The Third Odyssey - An Elysian Tale

[Crimson Lionheart]

Chapter 77: The Dark Coast (1776-1785)

Absolute power would be held within the hands of the Empress, who had styled herself as the Autocrat of the Elysians, and had spent the remainder of the following year ensuring that there were no political threats to undermine her new powers. The political instability that would plague the Imperial Senate would be washed away, and the senatorial factionalism and corruption among with chaotic gridlock would be steadily dealt with. The Empress would reduce the number of Senators within the Senate by almost forty percent, and empowering those who had remained loyal to the monarchy despite the new senate retaining a ceremonial position in the new government.

Empress Maria, after assuming direct control of government, would finally realize her desires for political reform and began a seriesof social and governmental reforms to redesign the continent as she would see fit, while appeasing the populace of the realm despite usurping the senate. Maria would give citizenship to many residents in the far regions of the Elysian Empire, begin an initiated land reform and support for veterans for the territoriality vast Empire, centralize the bureaucracy of the Empire to empower the monarchy and build a safer and more secure society from the Empress’s point of view.

Despite some of her reforms coming to include a benefit to the Empire, political freedoms would come to be significantly diminished, and the true intentions of the populist and authoritarian autocrat would come to be seen as tyrannical for the first time by mainstream society. The Empress would become increasingly arbitrary, reactionary and fearful of plots against her. Despite her populist support for the common man, Maria herself as a person was easily angered, domineering and insatiably power hungry, with the source of this deep-seated anger stemmed from a failed relationship with her own father, Emperor Issakios, who himself was a cruel megalomaniacal man. Through her seemingly tyrannical means of securing absolute control of the Elysian government and holding onto power through brutal means, the progressive appearing Empress was portrayed by anti-imperial propaganda was an embodiment of Elysian absolutism and tyranny, and through her rule of countless nations, was a danger to the very nature of the world itself.

The treasury, through the means of manipulating the economies of the many subjects under the Imperial crown, created a period of unprecedented prosperity for the Elysian Empire under its absolutist monarch. Foreign merchants would come to direct a majority of their state economies to the Elysians under crushing taxes, ambitious merchants and entrepreneurs who desired to create a fortune in the Empire would become unfathomably wealthy in just a matter of years.

The Elysians would thrive in a world where its politics, economy and military would revolve around the nature of the continent, and the Imperial government took full advantage of this economic prosperity. Empress Maria would use this new period to finance many of her own civil reforms and projects, and funnel the economic potential of half the planet directly into an overflowing treasury.

Through its expansion during the years, the cultural nature of the Empire was firmly enrooted into that of Elysian dominance. From thousands upon thousands of miles, even the most unique of cultures under the Empire would share the same Imperial tongue and identity. Within the past decades, the Hesperidians would come to dominate the cultural makeup of the East, while the unique makeup of the East would see a heavy concentration of the Elysian’s linguistic and cultural Hellenic roots.

The first major revolt would occur against the rule of an Empress in less than a year after she had seized absolute power, where commoners would become deeply upset at the news that their freedoms were to be further restricted. Several massive revolts across the continent would occur, with the largest occurring in Oros and Asmat in rebellion against the Empress. While these incidents would be crushed within a matter of weeks, it would leave deep social scars in several regions.

Embracing lessons of the enlightenment, a group of noble landowners had become to improve the efficiency of agriculture on the continent by pioneering inventions with machinery for seed distribution. New crops and new forms of land rotation and breeding would be experimented with Megene, and production in agriculture would thrive in the region. Hoping to spread this success further, the monarchy would come to promote these noble landowners and would come to spread their techniques to other farmers in the Empire, compensating them with a small fortune..

Having embraced the Imperial faith, Brazil had requested their right of an autocephalous church in Retoria. While having to no longer answer to the Elysians, the Eccumencial Patriarch and Empress would come to grant their request to ease the troubled relationship between the Elysians and the Brazilians. Relations would drastically improve between the two nations, and the Empire would find the beginnings of a new friend in the world.

Far from the borders of Elysium, the Songhai Empire had emerged as one of the largest states in African history. The Empire’s namesake derived from its leading ethnic group and ruling elite, the Songhai, who only through their leadership and expansive dominance in West Africa, was the primary reason that the Islamic faith had survived. Upper classes in society converted to Islam while lower classes often continued to follow traditional religions, and only in recent times, Christianity would come to spread among the southern portion of the nation. When Christian rebels would enter revolt against the upper classes, the Elysians sought the intervene with the rebellion to solidify on the continent that the Empire had largely ignored. Africa.

A Linen Market with enslaved Africans. West Kyklades, circa 1780​

The primary reason for this would come to not be for political or spiritual motivations, but for an economic motivation. Slavery would be common across the Elysian Empire and played an important role within society and the economy. While providing manual labour, many slaves performed many domestic services, and might be employed at highly skilled jobs and professions. Unskilled slaves, or those enslaved as a punishment such as prisoners of war, would come to be worked on farms, in mines, and at mills. Living conditions would be brutal, and their lives short. Like their Roman ancestors, slaves in Elysia were considered property under law and held no legal rights at all. Elysian slaves would, if punished, be subjected to corporal punishment, sexual exploitation torture, and summary execution

Since the establishment of Jolof as an Imperial protectorate, the Elysian Empire would have a reliable foodhold on the African continent. Jolof, like many African states would come to play an important role in the slave trade, selling their own captives or prisoners of war to European or Elysian buyers. All slaves that were to be transported to the lucrative slave markets in the Elysian Empire must travel through Jolof. It was through expanding interests in Africa to further fuel its own economy that the Elysians would come to expand Autocratic rule into Africa, only aiding the christian rebels in Songhai as a false pretext but wishing to significantly expand its network of slave kingdoms.

