crisco.
  • With news of the Great Disaster having reached Goldfield, the Cabinet sends a resolution to the Ransenari Congress for approval to authorize and fund the beginning of a large scale humanitarian, medical, and scientific mission to the ruins of Elsenar.
• 9: The Majles-e Showrā-ye Darbār, legislature of the Alalehzamini Autonomous Republic, initiated proceedings that could, if replicated in either the Northern Commonwealth or the Congressional Counties, result in the impeachment and removal of Ander Avon-El.
• 13: Delegates from the Sovereign Confederation and the Kingdom of Ransenar meet in Goldshire Hamlet to discuss coordination of a common foreign policy and greater economic cooperation.
• 14:
  • The Tassity Mansabdar killed the pirate leader. The mission on Naudia'Diva is accomplished. In a letter to the Imperial Regency, the King of Amokolia says that the Arkadian Sector can be returned. The letter comes with a box containing the head of the pirate leader. The full story is worked out in The Micras Chessboard.
  • Amokolia closes the border with Unified Governorates of Benacia.
• 18: The Amokolian People's Party delegation to the Elwynnese congress moves for a vote of no confidence in Prince Ander Avon-El. In a statement by its leader, Jorgen Basker-Daal said: "The actions of the Prince have injured the prospects of Amokolian reunification for decades ahead. It is clear he not fit to lead our republic. For those reasons, we call for his impeachment in Congress."
  • In response to the motion ahead in the Congress, the Ayreonist Independence Party, of which Prince Ander Avon-El is also a member, left the congressional government. Its ministers resigned with immediate effect, leaving the executive with a one-seat majority in Congress.
• 19: The Elwynnese Workers' Party also left the government, said that it would call for a vote of no confidence in the Conducator after the vote on the Prince. An EWP spokesperson said "It is clear that this is an N&H-led ploy to get progressives out of government positions in Elwynn. Ander Avon-El has been a good prince and he does not deserve this kind of treatment."
• 20: The Elwynnese congress votes on the motion of no confidence in Prince Ander Avon-El, 144 votes in favour (N&H, VU, DEM, APP, HPDI) against 105 votes against (AIP, CPE, EWP, AFF, CHP, PR, MPDS). The President of the Congress subsequently communicated the results to the Council of Eliria.
• 21: Raspur Pact debriefers have a few stern words with some captured VBA officers concerning the wisdom, or lack thereof, of housing lethal pathogens on the same facility as an experimental reactor.
• 24:
  • The Majles-e Showrā-ye Darbār delivers its verdict on the Prince of Elwynn with 197 votes in favour of the motion of no confidence (N&H, VU, DEM, BEH) vs 39 against (AIP, EWP). The Sardar of the Alalehzamini Autonomous Republic is duly mandated to convey the news of the result to the Council of Eliria.
  • Ground based air defences in Elwynnese Amokolia are placed on high alert whilst Benacia Command ordered the Central and Northern Banner Groups to disperse their aircraft to satellite runways and to establish patterns of 24-hour combat air patrolling until further notice. The Western Banner Group, headquartered on New Blackstone commenced snap drills, taking units out of their permanent cantonments and into their forward defensive positions.

II

• 1:
  • The Council of Eliria meets in which the votes of confidence in Prince Ander Avon-El are communicated and found to be in good form. Ander Avon-El confirms their validity, thanks the other members of the Council for a fruitful cooperation, and hands over the executive to the senior-most member of the Council, Firdaus Abdollahi Mehr. Mehr will be Steward until the new princely elections have concluded.
  • As the preceding week of cloud cover over Western Northbloom is cleared by a boreal high pressure front, the fresh satellite imagery of various powers reveals that on the fringes of the town of Usheroff, a strip of ground some 2,400 metres long has been cleared, graded and hastily overlaid with slabs of PAG-14 to create a runway. Other visible details are a single parked Floret in camouflage livery, a hangar composed of a three-sided revetment with a fabric canopy and a series of ragged taxiways radiating out toward presumable dispersal stands in the cover of nearby woodland.
  • The front page of the Usheroff and District Newsletter and Spare Parts Directory details eerie eyewitness reports of "The Howling Night Birds of the Ermingander Road". Meetings are held in surrounding villages to discuss "The Usheroff Thing" which draw the usual crowd of nutjobs, moonbats, fruitcakes and concerned mothers, the less credible of whom are generously interviewed for that evening's Kalgachi television news and immediately discredit the existence of the phenomenon in the minds of most viewers. The handful of sober and sane witnesses, including the only one able to make coherent drawings of what he saw, are largely ignored and the stigma of their association with the farcical proceedings soon shames them into silence.
• 3: Batavia and West Amokolia sign the Treaty of Koningsbergen.
• 4: Conducator Nila Valgarai of the Democrat–N&H–APP minority government in Elwynn falls in a vote of no confidence. 144 votes in favour (VU, AIP, CPE, EWP, AFF, CHP, PR, MPDS, HPDI), and 105 votes against (N&H, DEM, APP). The President of the Congress, Benjamin Sluyjs, relieves the Conducator of her office, and authorizes her to lead a caretaker government until the Congress has confirmed a Conducator. Sluyjs consequently meets with all party leaders to discuss the new government formation.
• 5: Elwynnese congress government formation 1676: The AIP leader meets with the APP leader to discuss the basis of a government. Although the APP voted against Prince Ander Avon-El, and the AIP against the APP coalition, the two party leaders said to the media afterwards that they had much in their programme they could use to build a coalition. "Given congressional arithmetic, however, we'd need more parties to these talks."
• 6: Elwynnese congress government formation 1676: The AIP begins talks with Communists and the EWP, while the APP begins talks with the other Amokolian parties.
• 7: 1676 Elwynnese princely elections: Verionist Union announces Stephen Lewis as its princely candidate.
• 8: Elwynn's Ayreonist Independence Party announces Meqael Mizarielion as its candidate in the 1676 Elwynnese princely elections.
• 10: The Amokolian People's Party announces Jorgen Basker-Daal as its candidate in the 1676 Elwynnese princely elections.
• 19: The Ayreonist Independence Party and the Amokolian People's Party report they have been unable to secure a majority coalition, and urge the President of Congress to discuss the question of government formation more intimately and aggressively with party leaders, saying "new elections are the last thing we need at this time of political crisis".
• 23: The N&H announces the candidacy of Frederik Haabye Truls for the vacant principate.

