Sea-Reavers
| Sea-Reavers | |
| Participant in War of Lost Brothers (Sxiro-Jingdaoese Confrontation) | |
| The Sea-Reavers logo | |
| Active | 1655– |
|---|---|
| Ideology | Reaving |
| Headquarters | New Blackstone |
| Area of operations | Brettish Isles, Eastern Keltian Seaboard |
| Size |
46,800 volunteers 1,322 trawlers |
| Allies | Imperial Navy, Corps of Auxiliaries, ESB-Group, Royal Iron Company |
| Opponents | Fisheries Protection Group |
| Battles and wars | Cruise of the Medusa / Operation Caldera |
Since 22 Muulantooqu 1653 AN, following the commencement of the War of Lost Brothers, thirty-nine regiments of auxiliaries had been earmarked by the Imperial Government for the opening up of a Keltian Front against the USSO member states of that continent. However, with Natopia delaying its entry into the war, and the Shirerithian navy struggling to gain supremacy at sea, the means of delivering the force to the hostile shores of Keltia was not readily available.
That situation changed in late 1654 with the eruption of a long dormant volcano in the Brettish Isles which unleashed a cataclysm upon the Brettish Kingdom, plunging it into a localised dark age as pyroclastic clouds scorched the land and blotted out the sun. This natural disaster effectively terminated the existence of the Brettish Kingdom in its home islands, a surviving remnant of the population would subsequently evacuate to the Skerry Isles and establish the so-called Confederacy of the Coast. While many nations rushed to offer humanitarian assistance to the Brettish government, the Shirerithians under newly elected Steward Zinkgraven saw an opportunity to profit from the destruction of a hostile foe.
The Imperial Republic firstly dispatched commerce raiders, typically gravships such as the IRS Medusa, to attack Jingdaoese and USSO flagged vessels participating in the relief effort, whilst concurrently issuing a blanket authorisation to the Shirerithian fishing fleets to enter Brettish and Nova English waters to plunder the fish stocks of the suddenly depopulated islands. The fishermen were also encouraged to land on the enemy shores wherever circumstances permitted, in order to loot abandoned settlements and to snatch up any straggling bands of refugees as might be sighted upon those desolate shores.
This new Shirerithian militancy in the Great Western Sea encouraged Nova England to begin building up its maritime defences, beginning with the establishment of a Fisheries Protection Group and culminating in the reactivation of the Nova English Navy along with elaborate preparations for coastal defences.
For the Imperial Government, mindful of the overstretch affecting the Imperial Navy, the challenge posed by the Nova English presented an opportunity. Beginning with the putting of small detachments of armed auxiliaries aboard trawlers heading for Brettish waters, it was but a small step to arming the trawlers themselves and using the boats as platforms from which to conduct raids.
In early 1655, whilst the gravship Medusa continued to hunt Jingdaoese and Nova English merchant ships in the Great Western Sea, the Shirerithians began operations to capture and fortify an obscure and abandoned Brettish island, scarcely 13km in length but mountainous and craggy, which they subsequently renamed as New Blackstone after making appropriate votive offerings including the sacrifice of prisoners. The cramped island would become a home away from home for these armed fishermen and their auxiliary complement - known as Sea-Reavers by their victims. The island would be offered to the Royal Iron Company as a compensation for the lordship of Blackstone, which the company had lost to Jingdao before the onset of the present war. In the meantime, with the Sea-Reavers calling it home, New Blackstone became the venue for Shireroth's first off-shore slave market.
Casualties
Lost to all causes:
- Early-1655 to Mid-1656
- 3,837 reavers
- 159 armed-trawlers