One of these realms, the Kaabu, would quickly fall and be forcefully subjugated under the Elysian Empire. With control of its new vassal, the Empire sought to stimulate their new vassal with the beginnings of starting its emerging slave network in the region, where the Kaabu would work as native slavers under the interests of the Elysians.

The Empire would not partake in any serious influence in the Songhai region, instead becoming a powerful force that sought to protect the Christian south of the Empire from the whims and ambitions of the northern Islamic reaches of the interior.

Due to their long loyalty towards the Elysian Empire that reaches as far as the reign of Emperor Basil, the Elysians would cancel the arrangement of the status of protectorate for the Jolof nation and instead wished to make an offer for the nation to become an Imperial Vassal. Jolof’s long history with the Elysians, and the interactions that had made the nation into a wealthy nation within Western Africa would come to see the Jolof accept the offer almost immediately

In just a matter of weeks, both the reigning monarchs of both Jolof and Kaabu would adopt Elysian Orthodoxy, and the spiritual makeup of the region would come to change as Imperial influence started to creep into the region. While some would convert the faith through their own spiritualistic means, some would adopt the faith for other reasons. Many traders operating within Jolof were already predominantly Christian, and would only continue to encourage the nation to adopt the dying Islamic faith and embrace the true word of Christ. The Empress would come to see the slave markets almost overflowing by the years end, yet a disaster was on the horizon, one that she had caused that could spell the end of the Empire itself...

 

[stnylan]

So the first rain clouds gather, a sign of further storms perhaps.

 

[EmperorSimon]

The seeds have been planted for a great finale.

 

[EmperorSimon]

The seeds have been planted for a great finale.

 

[Crimson Lionheart]

Chapter 78: The Elysian Revolution (1785-1789)

Through the reign of the Empress, the more autocratic nature of the Elysian Empire would start become more highlighted for everyone in the nation to see the true colors of the monarchy. Even among the commoners or the supports of the autocratic regime, some would believe that the Empress was simply too ignorant or well intentioned to see the true nature of her own actions. Her reforms were increasingly akin to Caesar in nature, but like the man himself, she was vilified among many within Elysian society for stripping away their rights to empower her own. Her populist and authoritarian reforms angered the elite, and talks would emerge of the nature of the nation and its direction.

Maria would sometimes come to embrace the new reputation that her enemies had called upon her, and despite being fearful and reactionary of those who wished to conspire against the new government, she was not afraid of death. Maria thought of herself as a just and lawful woman who sought to improve society as a whole, yet her methods of securing absolute power alarmed many within society, including her own supporters. Realizing that she walked on a very thin line between securing maintaining the status quo and tearing her empire into two, the Empress had little choice but to act as a populist tyrant.

Empress Maria had grown fearful of what was to come, but through her selfish actions, she had perhaps doomed the Empire...

Since the Empress would significantly reduce the powers of the Elysian senate, which in turn had rendered them politically useless, unrest had been thriving throughout the entire Empire. Large groups across Elysia would come to advocate for new restrictions to be placed upon the powers of the Empress and the monarchy as a whole, and for the restoration of rights and powers to the peoples of the Empire. Heated debates about the relative authority of the patrician and plebeian aspects of Elysian society emerge, and within the next nine years, Imperial society is bitterly divided among political lines. As tempers begin to rise, and more and more grievances are aired, many senators, old and new, begin to discuss fundamental change to the system of government.

The Church would come to throw their full support behind the Autokrateria Maria I, while the aristocracy appeared split between supporting the Monarchy. Only the most politically radical of the aristocracy, those who had embraced the Enlightenment ideas of popular sovereignty and human rights, dreamed about the unthinkable and sought to declare a Republic, in which the patrician and plebeians would come to hold significantly more power. Patricians, Plebeians and even Senators would come to unite overtime against the increasingly despotic government of the Empress, and in the actions of Maria I’s actions to assume further control of the nation, had caused more popular support among former senators and nobility to quietly rally against the Autocrat. In 1783, some of the more rebellious aspects of Elysian society would emerge united to establish their own alternative government to better coordinate their resistance against the Empire, many of them being republican sympathizers. Upon hearing this, the Empress would come to break into a fit of rage and demanded that these disloyal nobility be apprehended and dragged before her to be sentenced for High Treason, despite her advisers warning her that doing so could lead to the outbreak of civil war. Ignoring this advice, the Empress sought to destroy the conspirators who she had been anticipating to strike against her after all these years.

The Republican Committee presenting its plan for revolution to Congress on June 15th, 1785. Five leading members of the Committee would become significant political figures who would lead the Elysian Revolution against the Elysian Empire, and were a group of philosophers, senators and writers.
​

With massive political unrest and Imperial society remaining deeply divided, the spark of Revolution would be lit. Revolutionary leadership would align itself under the leadership of a republican that would be called among the rebellious aristocracy and had determined the rule of Empress Maria I to be tyrannical and sought to proclaim a republic as a new legitimate government, where revolutionary leadership professed the political philosophies of liberalism and republicanism to reject monarchy and aristocracy, and proclaimed that all men are created equal.

All across the Elysian Empire, many of the largest cities in the New World come to rebel against the Autocratic regime, which rebels would see as a corrupt and deeply unjust. The Imperial City, Nea Konstantinopolis itself, was soon consumed by riots, chaos, and widespread looting. The mobs soon had the support of some of the Imperial army, who were armed and trained soldiers, and plans to crush the revolution early would fail as as many disillusioned commanders, local governors and even entire armies would openly defect to the revolutionaries. The Empress, alarmed by the violence, backed down for the time being and bided her time, preparing Imperial forces to crush the republican revolutionaries.

Laconya and Tenochtitlan, the two largest cities in the Laconian Peninsular, would come to see the destruction of both of the Imperial Thema located in the city. Often catching the Thema by surprise without any senior leadership, brutal fighting among city streets would see a scale of violence that had been unseen since the time of the Aztecs. The streets of Tenochtitlan would run red, and thousands of soldiers would die at the hands of the Elysians, while Laconya would see fighting during a horrendous storm that would see the metropolis become ripped apart from the inside out, and brutal fighting that occurred from inside houses.