III

• 4: Details of the N&H electoral platform energe. Focus to be upon developing an export based manufacturing sector to build up industrial capacity and working capital, with surpluses to be reinvested in defence, law and order, and public infrastructure policy. Foreign policy - to remain aligned with Raspur Pact, introduce quarantine along Amokolian frontier. Domestic policy - encourage civic reconciliation, audit of any Verionist "special projects" established by previous administration in view of notable safety lapses elsewhere. First electoral event - symbolic blockade of the Amokolian Oriental Express in Mishalan.
• 6: Kalgachia issues a statement on the ongoing Bovic Schism, remarking that "the resolve of the state and clerical classes of Drak-Modan to bring their centres of societal gravity within Benacian shores marks a commendable return toward the cherished precepts of collective Benacian sovereignty established by the Maven Nohsi Goltz in late antiquity - a timely and welcome development when the northern saddle of our continent is once again compromised by an alien colonial power and the cause of Benacian solidarity has become an imperative."
  • As Drak-Modani developments in the husbandry of famed Natopian goat breeds for dairy purposes have attracted the interest of Kalgachia's highland farming community, enquiries are passed to Drakorda through a chain of commercial intermediaries regarding the export availability of breeding specimens.
• 11: The Commissioner of New Blackstone, Jeremiah Avon-El, is sent to Kalgachia on a five-day furlough, at the personal direction of the Szodan, to investigate what experiences and amenities are afforded to notable personages utilising the newly promulgated "Pachadsberg Visa".
• 12: Upon arrival in Pachadsberg, Commissioner Avon-El - being the highest UGB official to have set foot in the Garden since the Slavegate Convention negotiations - is received by Caustifer Yastreb, chair of the Pachadsberg Development Committee who leads him on a guided tour of the resort's completed and ongoing works. This is followed by a meeting with a Mr. Waller at the Puckadobey Savings Bank, where initial discussion of mutual acquaintances leads to an illuminating conversation about the jurisdictional hedging of personal capital for purposes of audit reconciliation and insulation from failures thereof. A numbered PSB account is opened for Avon-El's "casino winnings" and he is left to experience the full delights of Pachadsberg at his own initiative.
• 16: First round in the 1676 Elwynnese princely elections. Frederik Haabye Truls of the N&H wins a plurality but fails to secure a majority. In the second round, scheduled for next month, Mr Haabye Truls will face Meqael Mizarielion (AIP). Third-placed Stephen Lewis of the Verionist Union, although securing 76% of the Northern Commonwealth vote, did not manage to advance to the second round.
• 18: The Ayreonist Independence Party and Amokolian People's Party, on one side, begin coalition talks with the Nationalist and Humanist Party and the Democratic Party on the other side.
• 24: Elwynnese congressional coalition talks stall on the question of Conducator. N&H–DEM side steadfast that Nila Valgarai (DEM) is reelected to the position. AIP–APP side want an AIP candidate.