Nea Konstantinopolis would become the most violent of the rebellious cities, as two armies of a hundred thousand men would see the heart of the heart of the Empire torn asunder. Revolutionaries, made up among both republican supporters and downtrodden commoners, would see the Imperial City in a state of revolt against the Monarchy. Once the tide had turned against Imperial forces, Empress Maria had made preparations to evacuate the city, but the Imperial Palace would be surrounded. For nearly two months, the Imperial City would remain under siege. With the heart of the Empire seized, chaos would soon spread far beyond Imperial borders and towards the distant subjects, as the first flames of rebellion would be sparked in Brittania.

In the first few months of the Revolution, the amount of revolutionary troops would come to number into over half a million, largely concentrated in the largest cities of the Empire. Despite the Empire’s own million strong armies, the rebels would be just as trained and lethal as the Empire’s finest, and was led by exceptionally competent commanders.

After fifty three days, the Imperial City would completely fall to the revolutionaries and Imperial Forces would be forced out of the capital. With the fall of the city, revolutionaries would come to overpower the Epilektoi who had made a fanatical last stand at the Imperial Palace, but were eventually overpowered by the revolutionaries. Upon being breached, the revolutionary armies would march through the hallways of the Imperial Palace, before capturing the autocrat herself.

Upon capturing Maria, the Empress and Autocrat of the Elysians would be held into captivity for a period of four months, upon which the republicans held leverage among loyalist forces. Sympathetic republicans, conservative factions and social-religious groups of the loyalists would come to make attempts various attempts to keep her life, all of which would come to fail. While imprisoned, strict security measures were taken by the revolutionaries to ensure that the Empress was not able to communicate with the outside world or make any possible escape.

The fate of Maria I would became a central question of the National Committee. Some would advocate for her death, others proposing exchanging her for ransom for prisoners of war or an outrageous ransom among the Exarchs. One minister advocated exile to Constantina. Revolutionary factions would call for a trial among the Empress, and by the time it was called, any of the moderates had lost any influence in achieving a compromise.

The Execution of Maria I Palaiologos, January 25th 1787. ​

Maria Palaiologos would be tried by a Revolutionary Tribunal on the early morning of January 25th 1787. The outcome of the trial had been decided in advance by many radical republicans, and the tribunal had made it impossible for the Empress to prepare her defence. Many of the accusations would to be fabricated and published across the Empire and the outside world to turn public approval against Maria. Crimes would include an extreme misuse of the treasury, orchestrating decedent feasts and orgies in the Imperial Palace, overthrowing the Imperial Senate, planning the mass murder of Senators and disloyal military and political figures, and supposedly, incest among her son Andreas. The Empress remained deathly silent for the entire trial, and when Maria would finally speak, she would make one final sympathetic trial to those in the room. Her fate would be sealed long before the trial would even begin, and the sentence would be death.

The Empress would be found guilty of three main charges against her: depletion of the Imperial treasury, conspiracy against the internal and external security of the state, and high treason because of her activities in overthrowing the Imperial Senate. Maria would be sentenced to death by a new invention from Gallia, the guillotine, which was invented to become a more efficient and less morbid means of executing political enemies. The Empress would be guillotined before midday, her last words reflecting that she seized power because she had loved the people. The royal symbol of Elysian tyranny would die, and with it, a major blow against the loyalist government and supporters would be inflicted.

Andreas I Palaiologos. The only child of the Autocrat, Andreas was widely considered to be the best and only hope of an Imperial victory in the Revolution. ​

With the death of his mother, the ‘Imperial Cause’ would pass over to her only son, Andreas. A statesman at heart and a military prodigy in the making, Andreas would ascend to the throne only at the age of twenty two. Serving as an artillery officer in the Imperial army when the Elysian Revolution erupted in 1785, the autocratic nature of the Emperor would come to be recognised as the best remaining force that Loyalist forces had in the Empire. Although rumors of incest with his mother would persist after her death, the Emperor had remained silent on the matter and the death of Maria, and instead swore to avenge her and the empire of his ancestors by eradicating the republican plague, no matter the cost.

With the situation of the south becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible to maintain, an evaluation was prepared among Imperial forces in the region as a means to redirect the efforts of the Imperial Army to focus on the mainland. Laconya and the Kyklades were both hotbeds of Republican insurgency and revolutionary flavour, and were largely deemed to be a lost cause among the Loyalists for the time being. Andreas’s first act was to gather the Imperial forces under his own command and, in a bid to destroy the revolution at its heart.

Revolutionaries would appear out of nowhere and attack the city of Tennessee, catching the local militia completely off guard and seizing an impressive amount of ammunition and weaponry. With the entire militia being captured and later disarmed, loyalists forces in the city would surrender to the revolutionaries, or would come to defect to the revolutionaries.

The Elysian Heartland would fall to the revolutionaries, and the Elysian Bay would be seized by republican forces. As chaos would come to grip the loyalist cause, and the consequences of civil war would only become more and more apparent, unrest would come to grip the Exarchs across the sea, as the subjugated nations would start to see a wave rebellions against the loyal subjects as the revolution continued to intensify.

Republican forces fight back against Loyalist ‘Redcoats’, named after the Imperial uniforms which Imperial soldiers wear. While Republican forces suffered significantly from a lack of an arms and inexperience, they made up for it with incredible morale and dedication to their cause​

With his forces now organised effectively, Emperor Andreas would relocate Imperial forces from the south and slowly advance northward, began his first military campaign against the revolutionaries and the traitorous commanders who had defected to the revolutionaries, winning virtually every battle. Despite all of this, the emperor’s own forces could not fight forever, and its size slowed down advancements across territories.

The Blockade of Panama, c.1788​

With battles that were now ravaging across the continent, republicans would suddenly emerge in the south by overwhelming defenders of Panama and seizing the Panama Canal with a blockade of the entrances of the canal. While a great battle would favor the revolutionaries, the distant loyalist army would come to suffer heavy losses. The Panama Canal would be closed for the remainder of the war, crippling the Imperial economy and reinforcements coming from the south or across the sea.

Emperor Andreas would engage with revolutionary forces that appeared to be heading towards the city of Aroostook, completely wiping out the republican enemy and pushing back revolutionary forces in the region.

With the revolutionaries coming to spread outward from the Eastern Coast and towards of the interior, the Emperor regrouped his forces and made a daring push to retake the Imperial Capital. Republican commanders would not anticipate the Emperor rush his elite forces towards the capital so early, and that that their own forces would be dangerously overextended. As the Imperial forces would come to gain ground towards the capital, revolutionary commanders moved towards Nea Konstantinopolis in a desperate bid to stop the Emperor from retaking the city and having the resources to put down the revolution. As the two factions would come to clash within the Imperial heartland, a battle to decide the fate of world was about to take place..

(And this is it. This is the final chapter of the AAR that includes direct screenshots, the remainder of the story will be narrative in nature. I wish to thank everyone once again for being apart of the ride, it's been an incredible experience and privilege

 

[Tom D.]

As said I love your idea of an open ending which we can fill in as we like. This was a very enjoying AAR to read and I already know I'll have some fierce competition to face when I get around my own Elysia AAR . Congratulations on making it through!

 

[AvatarOfKhaine]

In the name of the Empire!

 

[stnylan]

A very nice place indeed to switch styles, with everyone on a knife edge.

 

[EmperorSimon]

Wonderful aar. And I like that you brought the revolution into the story. It gave it the perfect end to a Tyrant.

 

[Crimson Lionheart]

Maria I Palaiologina
Lived: August 11th 1740 - January 25th 1787
Empress of Elysia: 1773 - 1787
Autocrat of the Elysians: 1776 - 1787
Emperor of the Inca: 1773 - 1787

The Empress who would come to change the world, and one that would empower the Imperial monarchy to its greatest height. Maria would come to play a critical role in the events that led towards the Elysian Revolution. A fascinatingly complex woman who sought to improve her homeland, she had become the most powerful woman on the planet, abit at the cost of losing her life over a decade later.

Maria would be born in Nea Konstantinopolis, like many among the Imperial house, as the eldest daughter to Emperor Issakios, ruler of the Elysian Empire, and his wife, Empress Sophia. The relationship between her father was difficult but would prove important during her life, and would come to influence her after his own death. She was easily angered, domineering and had inherited her father's megalomania, but was significantly more restrained in these traits than Emperor Issakios was. Rumors among the Imperial Palace would spark that Issakios was an abusive father to his daughters, while others would come to emphasize a strict discipline that was forcefully imposed among the children. Whatever the rumors would appear to be true, Maria did not escape from her father's grip until his death.

By the time she was barely twenty five years old, she was married to an Elysian nobleman named Michael Bardanes and together were able to produce an only child, Andreas. Michael would unfortunately die from illness when the child was only a toddler, leaving the princess to raise the child without a father. During the time that her elder brother Zimon would ascend to the throne, the Empress would come to develop a deep interest of politics and administration, and would come play an important role within Imperial politics as one of the most powerful people within the Elysian Empire. While Zimon would come to be portrayed as the face of the Empire, the main driving force for his policies would come to be encouraged by Maria, who wished to orchestrate events to her design while they were already happening.

Living a more decadent lifestyle among the Imperial Family and taking in the luxuries that are rewarded among the Imperial dynasty, the abdication of her brother Zimon would to be a great surprise to her. Her brother, being severely depressed in being unable to produce a heir with his wife and wishing to prevent a succession crisis, Zimon would largely abandon his former life by abdicating the throne and eventually leave Elysium all together. Succession rights of the crown would pass onto Maria, and the talented woman would come to be thrown into the most powerful position in the world. Even as the new Empress, there were still restrictions placed upon the throne in that the monarch was to share his or her powers with the senate, who would help run the Imperial administration. As the senate had fallen into rampant corruption and political decay, the Empress found the perfect opportunity to reassert the monarchy among the government, and would come to overthrow the Imperial Senate with popular support and assume absolute control of the state, declaring herself as the Autocrat of the Elysians.

Assuming direct control of the state, the Empress would come to impose crushing taxation upon the state and the subjects, while reducing some of the rights of its own citizens. Exarchs were forced to surrender a majority of their monthly income and trade, which was to be paid to the Elysians as tribute in exchange for building upon the economies of the Imperial subjects. This would cause the Imperial Economy to suddenly bloom, and the markets of the world would be diverted to the Imperium. With this economic prosperity, Empress Maria would come to use the growing economy to finance many of her own civil reforms and projects, and at the same time, financing war against the African states and expanding the growing demand for slaves.

Empress Maria I Palaiologina shortly prior to the Elysian Revolution, c. 1785
​

Holding an unrivaled position of power and influence, the Empress Maria would give citizenship to many residents in the far regions of the Elysian Empire, begin an initiated land reform and support for veterans for the territoriality vast Empire, centralize the bureaucracy of the Empire and using any political advantages she held to empower the monarchy. This would come to the cost of political freedoms being restricted, and for the first time, the Elysian people would come to view their Empress as a tyrant. Her populist and authoritarian reforms had angered the foundations of the state, where many of the patricians and former senators would come to work against the Empress.

In time, the increasingly tyrannical actions of the Empress would come to prove too much for many, and the foundation for revolution would be established as a consequence of her actions after largely rendering the senate useless. The Revolution would soon be sparked, and a republican movement would begin to overthrow the decadent monarch and bring an end to the monarchy. Revolution would turn into a civil war that would become increasingly violent, and Empress Maria remained alarmed. Nea Konstantinopolis would turn into a battleground between revolutionary mobs and Imperial armies, and before she could attempt to flee, the revolutionaries would seize the city and later storm the Imperial Palace to capture the tyrant.