IV

• 1: Elwynnese congressional coalition talks continue. The parties agree not to discuss the question of conducatorship for a week.
• 6: The parties tentatively agree on a platform for governance of the congressional counties, based on national cohesion, an Amokolian curriculum in Amokolian bailiwicks, expanded private insurances of pension and ill health, a fairer taxation regime, and overview of the post-feudalist of justice system.
• 7: The AIP–APP and N&H–DEM talks agree that if an Ayreonist wins the princely elections, the Democrats get the conducatorship, and if the N&H wins the princely elections, an Ayreonist gets the conducatorship.
• 8: 1676 Elwynnese princely elections. In the second round, Frederik Haabye Truls (N&H) narrowly beat (51–49%) AIP contender Meqael Mizarierion for the position of Prince. As soon as the results were announced, Mr Haabye Truls swore the oath of office and took his seat in the Council of Eliria. Mr Mizarierion said, as soon as the results were announced, that he was pleased that he had been elected Conducator of the Elwynnese Republic, and that he looked forward to leading the congressional government in Elwynn.
• 9: The President of the Elwynnese Congress, Mr Benjamin Sluyjs (APP) brought forward the first reading of the motion to elect Meqael Mizarierion to Conducator of the Elwynnese Republic, heading a coalition government of the Nationalist & Humanist Party, the Democratic Party of Elwynn, the Amokolian People's Party, and the Ayreonist Independence Party.
• 11: The Elwynnese Congress confirms the election of Meqael Mizarierion (AIP) to Conducator of the Elwynnese Republic, with 130 votes in favour (N&H, DEM, APP, AIP), and 119 votes against (VU, CPE, EWP, AFF, CHP, PR, MPDS, HPDI).
• 12: Elwynnese congressional Conducator Meqael Mizarierion announces a twenty-member cabinet including himself consisting of 7 N&H members, 5 Democrats, 4 members of the Amokolian People's Party, and 3 additional members of the Ayreonist Independence Party. Outgoing conducator Nila Valgarai (DEM) is made Minister of Finance and notes wryly to the media that there are now no women in the Council of Eliria.
• 21: Shireroth wins the Microvision Song Contest 2019. Kaiseress Salome awarded Shireroth's points personally, giving Sanama 12 points. She has, according to court rumours, a teen crush on the Sanaman singer Dimash Kudaibergen, awards Kudaibergen a title of Baronage (Baron Kudaibergen; in Shirerithian peerage, baronies are only granted foreigners), and has invited Kudaibergen for tea and cake. The Kaiseress also awards lordships in Shirekeep for the Coldplay members (the lowest form of nobility), remarking however that their song was "pathetic". She is happy, though, that the Florian Republic finally saw the light and gave Shireroth 12 points.
• 22: The Kalgachi tabloid Private Ear fills its front page with two illustrations: a transcript of assurances given by the King of West Amokolia to the Prince of Elwynn on 17.I denying any intent to convert his realm into a Storish client state, next to a table displaying the Microvision votes of Stormark and West Amokolia in which they awarded each other the maximum points. Beneath, typeset in bold faux-runic, is the headline: "By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them".
  • The Private Ear front page is featured prominently on Ransenari media (known for its sensationalism), triggering huge demand for issues of the tabloid to catch the illustrations. Putting it in context with West Amokolia's brazen expansionist designs on Elsenar, opinion pages and media coverage reports on the illustrations as the latest salvo in the "war for the minds of the peoples of the Benacian continent", regarding the Vanic-West Amokolian cooperation in the Microvision Song Contest 2019 as a concerted effort to take control or influence the culture of the country and reinstate the "Vanic Web".
  • The Daily Mail & Telegraph of Eliria, whilst disdaining to comment upon so vulgar a matter as the Microvision contest directly, being distinctly sniffy about "low culture", provided a droll analysis of the sociological and political factors that had combined to elevate the favouritism shown by Brandenburg to Haraldsborg to a matter of international concern. The paper duly dismissed the voting proclivities of the King of West Amokolia as being "a cheap shot concerning a trivial matter, one flung back in spite over having been so thoroughly drubbed by the international community for his misguided attempt to capitalise on the misfortunes of Elsenar."
  • Rumours circulate in Eliria concerning the abrupt departure of the former Prince for a new academic posting in Tala, Raikoth, accompanied by a sizeable close protection detail, in the same month that a new edict concerning the status of Elwynnese adherence to the Treaty of Concord is anticipated.
• 23: Verionist Union leader, and Northern Conducator, Stephen Lewis holds a speech in Fieldburg, televised live in most parts of the country. He decries the "N&H takeover of the government" and warns that the Northern Commonwealth now "stands as a last resort, as often in our history, against the grubby hands of imperialist powers. Be it Storish, be it communists or be it the disasterous dictatorship of the Osmani Gang, whose black shadow falls over Benacia as the Star of Verion is pushed away to the North". In a response to questioning from journalists, Lewis refused to say if he recognised the new government, or would implement the policy of the new administration, instead replying with a cryptic "The North does as the North does".
  • Inhabitants of the Northern Commonwealth are bemused by a sudden blitz of publicity materials produced by the Court of the Prince detailing essential items to carry in a "grab bag" and other hints and tips for preparedness in the face of an unspecified emergency.
  • Asked about Conducator Lewis' comments concerning the the "N&H takeover of the government" the press spokeswoman for the Court of the Prince tersely replied "It's called 'winning an election on the basis of a popular vote', Agha Lewis really ought to try it some time."

V

• 1: Operation Kulning: Driving through the night from Dragonskeep, a detachment of UDF engineers and administrative personnel arrived in Fieldburg on the morning of 01.V.1676, under the command of Generalmajor Jan Gräbner. The Generalmajor's first act upon arrival was to summon the Superintendent Officer of Cudgels and Master of Cudgels, and the Deputy Director of the Panopticon Department, the heads of Republican law enforcement and security in the city, to join him for breakfast at the hotel which he had now requisitioned for a headquarters. Having taken the opportunity, over fried herrings, poached eggs, lingonberries, and rye bread, to remind his guests of their obligations to the constitution and the democratic order of the Republic, the Generalmajor genially explained the purpose of his mission. Exercise Tempus Est had convinced the incoming Prince of the utility of the Agnesian Gulf, protected from boreal storms by the Cimmerian Isles, as a natural bastion for the naval forces of Elwynn and the Raspur Pact in Benacia. To this end existing harbour facilities at Port Illumination and Vijayanagara would be expanded and a new naval dockyard would be constructed on the island of Wolfraven. To support all of this would require significant investment in infrastructure in the region. The Generalmajor's task therefore was to identify land for purchase in Fieldburg and to identify from the available options an optimal site for the construction of a new UDF Operations Centre intended to coordinate all defence activities in the Agnesia-Cimmeria region. As the cudgellers were subject to a chain of command stretching back, via the fetchingly titled Bludgeoner-General of the Corps of the Gentlemen-at-Cudgels, to the Court of the Prince, where their loyalties therefore must ultimately lay, the Generalmajor charged his breakfast partners with lending every assistance when it came to the matter of 'liaising' with representatives of the local authorities, who might be less than fully cooperative in view of the truculent attitude adopted by the present Conducator in recent days.

VII

N&H Propagandists in Eliria were seemingly either unwilling or unable to allow the purported demise of the House of Verion to pass without comment...

• 16: Rumours begin to spread that a chartered Nakalma flight from 's Koningenwaarde to the Verionian Imperial capital of Sarhat - carrying the Batavian Prime Minister Joachim Mackay, the Liberadosan president Jacobo Castrigo Álvarez and the Viceroy of Verionist Benacia Jana Al-Basani - is reported overdue and has made no communication with air traffic control since beginning its transit of the Great Western Sea. Their personal and business links aside, the improbable hubris and geopolitical implications of gathering so many important personages at a single point of danger do not pass without remark. A long range patrol by a scout shuttle of the Natopian Defense Force, overflying the vicinity on a suborbital trajectory, reported anomalous electromagnetic readings immediately prior to the disappearance of Flight 731 off air traffic control radar screens.
• 17: Long convoys of trucks, armoured personnel carriers, and low-loaders carrying vehicles shrouded under tarpaulin covers are reported as wending their way westwards from Merensk and Sansabury along the few good roads leading into the Siyacha Free State and the area of operations of the I Uihmanz facing the frontier with Kasterburg. Sources close to Benacia Command insist that the bringing up to strength of the establishments of formations attached to the 1st Corps was long over due and not made in response to any specific occurrence.
• 19: The OIEC Director of Benacian Operations, Bobbert Shrubschild, is waylaid by journalists on arrival at Gravelbottom Airport and questioned about the Corporation's reponse to the recent activation of a secret protocol between the governments of Los Liberados and the Florian Republic, wherein the latter has assumed sovereignty over the former. Shrubschild states that "the Board of Directors are still assessing the situation but have decided that our head office will remain in Puerto Arcadio for now. With the apparent demise of Prime Minister Mackay, Batavia's increased vulnerability to the Vanic domino puts future trade with its confederation in some doubt but the Euran market remains viable. The Florian Republic, having the institutional memory of a concussed goldfish, represents for our purposes an optimally deregulated business environment to which we would cautiously welcome a transition." Shortly afterwards, Caustifer Yastreb is seen boarding an outbound flight on his way to an "emergency shareholder meeting".
• 23: The Verionist Vespers begin, with the Raspur Pact commencing the suppression of the Iron Company and the Verionist Union on a global scale.
  • Religious hysteria grips the Bovic community in northern Benacia, already disorientated by the schism in the Dozan Bovic Church, with the herds (congregations) cleft between the mother church and the schismatics of Drak-Modan, as videos circulate purportedly showing the most dreaded entity in the Bovic pantheon manifesting as the Blood Aurochs, given substance by the slaughter carried out by the faithful on the gore splattered steps of his church in the bailiwick of Saint Biffor. Every individual who watches any of the video clips of the Blood Aurochs receives a commandment burnt into their psyche. The instruction varies according to the watcher but comes in the form of an intensely personal revelation that is invariably homicidal in its ultimate intent. Authorities have suspended the data networks of northern Elwynn in an effort to slow the spread of the videos and have sought the assistance of both Bovic Churches, along with their Elwynnese brethren in an attempt to locate and destroy all physical copies of the same. The creation of a memetic murder plague was an unexpected development to say the least, which would go on to significantly complicate efforts to restore order in the Northern Commonwealth.
• 24: After it became clear that the Batavian prime minister is most likely no longer alive, the king instituted a state of emergency.

VIII

• 16 :
  • Karel Kyle is born, the second child of Arkadius Frederik Gustavus des Vinandy and Clara des Vinandy - Sundara Waffel-Paine.
  • The city of Chryste was transferred to the Kingdom of Batavia by Verionist Republic.

• 23 : Operation Fanlin is declared complete. The remaining territory of Southern Lunaris, as determined by the Guttuli Protectorate's treaty with the Ransenar, is reorganized into four commands. Resettlement programs are launched to bring the territory into line with the cultural and socio-economic nature of the remainder of the Protectorate.

XI

• 6: Evert Flint, the Verionist President of Elwynn's Northern Congress, orders a full recess until further notice of the Northern Commonwealth's legislature.

• 10: Anti-Verionist backlash in the Northern Commonwealth continues, fueled by Bovic extremist rhetoric.

• 24: The Kalgachi government opens an Extraordinary Grand Council - the third in its history - to deliberate on the country's future in the context of a re-congealing Benacian order. Speaking to reporters, Lady Lieutenant Rubina Yastreb of Oktavyan denies rumours that Kalgachia is re-entering an isolationist phase and that "all present foreign trade arrangements will be maintained insofar as they are salvageable and sustainable in a post-Verion context. The extent to which this is the case remains to be precisely determined."

X

• 8: Evert Flint, the Verionist speaker of the Northern Commonwealth's legislature (now in recess), was apprehended by a UDF snatch squad and conveyed to Eliria. Upon his arrival there he was obliged, whilst in some discomfort discusses on account of the manner in which he was handled during transit, to discuss the political crisis with a special committee formed the Congressional Counties government. The CC government pushes for a reintegration of the Northern Commonwealth into the Congressional Counties, which the Verionist rejected out of hand. "We would rather die", he was quoted to say. "That can be arranged", one of his interlocutors was heard to answer.

XI

• 10: Evert Flint, president of the Northern Commonwealth congress and de facto conducator in the absence of Stephen Lewis, meets with the Council of Eliria, the Dozan Bovic Church's Eparchy of Benacia, members of the Verionist Union rump leadership, and representatives of the Holy Church of the Divine Icebear. The Verionists understand that their days are numbered. The Bovic church assumes some responsibility for the actions by Bovic extremists in the Northern Commonwealth targeting Verionists violently. Conducator Meqael Mizarierion, a noted critic of the Bovic religion, moves to let the Bovics clean up the mess they instigated. The Bovic church denies that they created the mess, saying it was the Verionists who did, but that they do take responsibility for acts committed in Bous's name. "Genocide, however, has no place in Elwynn." The Holy Church of the Divine Icebear moves to establish an Icebear autonomous republic in Cimmeria. Other delegates at the meeting ignore the proposal.

• 20: Negotiations regarding the political situation in the Northern Commonwealth continue. Evert Flint asks for amnesty for Verionists in exchange for a peaceful solution. Mezarierion agrees.