After being imprisoned for a period of four months, the Empress would be tried by a revolutionary tribunal. The outcome had been decided in advance by many radical republicans, and made it impossible for the Empress to prepare her defence. Accusations would be fabricated and published across the Empire and the rest of the subjects to turn public approval against Maria, and included a list of crimes that included depletion of the Imperial treasury, conspiracy against the internal and external security of the state, and high treason because of her activities in overthrowing the Imperial Senate. Also among these crimes would be orchestrating decedent feasts and orgies in the Imperial Palace, planning mass murder against senators or disloyal figures, and a supposedly incestous affair with her own son Andreas. The Empress would remain silent for almost the entire trial.

The Empress would be found guilty and sentenced to death on January 25th 1787 by the use of guillotine. She would be decapitated before midday, and with her death, the end of the autocratic tyrant would come to a violent end. The symbol of Elysian tyranny would die during an important period of the revolution, and the loyalist government would come to support the son of the Empress, Andreas I Palaiologos. Despite her brilliance in both administration and diplomacy, the Empress would come to suffer from her own worst enemy, herself, and the era of the autocrat was over. She would be buried in the Imperial Crypt, and would be buried next to her mother.

 

[stnylan]

The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and she burned so very brightly

 

[Zhranzagul]

This has been a wonderful adventure

 

[androo]

Hands down the best AAR I’ve ever read in this game covering a fantastic mod. Do you plan to continue this story soon? I’m excited to know if the future of mankind will be one united under Elysian rule or fragmented once again into chaos.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, that was interesting. Your culture map of Elysium looks very different to mine, as I usually have a lot more Elyric than that.

 

[Crimson Lionheart]

Hello everyone! Apologies to those expecting the final few chapters of this AAR, I'm currently running into some technical difficulties alongside the difficulty of writing an engaging ending to conclude the story, something which I have restarted almost four times now. I will be doing my best to ensure that the last few chapters will be posted as soon as I can complete them.

Hands down the best AAR I’ve ever read in this game covering a fantastic mod. Do you plan to continue this story soon? I’m excited to know if the future of mankind will be one united under Elysian rule or fragmented once again into chaos.

Unfortunately this will not be continued, which is a bummer.

 

[Nikolai]

A captivating and nailbiting developement, and, it seems, end of the journey. Thanks for doing this story!

 

[Crimson Lionheart]

Chapter 79: Epilogue/Republican Ending (1789-1821)

Revolution. It had come to tear apart the fabric of the society that had come to exist among the Elysians, and divided families among political lines. With what was once the greatest power in the world crumbling into ruin, the future of the nation would come to engage into bitter conflict and civil strife. Revolutionaries who sought to liberate their people from the tyranny of the autocrat and create a republic based on the principles of liberty, while the loyalists who supported the monarchy and the traditional order would fight to preserve their homeland and end the uprising. As factionalism emerged to tear apart an Imperium, whoever emerged victorious would see a changing world.

The Empress and Autocrat of the Elysians, Maria I, would be sentenced to death for all the sins she had committed against her own people. As it seemed that the republican revolutionaries were on the verge of victory, the son of the autocrat would ascend upon the throne and bring the loyalists victory after victory. Andreas was both the greatest threat to the republican cause, and the best and last chance for the loyalists to end the uprising that was destroying Elysium. A living prodigy who displayed excellence far beyond that of a common Elysian monarch, his unparalleled military abilities were enough to give a glimmer of hope to his people, even as the foundations of the Imperium crumbled away both in the homeland and its overseas subjects.

Emperor Andreas would lead the Imperial Army into battle against Lavrentios Kairis, a former Imperial commander who defected to the revolutionary cause. The fate of a nation would be decided at the Battle of Alouion, a city within the Elysian heartland only two days march away from the Imperial city. And the fate of the world was about to change forever.

Both Republican and Imperial forces would meet on a large plain several kilometers away from the city, engaging in the early morning before the battle ending by nightfall. Despite holding an incredible advantage early into the battle, Andreas and his men would lose momentum be forced into the defensive. After the collapse of his right flank, defeat would be inevitable, and the Emperor would order a retreat. The defeat would cause Imperial efforts to put down the revolution completely collapse.

Not wishing to suffer the humiliation and fate that his mother had experienced, Andreas would retreat from the battle with tears in his eyes and abandon his homeland and the throne, going into exile. After their decisive victory, revolutionaries would march onto the Imperial capital, where republicans would welcome the victorious army in a triumph, and achieve complete victory over the Imperial government. The Revolution had succeeded, and the republicans had won.

The nation, which was once divided, would be reunited as whole again. As brother had once fought brother, as father had once fought son, the dust would begin to settle on the end of the dying empire, the survivors and the victorious would come to ask if the revolution was worth it in the end. Despite the cost, the revolution was over, and forgiveness was the next step in what was being seen as a new age.

The Revolution would come to successfully depose the monarchy, ending centuries of imperial rule and liberating the entire continent. The First Elysian Republic is established and the last vestiges of the monarchy were being replaced with the new republican rule. The government would transition from an absolute monarchy and into a republic. The remaining loyalists in the new world would come to follow the example of their disgraced emperor and join him in his exile. Those that didn’t would come to defect to the republican cause, or simply find themselves disgraced or even killed.

Andreas I Palaiologos would enter exile, being followed by only the most loyal of his supporters and the Imperial Family themselves. His young daughter, Theodora, would come to join her father as they sailed toward Europe. As the network of Imperial subjects would collapse following the chaos of the revolution, or had seen uprisings of their own within the exarchs, the loyalists would enter exile in what was perhaps the last remaining loyalist exarch surviving in the world. Constantina.