XII

• 1: Official negotiations with the Council of Eliria regarding the Northern Commonwealth's political situation are announced to have failed. The rump legislature leadership, Evert Flint, the Dozan Bovic Church, the Holy Church of the Divine Icebear, the Democratic Party of Elwynn, and Conducator Meqael Mizarierion begin informal discussions outside the remit of the Council of Eliria.
• 11: After ten days of intense negotiations with regard to the political situation in the Northern Commonwealth, it is agreed:
  • The Verionist Union to be dissolved within the Elwynnese Republic, its assets used to grant pensions to the leadership of the party. Verionist leaders (defined to include members of the Verionist Union board of directors, Verionist members of the Elwynnese legislatures, and Verionist members of the autonomous republics' governments) to refrain from political activity for life. In return, they will be granted a pension for life, funded by the Congressional Counties and Northern Commonwealth governments as well as the Verionist liquidation fund. Verionists in the legislatures shall resign en masse immediately upon the deal's ratification by the Northern Commonwealth's congress, and their seats remain absent until the next elections.
  • Eki Verion to remain under house arrest, the funding of which rests on the
  • The Holy Church of the Divine Icebear to close all its missions outside Cimmeria. In return, the Church will receive an annual fund from the Northern Commonwealth budget.
  • The Dozan Bovic Church agrees not to have missionaries, clergy or congregations in Cimmeria.
  • A total amnesty of all crimes committed in the Northern Commonwealth between the date of Stephen Lewis's disappearance and the ratification of this deal by the Northern Commonwealth legislature.
  • Until new elections are held in the Northern Commonwealth, Aldin Ayreon-Kalirion and his wife Li Naomiai to lead the Northern Commonwealth government.
• 12: The Northern Commonwealth's rump legislature, called back to session, ratifies the informal deal by electing Li Naomiai Avon-El the president of Northern Congress and her husband Aldin Ayreon-Kalirion (the son of Kaiseress Noor, former Prince of Elwynn, Bovic theologian) to Conducator of the Northern Congress. Li Naomiai's first act is to suspend the legislature until peace is restored in the Northern Commonwealth and new elections held.
• 20: The Board of Directors of ESB-Jörmungandr Group, Inc, in accordance with rights vested in or exercised by the Corporation of the Seneschal of the march on behalf of the Corporation of the Marchioness of Zy-Rodun, pursuant to The First Protocol (Governance) of the Technical Cooperation Agreement & Structural Assistance Programme Between the Raspur Pact and Emirate of Sathrati, resolves to designate the Director of Benacian Operations, Garvin Hendriksson, to serve as Plenipotentiary of the Honourable Company with respect to The Emirate of Sathrati together with the Imperial Dominion of the Marquessate of Zy-Rodun and the Counties of Yardistan, Amity, and Mirioth, and possesses complete authority to act in the name of the Board of Directors of the Honourable Company, unless otherwise directed by the Board of Directors. The appointment of a Principal Secretary of State and Undersecretaries are ratified.
• 21: Kalgachia's Extraordinary Grand Council concludes its session. Its rulings assert a comfortable attitude toward the trajectory of Benacian geopolitics, establish an armed force for the Upland Confederation to relieve pressure on the KDF and slow the filling of non-native raw material stockpiles from expansion levels to maintenance levels whilst leaving foreign trade routes open. The Council's most notable rulings are in the field of religious doctrine; namely the canonisation of Vascarina Goldcluck and the classification of the undead and Deep Singers as manifestations of a divine "temporary intervention" whose "recontextualisation" is required for post-Minarborian culture to "move beyond its Caverdenian origins of gratuitous, spine-chilling otherness and find beneficient relevance in the lives of ordinary Benacians." The latter declaration takes many by surprise and is interpreted variously as a reaction to the renewed torpor of Lord Toastypops, an attempt to undercut the moral authority of the Nationalist-Humanists in the Southern Post-Minarborian Space, or a combination.

XIV

• 12: The Directive on Marriage, Reproductive Function, and Societal Obligation is published by Benacia Command, taking effect across the territories of the Unified Governorates. Superseding Imperial Decree 865 the new directive mainly preserved the intent of the original Imperial law albeit dispensing with the disagreeable licence afforded to the now abolished aristocracy to marry as they pleased. Key improvements upon the preceding law was the codification of the Age of Obligation at sixteen years of age, and an effort to place the arrangement of marriage onto a scientific and rational basis by involving municipal government, the guilds, and health authorities, in the selection and pairing of suitable partners in each graduating age cohort. Notably the primary purpose of marriage was to drive procreation, with some allowance to the function of the family unit as an engine of social cohesion and stability. Romantic sentiment, therefore being a significantly more tertiary consideration, became largely the preserve of those deemed unsuitable or incapable of breeding. The institution of civil unions, previously established as a sop to those denizens ineligible for marriage under the old arrangements, was allowed to lapse. Barren marriages would be annulled after their tenth year and childlessness would be punished by the levying of a mandatory tax, used to fund a system of rewards and benefits afforded to successful breeding pairs, with a lifelong stipend for those who reached the target of four children birthed per household and a bonus for every surplus child born.
• 18: The first Committee for Popular Vigilance is established in Gloomburg, an otherwise obscure and overlooked city of the Unified Governorates, with the espoused aim of suppressing profanity, immorality, and other lewd activities in general, and the establishment of reformatories, modelled upon the worker colonies which formerly housed the Froyalaners, for the housing of the recalcitrant.
• 20: Joint Benacia Command-Ransenari procurement programme announced to equip Ransenari Regimental Corps of Artillery with ordnance appropriate to its mission profile. At present the artillery arm, bereft of field guns, has primary responsibility for ground-based air defence, custodianship of missile stockpiles, and the operating of the Royal Ransenari Armed Forces complement of fifty "Tadpole" tactical reconnaissance drones.

1677

I

• 1: Benjamin Cambernon has been appointed Prime Minister of Batavia.
• 23: First reformatory opens in Laikum's Wald, a model settlement established in the Litel Governorate (UGB).