With the revolution successful, the Elysian Republic emerge as a beacon of liberty and republicanism. In the coming decades, as monarchy and aristocracy would be swept away, the young republic would truly live up to its principles as a land of liberty. The first few decades of the republic’s existence would be spent on establishing its government, upon which the Republic would enter a period of political isolation from the rest of the world, not wishing to concern itself trying to salvage the chaos that was occuring around the world at the time.

An age of reform and federalization would come to dominate the early history of the Elysian Republic. The Republican congress and Senate would come to write a new Constitution that created a much more powerful and efficient government than its imperial predecessor, reflecting upon prevailing republican ideals of guarantees of individual liberty and of constraining the power of government through a system of separation of powers. It had guaranteed individual liberties such as freedom of speech and religious practice, jury trials, and stated that citizens and states had reserved rights

The Proxenos (President) would come to lead the Republican government for a period of two terms, lasting for four years each and eight years overall, with leadership being designed to never allow another tyrant or autocrat to emerge in the Elysian nation. Its first staunch Proxenos was Emilios Metros, a idealist who along with being a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, became known as the “Father of the Nation”.

Slavery would come to be abolished in the coming years of the republic, working on removing the institution out of Elysian society all-together. As the republic would come to oversee the first few decades of its rule, and a peaceful transition from the empire into the republic had occurred over the generations, the world around the Elysians had changed drastically. It would be that, over thirty two years since the Elysian Revolution, the world was truly unrecognizable.

French Cavalry charge against British forces during the Coalition Wars (1792-1815), a series of wars across the world as great powers fight for dominance. The victors of the Coalition Wars were often the ones who would come to lead the new century.​

In what was once the Elysian world, the old world had changed in the time that the Empire had collapsed. With the death of the Empire, the many exarchs that the Empire had been dependent on had collapsed under their own weight, and chaos would grip an entire continent and other subcontinents as elysian rule collapsed. The Elysian Empire would die in the sunset that it had created, watching the world they had created die. Its time in the sun was over, and the world had changed, for better or worse.

With the end of Elysian domination over the old world, the sudden end to the Elysian Empire had created a power vacuum that had effectively wiped the slate clean. With the collapse of the Empire, power and prestige in a new era of history was there for those willing to take it. Stretching from minor regional conflicts to large-scale continental wars, along with a constantly changing diplomatic nature of a network of alliances and coalitions looking to reassert themselves, the period of post-elysian rule would come to be Coalition Wars, a series of wars waged by various military alliances across the old world, that would last twenty five years.

The Maghreb, formerly under Imperial rule as the Exarchate of Mauritania, would emerge from the collapse of imperial rule under relatively stable circumstances. Morocco and Algiers would achieve independence and become major powers in former north africa, although remained as bitter rivals among one another. Meanwhile, a rogue Mauritanian general launches a coup against the dying exarch and crowned himself as King of Tunis and had looked outward to create a dominant north african kingdom of his own. Only Fezzan would rule in the south, but with every passing decade, the landscape of the region was changing as much as the saharan sands.

The Iberian Peninsular would come to see both Spain and Portugal achieve independence, overthrowing Hispanian dominance as both kingdoms would come to create their own destiny as free nations once more. The Kingdom of Portugal would achieve independence under a centralised government, while Spain would be plagued by civil war among pretenders to its reestablished throne, republicans who were inspired by the Elysian model and even cultural separatists. The Hispanian remnants, holding onto Leon and Galicia, would eventually fall under the combined might of Spain and Portugal, and its goal of reestablishing rule over a united Iberian monarchy was over.

Across the Pyrenees, France would rise to dominance in the following decades of Imperial rule. The Exarchate of Gallia had become the first Exarch in the Old World to completely slip away from Imperial Control during the revolution. Instead of complete collapse like many other exarchs, the former exarch is overthrown quickly and efficiently from within, with the region surviving in one piece as a result. The Kingdom of France would emerge under the rule of King Charles X, and in the post-imperial world that had been left behind, France would become one of the great powers of its time.

Across the Isle, a reborn Great Britain would come to be reborn and dominate the entire region. Unification among the isles would come to see the Kingdoms of England, Wales and Scotland unite to form a single kingdom encompassing the entire region. Ireland, existing as viceroyalty under the British crown, had been forcefully unified through many years of conflict, with preparations for eventual annexation into Great Britain as whole having been underway for years. Playing an important role during the Coalition Wars, Britain emerged as a strong industrialised kingdom that sat among the great powers of Europe. What it lacked for in size, Great Britain had made up for in ambition, and the kingdom was in a strong position to become a foremost world power.

The Netherlands would break away from the collapse of Elysian control, where its exiled government had returned back to their homelands to restore control over the newly independent region. During the Coalition Wars however, the Low Countries geographic position made them highly valuable between German and French interests. At the best of times, the Netherlands were able to preserve complete independence in the area in the north. In the south, the cultural divide in the region between the Flemish and Walloons was a conflict of interest among the French and Germans.

In what was once Germania, the German States had seen a tremendous rise and fall. Being united under the Elysian conquests of Central Europe, the exarchs collapsed far quicker than anybody had expected and a period of anarchy would come to descend upon the area. Neighboring powers, wishing to prevent the emergence of a united German state, turned the region into a battleground as means to curb their strength. Southern Germany, sitting in the crossroads of Europe, was divided among a collection of monarchies and republican states.

In the years following the collapse of the German Exarchs, and through a means of preventing political chaos from spreading beyond its borders while protecting its lands from foreign influence, the German states would come to be united under the German Confederation, created after the Coalition Wars, to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. Originally intended to become a modern replacement for the Holy Roman Empire and to intertwine the economies of the German states while protecting political sovereignty and preventing conflict with one another for dominance, the confederation would remain weak and ineffective due to the political rivalries between its six largest kingdoms..

Northern Germany and Central Europe would come to find in a unique position throughout the Coalition Wars. While Germany would come to be known as a warzone during the period, the rise of the Kingdom of Prussia would come to counteract the interests of Austria in the south and emerge as one of the leaders of the German Confederation. While Bohemia and Poland would regain their independence following the Exarchs, their growth was prevented by German and Russian strength. Prussia would come to wage war against the monastic Teutonic Order in a war of unification.

Denmark, during the collapse of the Elysian World, would take the opportunity to seize the Kiel Canal, but sought to remain independent against the German states who remained weak but were growing economically, and a newly free Swedish kingdom in the north that sought to rebuild a unified Scandinavian kingdom in the north. Norway would achieve its independence, but would find itself as a diplomatic battleground between Danish and Swedish influence. What all three nordic nations would come to agree on is preserving the independence of Finland from Russian ambitions.

The Baltics would come to be fractured into three separate nations. Lithuania, Livonia and Estonia would emerge from the broken remnants of the Balticus, and once they had achieved their freedom, they had never looked back. Despite their freedom, they are completely surrounded by foreign powers who sought to conquer the region for its valuable position. As the revolution had occurred so suddenly, the former exarch that ruled the area had never been able to improve its local economies, leaving the region largely as a backwater in Eastern Europe.

In the Caucasus, the diversity of the mountainous region had come to see the kingdoms that once made up the Exarchate of Armenia fracture among their ethnic lines. Georgia and Armenia would come to both dominate the south, while Circassia and Gazikumukh dominated the north. All four kingdoms would survive the collapse of the exarchs with moderate success, but would be surrounded by three separate empires on all sides, leading the crossroads of Europe and Asia into a very difficult position for its future.

In what was once a period of greatness, the Exarch of Roma would oversee a partial collapse of its territories across the entire peninsular. Like their Germanic neighbours, the Italian Peninsula would collapse into a series of republics and kingdom, yet would come to remain wealthy due to heavy investment into the region during its united periods of Papal and Elysian rule. The Exarch of Roma would become the only Exarch to survive the collapse of the Elysian Empire, yet would come to renounce their Elysian masters, instead becoming a small kingdom that dominated Central Italy.

In the Eastern Mediterranean, what was once a fractured chaotic region had been united under Imperial rule. After the Elysian Revolution, Emperor Andreas and the remnants of the Imperial Government go into exile in the last loyalist exarch in the Elysian World, Constantina. The former Emperor arrives in Old Constantinople with his loyalist government to a thunderous applause, and the political nature of the region would come to be changed overnight. The Imperial Remnant integrates with the government of Constantina, and Andreas becomes officially recognised as the Emperor of Constantina in 1790.

Andreas I, proving to be far more liberal than his mother Maria and with a desire to win over his new people, begins a radical wave of reforms. Andreas begins to establish a new mixed government, based on the foundations of a constitutional monarchy from the Elysian model while also empowering the autocratic nature of the monarchy from which he was raised in. Feudalism would be completely abolished in the new state, the first nation in Europe to do so, and continues his reforms. By 1795, Emperor Andreas I Palaiologos, the last Emperor of the Elysian Empire, would reorganize the Exarch of Constantina and transform the realm into a reborn Eastern Roman Empire. .

In the coming decades of his rule, Andreas I would become a widely beloved and extremely competent leader. With the collapse of the Eastern Exarchs in the Near East, the Emperor would salvage what he could from their collapse and embark on a series of conflicts, bringing the chaotic Levant and Aegypt back into Imperial rule, having never lost a battle in the old world during his military career. Despite being a brilliant military mind, Andreas was administratively focuses and dedicated his entire reign to building his kingdom, with his rule being strong enough to weather the storm of the Coalition Wars that were ravaging across what was once the Elysian World.

Emperor Andreas I Palaiologos, Emperor of the Romans, in ceremonial garb c.1806​

Emperor Andreas would come to begin work on his magnum opus in the form of the Andrean Code, the greatest codification of laws since the end of the Roman Empire. The Code, with its stress on clearly written and accessible law, becomes a major step in replacing the previous patchwork of feudal laws that existed in Constantina and across the former Exarchs. The Code of Justinian becomes a major influence on the new code, which along with Andreas’s liberal reforms and beliefs, would lead the code to become the most progressive legal system in Europe.

Even if the former Elysian Emperor had come to never abandon his ideals and goals, the Emperor was still a mortal man. On May 5th 1821, Andreas I would die on his deathbed from stomach cancer at the age of 56, ending an era of Elysian monarchs as the last of his kind to rule from the mainland. Through his actions, the Emperor had come to survive a revolution in his homeland as a young man, and had revolutionized another adopted homeland and society through his series of reforms by the time of his death. Through his rule, he had saved the loyalist cause and transformed the Exarch of Constantina and reorganised it into one of the greatest powers of the world that had emerged since the end of the Coalition Wars. He was remembered as a genius and a savior, a man who was respected even among his opponents, and an embodiment of an enlightened monarch, Elysian or Roman, who brought an Empire back to life.

One of the ‘victors’ of the Coalition Wars, the Russian Tsardom had emerged relatively unscaved during the chaotic period. Still remaining weakened from the Elysian invasion during the 1770’s that crippled their nation, the Tsardom had remained dominant as a great power through its own power projection rather than its actual military and economic might. Despite its tremendous size, many of Russia’s rivals had viewed the Tsardom as a paper tiger, in that appeared threatening but was ineffective and weak.

Large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, and religion, along with a predominantly agricultural base with low productivity due to its unforgiving climate, the Russian Tsardom was slow to industrialise. Should Russia ever reach its full potential, it would have the capability to threaten all of Europe.

In the Arabian Peninsula, the region would come to see the collapse of the theocratic military order that had ruled over the region and see the replacement of many smaller states and regions. While having achieved their independence, the region was weak from internal infighting along with a religious split, where the christianisation of the peninsular had left a deep divide among the remaining Christians and Muslims in the area.