III

• 6: Obsolete and worn airframes, especially of the B-49 Delta and B-66 Vulcan which have been in continuous service with the Imperial Forces and Benacia Command since the late 1630's, begin to transfer, via long haul flights and staging points in Istvanistan and Alrodey to the Pact's strategic aviation reserve, particularly for storage in the so-called Boneyard of Arak.
• 14: The venerable GV-1(MBT) Bandersnatch is retired from service in the Black Legions. Once held to be a vehicle of great promise, the gravimetric drive propulsion system of the gravtank in particular proved to be technologically complex, logistically burdensome, and unreliable under field conditions. The folly of Bandersnatch commanders pressing ahead of their supporting troops in pursuit of the "main chance" was amply demonstrated during the Battle of 's-Koningenwaarde. After this nadir of the Imperial Army, concurrent with the maturation of interdiction technologies, the Bandersnatch was never again afforded licence to roam at will across the land - being instead constrained to remain behind its accompanying defensive screen of Horjins, Whirdlebirds, and legionaries - fundamentally curbing its utility in mobile warfare. Eventually Benacia Command concluded that the cumulative force, in terms of firepower and mobility, dedicated to protecting Bandersnatches in the field were sufficient - in and of themselves - to accomplish the majority of missions the Bandersnatch might reasonably have been expected to undertake.
  • News of the Bandersnatch's retirement is met with a mixture of relief and sentimental lament among armed forces of Kalgachia for whom it inspired, to date, the company-level deployment of 2,948 hypersonic kinetic missiles with replenishment stocks in the high tens of thousands, gifting them one of the most potent infantry anti-tank capabilities on Micras and unwittingly amassing one of its largest reserves of refined tungsten. Citing this economic value, along with the missiles' proven utility as one of the few weapons capable of a one-shot kill against a Tee-al, a spokesman for the Kalgachi Defence Force Armaments Office announces that there are no plans for a reduction in anti-gravtank weapon stocks.
• 15: The undisguised build up of forces in Caverden, Drak-Modan, and Sathrati would appear to indicate that Benacia Command is once again turning its attention back to the festering problem of the Guttuli Protectorate.
• 20: Reports of incursions by the Guttuli Corps into the region of the Crestfallen Hills, conducted under the pretext of harrying the remnant rebel forces cut off by the sudden collapse of the Verionist regime in southern Benacia, are relayed by Benacia Command to the Permanent Commission of the Raspur Pact. The High Commissioner presented the findings to the Commission with an admonition that any further retreat of Imperial sovereignty in Caverden would represent the toppling of the first domino in a sequence that would cascade into the final, absolute, and irrevocable collapse of what remained of the Kaiser's writ over southern and eastern Benacia - with dire consequences for the security of Pact member-states in Benacia. The message presented to the commissioners in Loup's peroration was that they were either to act together to ensure collective security by standing against the Guttuli Protectorate now or else, if not, they were free to make individual accommodations with the Guttuli but with their track record in Lunaris in mind it should be understood that those who place their faith in treaties with the regime are merely hoping for the privilege of being devoured last. With these concluding remarks two motions were tabled - firstly to establish an allied training mission to support the Army of Caverden and its organisation into an effective force, whilst the second was to institute a thorough quarantine of the Protectorate, sealing the borders and interdicting the sea lanes, until such time as the Guttuli relinquished their occupation of the Lowbrook region and ceased its genocidal policy in occupied portions of southern Lunaris.
• 21: Land border between Guttuli Protectorate and Ransenar sealed without explanation. Travellers on Guttuli papers in Ransenari territory detained by plain clothes officers with support from local security forces whilst Guttuli flagged ships and commercial aircraft are similarly impounded.
• 22: Benacia Command issues a "no-fly" order concerning all Guttuli registered aviation assets, authorising the use of deadly force as a last resort if efforts to turn any Guttuli aircraft to return to ground in their own air space fail.
• 23: Telephone exchanges and electronic communications networks operated by the Guttuli Protectorate begin to experience connectivity issues. Gradually becoming apparent that Guttuli controlled nodes are being isolated from the vestigial Benacian Data Network and being physically disconnected by the digging up of communications cables in border regions.

IV

• 05: The Sabatini Squadron of the Southern Banner Group resumes pattern of boarding, searching, and seizing vessels suspected of conducting trade in Guttuli ports, irrespective of registry flag.

V

• 17: The Navy of Ransenar announces, with considerable fanfare, the capture of suspected smuggler vessel the Jolly Froyalaner in Ransenari territorial waters. Credit attributed to two corvette captains presented to Pact affiliated media as emblematic of the professionalism and espirit de corps of the new navy. With the news of the seizure comes the first explicit acknowledgement of the Pact's new quarantine policy towards the Guttuli Protectorate.
  • The Octavian Import-Export Corporation, the last known operator of the Jolly Froyalaner, initially denies accusations of the vessel's involvement in arms trafficking until the Ransenari Navy releases video and photographic evidence of the assorted infantry weapons filling its hold, whereupon the Corporation characterises the vessel as "an independently owned maritime conveyance under the Corporation's intermittent charter which was not in effect at the time of its seizure." The Corporation nonetheless announces that it is negotiating for the vessel's release.
• 18: The Jolly Froyalaner arrives empty at Torpentus Creek, its Guttuli operating base where its skipper meets with officials of Command Svalbarh on behalf of the vessel's indeterminate owners to settle liability for the lost cargo. Finding himself outnumbered among armed hosts who are accustomed to the cash-on-delivery precedents of his previous voyages, the skipper is persuaded at length to waive the expected payment of local commodities for foreign sale. Instead these are purchased with gold Kalgarrands cut from the inner lining of his purser's pea coat - the Froyalaner is duly loaded with foodstuffs, hand tools and nitrate fertiliser before setting sail that evening, keeping close inshore instead of heading directly for open water.
• 20: Following an emergency meeting of the Protectorate Military Council, a Joint Office for Naval Works was formed between the Office for Medium Machining, the Office for Great Guns, and the Office for High Seas Acquisitions, with the intention to coordinate and oversee the construction and outfitting of new combat vessels. Tribune K. Elisz, formerly the chief overseeing officer for Kern Industries under the Office for Upper-Musika, is reassigned to GU-Furgsad and given command of a light battlegroup in Salb Bresa. His replacement, Tribune T. Hælzik, is tasked with prioritizing the completion of four corvettes that are two years past due on delivery to the Guttuli Corps. Salbs Aïreon and Meskan ordered to mobilize and redeploy to Meszor, directive issued for the provision of transports to ferry them across the river.

VI

• 8: An early-morning patrol of Guttulinese coastal barrier troops encounters the Jolly Froyalaner beached on the shore of the Bay of Sleep. Its visibly unsettled crew point to a series of high-calibre bullet holes in the hull and describe a close escape from a pursuing Ransenari corvette in which they were obliged to throw their cargo of infantry weapons overboard to lighten draught and increase speed, before grounding the vessel to effect hull repairs and await refloating by the incoming tide. The skipper's suggestion to fill the vessel with weapons from the local troops' armoury, to be passed off in Svalbarh as the lost cargo in exchange for a cut of the payment, is firmly declined.

VII

• 6: The Guttuli Protectorate commissions its first corvette, the PS Bætrsuir ("Bitter Storm"). It is assigned to Ałeþus Morsva for patrol of the northern Shire Sea and protection of cargo vessels.
• 8: The Jolly Froyalaner returns to Torpentus Creek from yet another voyage without its promised cargo of small arms. In the face of increasing dissatisfaction from his local customers, the Froyalaner's skipper announces his intention to sail for Svalbarh and arrange a meeting with senior Guttuli Corps commanders wherein the vessel's future movements can be more properly coordinated with Guttulinese naval assets.

• 9: As the Jolly Froyalaner approaches the port of Svalbarh, it is met by the local pilot boat. After a short conversation about the present arrangement of the shifting mudflats, the pilot is shot dead along with the coxswain of his boat and the Froyalaner accelerates to full speed, launching its complement of four container-housed S-2 Standard missiles on a trajectory aimed at Svalbarh's Temple of Morsva. Upon reaching the port it draws sharply alongside the largest Guttulinese merchant vessel it can find and secures itself with grappling lines over the latter's gunwales, laying down heavy small arms fire in all directions to suppress resistance. Timers are then set in the Froyalaner's explosives-packed hold with barely sufficient delay for its crew to launch an outboard-powered pinnace and get clear of the blast zone, making thence for an escape toward the open sea.
  • At the same time as the Svalbarh attack, a section of Guttulinese troops patrolling the southwestern approach road to Erianamor is ambushed by heavy fire on open ground, killing the majority and driving the rest to ground with disciplined bursts from multiple light machine guns. The suppression provides cover for a hasty looting of the fallen Guttulinese, the pinning of a note to the body of its commanding Decurion and a covered withdrawal into the surrounding scrub. The note proclaims to be from a new partisan group called the Children of Salus, demanding an end to the extermination of the Lunatics and the creation of an interior safe zone for them.
  • The Octavian Import-Export Corporation issues a statement admitting responsibility for the Jolly Froyalaner's actions and the feigning of lost arms shipments in collusion with the Navy of Ransenar as cover for their diversion to the Children of Salus. The Corporation - which is 22% owned by the heir of Lunaris' old ruling house - cites the Guttuli Protectorate's betrayal of an agreement to end the extermination of the Lunatics as a condition of the arms smuggling deal, concluding that the Protectorate has "has forfeited the right to good faith and honest commerce from its nominal trade partners."
• 10: Authority Erinmur is put under martial law, under the order of the Office for the Fanlinunig. Nineteen worker colonies located throughout the Fanlinunig Region are each instructed to select ten Lunatics from their list of community leaders; those selected are to be sawn open at morning roll-call for the colony's instruction. Salb Ikol issues an order cancelling recreational duties (excepting those associated with the Office for Agricultural Improvement) in order to intensify bandit-hunting operations in and around Erinmur in order to deal with the new organized threat. Captors found alive are to be sacrificed as whole-burnt offerings to Ikol.
• 11: In reaction to events in Lunaris, the Department of State of the Republic of Alduria has announced that it is considering imposing trade sanctions on the Guttuli Protectorate and the removal of its military advisers in Punta Santiago if its Lunatic genocide does not end quickly.
  • Lunatic refugees housed and resettled in Ransenar begin to organize their own militias and paramilitary groups, seeking official recognition and permission from the government of Ransenar to operate legally.
• 12: Guttuli representatives in Alduria meet with the Secretary of State, Augusto Benavides, in an attempt to stave off further restrictions on Guttulinese trade. During the meeting, they plead with him for understanding, in consideration for the bitterness of several years of struggle, attempt to reassure him that the Lunatics placed in protective custody are guaranteed adequate living conditions and opportunities to maintain their society in settlements where the Lunatics cooperate with the authorities and govern their own internal affairs, and insist that rumors of harsh or inhumane treatment are falsified in order to justify the toppling of the Guttuli regime by the other powers in Benacia.
• 18: An elderly woman, walking alone on the Meszor/Erinmur road with a stick in one hand and the dead-switch of a suicide vest in the other, attracts the inevitable truck full of Guttulinese troops which swerves aside to run her over and is destroyed in the ensuing blast. Further north, a man in the imitation uniform of a Guttuli Corps Draconary denonates himself when a staff vehicle pulls over to offer him a ride.
• 21: Canisters of monochrome photographic film showing public reprisal killings in Erianamor, shot at tilted angles through the half-obstructed lens of a concealed camera, are dispatched toward Ransenar by carrier pigeon for dissemination in the global media.
• 23: Children of Salus partisans attack a 'labour settlement' in Western Castra, breaching a portion of its perimeter and covering the escape of some 270 Lunatic inmates with automatic weapons fire. These disperse into small groups and head for the nearby Lacus Conticinium marshes; the last to escape the camp without being gunned down by its rallying guards are given weapons on the spot and enlisted to help cover the withdrawal.