Western Africa would see the little changes during the time of the Elysian Empire, with borders largely remaining the same since the Elysians had arrived in the region to create their slave kingdoms in the region. Since the collapse, Europeans would come to take interest in the region and come to establish outposts of their own, while the once dominant Songhai were struggling to rule over their ethnically and religiously diverse nation.

Africa would come to be divided among three enormous yet separate empires. The Abyssinian Empire, located in the Horn of Africa, had recovered from the collapse and looked to disrupt the rule of their southern enemies. The Luba and Maravi Empires, two native yet dominant powers of the continent, had long been fighting among one another in a vicious rivalry.

The Exarch of Persis, once ruling the lands of the Hindu Kush, would come to organise themselves as the rulers of a Christian Persian Empire once the Imperium had collapsed in the new world. While asserting dominance in its region, Persia would come to reignite their ancient rivalry with the Romans, having striked through Mesopotamia with the intent to conquer the region and push further west. The war would come to an inconclusive stalemate, resulting in the creation of Iraq to serve as a buffer state and a reduced territory among the Kurdish portions of both Empires.

India, the subcontinent that was once home to a thriving kingdom, was far different from when the Elysian Empire had reached their peak. No longer was the region united under a single crown or flag, instead being made up of several kingdoms tired among cultural lines. Even among the chaos of the world beyond their lands, a relative peace would come to exist in the region, but the dream of a reunited Bharat would remain simply a dream for another generation, if it was to be a dream at all from now on.

In Southeast Asia, chaos would come to exist among Indochina as the petty kingdoms in the region were forced under tributaries under the Qing Dynasty to the north. Further south, the Majapahit would come to take advantage of the chaos and confusion that Pangasinan would come to experience following the collapse of Elysian rule in the region. In their moment of weakness, the Raja’s of the region would come to declare war against the Maniolian subject and storm the islands. The Majapahit Empire would come to reabsorb almost all of their ancestral territories, and had even come to conquer all of Maniolas. With virtually all of the region under their direct control, the Majapahit would achieve thalassocracy of Nusantara and declare themselves as the Malaya Empire. Hindu rule of the region would never be strong, and the remaining Christians of the region would come to grow fearful of provoking resistance against their new overlords.

The Qing Dynasty would, by 1821, reach it’s apogee. Holding a vast multicultural empire that was one of the most powerful states of its time, the Qing project power far beyond their own borders through a tributary system that stretched across Southeast Asia and held almost complete hegemony of the region. Despite reaching its peak, an internal decline in prosperity would begin due to poor economic policies. Nearby Korea would come to submit as a tributary subject of the Qing, while the Otomo Shogunate entered into a period of diplomatic isolation with limited influence from the outside world, entering into an era of peace.

With the collapse of the Elysian Empire, the colonial subject of Australia would come to achieve independence shortly after the declaration of the republic across the Pacific. Coming to emerge as a new nation, Australia would become a constitutional monarchy with heavy influence from the mixed government of the Elysian Empire’s past, led by a distant line of Elysian royalty that had come to completely embrace the emerging Australian culture. Although culturally identical to their Elysian cousins, the Australians would be known for having a distinct dialect and were even viewed as . The new capital, Aurelia, would be located along the eastern coastline. Notia Edafi, while still geographically overseas, would come to be incorporated into Australia due to its low population. Despite this, the monarchy looked into granting Notia Edafi under statehood, or simply holding a plebiscite over simply granting the region independence to ease Australian administration.

The Inca Empire, known in its native language as Tawantinsuyu, was left in utter shambles following the social upheaval that occurred during the Elysian Revolution and the Coalition Wars that would come to follow. Cultural and ethnic separatism, economic collapse and republicans that were inspired by the Elysians would tear the nation apart within a thirty year period. In the aftermath, what was once an Empire had utterly collapsed. While the Incan monarchy would survive this chaotic period, if only by the slimmest of margins, a dark period would come to emerge for the broken nation...

Elsewhere in Retoria, the impact of the Coalition Wars was not just limited to the Old World. Inca and Brazil would come to see an uprising among the spanish populace, where a war of independence among the subjugated Spanish people of the continent that fought tooth and nail against both nations. For the next decade, La Platia was able to defeat both Brazil and Inca and achieve complete sovereignty among their home territories. Columbia, Brazil and La Platia would come to emerge in this new century as monarchies, surviving the chaos that had gripped the rest of the world.

As the world begins to look into the next era of history, the winds of change had come to transform the fortune of nations. Nations had changed and reached new heights of might and prosperity, and the world looked in excitement or horror at the revolutionary transformation that was spreading among society. For the Elysians, what began as an exiled people would come to see them transform themselves into the greatest empire in history, one that had changed the foundations of society across the globe. And as the Empire transformed into the Republic, they would never forget about their origins, nor would they ever forget the odyssey that had saved a once doomed people. From humble beginnings, the foundation and desire for greatness had changed the world.

And it began with a dream.

(This will be the first ending out of two. Both endings will largely resemble the same building blocks, as a vast majority of the events in this chapter would occur largely due to the impact of the revolution. The second ending will, therefore, copy a large portion of this ending. Thank you for understanding, and of course, reading this AAR! )

 

[EmperorSimon]

This ending is good. Especially seeing Constantinia reborn as rhomania. Look forward to the second ending.

 

[Tom D.]

I really liked this ending, so I'm eager to read the second ending. Well done.

 

[Zhranzagul]

"And it all began with a dream" What an absolutely amazing ending. I'm almost considering printing this AAR out so I can have it in physical form and show it to people, that's how amazing this has been. Looking forward to the second ending, although with this amazing blast I almost doubt it'll be able to beat it.

Sidenote: if King Charles X isn't a psychic in a wheelchair, I'll be very disappointed with France