VIII

• 3: An assembly of notables elects Viscount Nogent Gottschalk, an exile from Ankh and a former Tribune of Legion VII, as Generalissimo of the Army of Caverden. A die-hard Imperialist, Gottschalk represents the reactionary tendency which has been gathering pace amongst the landed gentry and the dispossessed against all the Vulture States that have infested Benacia since the fracture. Hostile towards all vulture states, and contemptuous of the Kalirion Dynasty whose failings had given licence to traitors and secessionists, Gottschalk's primary merit in the eyes of his peers was his poisonous hatred towards his former comrades and the legatine commanders of the Corps VII and VIII of the Riverine Army for betraying the Golden Mango Throne and their occupation of Ankh.
• 4: After ordering a delegation from the assembly to depart and muster 15,000 bannermen at Isenbury, Gottschalk, with a small military escort of untitled nobility, began his eastward trek from Maltenstein towards the lands of the Dominion of Ynnraile-Crisco. A multitude of 20,000 commoners, armed with various antique rifles and accompanied by outriders from the noble houses of Caverden, followed in the wake of the Generalissimo, conscripting porters and seizing provisions from communities all along their line of march.
  • With vehicles-borne retainers and the Generalissimo in the van and the armed feudal levies, followed by a multitude of camp followers, bringing up the rear, the host covered a distance of 12km(x Riqs) on the first day. At nightfall a hooded seer and his retinue of misshapen followers gained admittance to the camp, a mess of tents enrounded by a palisade, hastily dug ditches, and a score of scraped out firing positions. With this figure was dragged a luckless, battered and bruised, figure whose self-bewailed misfortune was a source of jollity and restorative humour to the camp followers who had been earlier cudgelled into the task of digging for the Army. This wretch, the seer explained, was a merchant, a collaborator with the Guttuli from Barrowfield who had been snatched up on the road to road to Lichport by "gentlemen of the road" who generously relinquished their reluctant guest to the seer and his entourage after being subject to persuasion no less gentle than that which they themselves practised. It was at the suggestion of the Hooded Seer that Gottschalk remembered an ancient ritual of the First Era of Shirerithian history and summoned his commanders to his tent. There the captive was stripped to his waist, bound, and forced to his knees. Each regimental commander was in turn presented with a blade and invited to carve slices of the living flesh from the wailing, now squealing, captive. For a full three quarters of an hour this grim ritual continued until, at last, the poor wretch was at the point of death, whereupon the Hooded Seer presented to Gottschalk a nicked and timeworn sword, whose blade seemingly shimmered and seethed in shades of black and green. Having been bade to strike, Gottschalk struck off the man's head with a single blow, the blood hissing and boiling as it issued forth from the truncated stump of the dead man's neck - the mortal blow having seemingly been cauterised by the passage of the blade. Astonished, Gottschalk tentatively pressed a finger to the sword's cutting edge, expecting to be scolded but instead finding it deathly cool. The Seer happened to remark that the blade had now found a suitable keeper and Gottschalk, suddenly possessed by a curiously possessive impulse was obliged to agree. In any event, it was by this manner that the men of Caverden declared war, in the ancient fashion, upon the Guttuli Protectorate.
• 5: 1677 Northern Commonwealth election. In a low-key election across the bailiwicks of Elwynn's Northern Commonwealth for its Congress (up and to this point suspended since the end of Verionism and the so-called peace agreement), no party achieves majority, but pro-integration parties win a majority. In this case, pro-integration means the integration of the Northern Commonwealth to the Congressional Counties.
• 6: Under the guidance of freed forced labourers who were involved in its original construction and upkeep, groups of Lunatic partisans work at night to dismantle the corduroy road leading from Erianamor to the Temple of Lockenhasp in multiple places. The following morning, the first light vehicles held up by the resulting gaps of sodden marsh are ambushed by a company-sized partisan force from prepared positions in the surrounding mud-swamped tussocks and thoroughly looted. A noon counteroffensive by a column of armoured vehicles out of Erianamor is waylaid some twelve kilometres east by a salvo from half a dozen recoilless rifles and tankgewehrs which, after knocking out the lead and rear vehicles, are nonetheless obliged to retire in the face of suppressive fire from the middle vehicles' disgorged infantry. An attempt by the latter to pursue the retreating heavy weapon bearers into a willow thicket runs into a prepared secondary ambush from a pair of light machine guns, snipers camouflaged in the surrounding reeds and at least one light mortar firing airburst-fuzed shells to assure its effect in the mud.
• 7: Pressed to comment on the country's involvement in resourcing and training the Children of Salus, Kalgachia's Directorate of the Tumultuous Wastes announces that "such activity is a purely economic matter, falling outside the diplomatic remit of this Directorate but fully within the OIEC's commercial duty to assure the agreed terms of those trade undertakings to which it is party. The extent to which the Guttuli Protectorate is prepared to return to those terms and thereby de-necessitate their enforcement by the Corporation on its behalf shall doubtless determine the future course and duration of the conflict."
  • Financier Caustifer Yastreb hosts a luncheon of senior Benacia Command officers in the Kalgachi resort town of Pachadsberg wherein the services of the Allied Production Matrix to quasi-state actors, the settlement of consequent payments and the deposition of supplemental off-book administrative fees in bullion-based means of exchange at the local Puckadobey Savings Bank are queried and expounded.