The Nyugati Islands

-570 to -510 Great Nyugati is settled by sailors from lands to the northwest. There's considerable argument as to whether their craft were rafts (balsa and basswood timber grew in the origin areas then) or uge sailing canoes (redwoods likewise covered some coasts on the west of the Kozep Ocean). Both kinds of vessels are shown in ancient carvings on the Nyugatis. Professoro Guido Maltrizan in 2088 proved that at least some of the journey could have been by sailing-raft, since his replica did so. If a speculative amplification of indistinct 2500-year-old scratchings can be called a replica...

Not to be outdone, Dipl. Ingr. Count Verduz Crantz of Szerelo performed a similar exploit in 2094 with not one but four 110-foot redwood-hulled outrigger sail canoes. Net result: either or both could have happened.

These earliest settlers are the forebears of today's Choktaun tribes of the Small Nyugatis, and their blood mixed with that of other newer immigrants today makes up the majority Bi'zinhai peoples of Great Nyugati. Choktaun folks' skin was quite dark, hair curly, and the men beardless. The women tended (and still do) toward short and stout. The Choktauns are all but immune to malaria, which has only been brought under control in Kozep Ocean lands in recent decades.

-205 to -193 A different people group from some other quadrant of the Kozep landed on Great Nyugati over a dozen years, in hundreds of catamaran barge/ ship vessels. Legend has them fleeing some great pestilence. If so, they picked a poor place to shelter -- interpretation of wall-art in the canyons of Great Nyugati's northeast leads us to believe they succumbed to a man, probably to malaria, over the next thirty years. Their doom was male-only -- many of the women survived, marrying into the local tribes and adding red-haired and taller tendencies to the people there. Again, from legend and sketchy nonverbal documentation, we gather the male children of these mixed heritage unions tended to die off young for several generations.

A few linguistic similarities point to a possible common origin of "the doomed generation" with the people of early Shangolla, but that's half guesswork.

-140 to -100 Trade-empire of Vongan flourished, from a center at today's Czekali Harbor on Great Nyugati's south coast. Strictly economic, the people of the time may not have referred to this as an empire at all. The chieftan-tradesman-in-charge was the Gumo Indagarueo ni Uwoaiti, according to inscriptions in the then-infant language of Von. He was definitely a big shot, so we call him an emperor. His riotously macaw-feathered cape and obsidian staff of office had to have presented a magnificent spectacle, among what we guess was a rather plain people. The tribesmen up until Vongan were subsistence farmers, hunters, and fishers who wore little (the steamy climate of the islands hasn't changed much) and apparently took life as easy as their circumstances permitted.

Either three or four Gumos presided over Vongan, before it devolved into the various post-Von city-states, petty kingdoms, principalities, and chiefdoms.

-98 The Big Feud ---- over ten months a bitter feud among nobles of Vongan spread to the whole of Great Nyugati and even to many of the smaler isles. Ten to twelve thousand died before the revenge killings tapered off. The trade empire died too.

-94 to 221 The Thousand States -- really more like three hundred political units, but if one counts all the factions, family power groups, and divisions, there were easily a thousand. The Von language developed considerably as a written tongue, egged on by the islanders' obsession with keeping track of wrongs suffered and paybacks delivered. Accounts of the continued low-level feuding and political manuvering survive - some few on the original linen, rather more on the parchment they were copied onto in the 600's or 700's.

Diplomacy flourished right alongside vendettas, and some of the "Thousand States" apparently had tenuous trade ties around 360 degrees of the Kozep's shores. Small groups from outside moved to the islands, probably balanced by equal numbers moving away to flee the vicious culture.

176 Death of Ginamoi Papatoea, whose latter years were immortalized in the plays of Foldmuves' poet laurate of the early 1900's, Bobodiv Shap. "King Papa", "Chronicles of Papatoea", "Palm-Tree Prince", and "End of the Line" remain not only popular works for reading and performance, but they're decent history as well.

222 Inception of the Three Nyugatis (among other things, the origin of the name Nyugati). The Theocratic Nyugati Union, the Great Nyugati Convocation, and the Nyugati Inland Duchies were signed into existence by some two hundred and twenty island potentates. Another thirty or forty refused to join any group and some did remain independent, though none comprised over 2000 people.

223 to 258 The Three led a strange symbiotic existence for thirty-six years, sharing a common coinage (Nyugati Copper Vondoons), even a common history (maintained by scribes of the Union). Their outlooks were divergent though -- the Union isolationist, the Convocation militarily expansionist, and the Duchies resolutely traders and dealers. Individual governing units sometimes were traded by The Three, and at least for the Convocation, outside territory was claimed and conquered.

This warfare was restricted by the circumstance of no native iron. The Nyugatis had a pretty healthy bronze age going, on into the 100's and 200's, but when neighboring peoples figured out how to make and use iron, the islanders were driven to trading for it. The main means of long-distance transport was still sail-and-paddle outrigger canoes, so those copper coins went afar to buy iron edged tools and weapons - but hardly enough ironstuffs to permit an industrial revolution.

259 to 265 Temple War. Throughout the Three Nyugatis period most of the islands, even the Convocation and Duchies, owed spiritual allegiance to the priests at the head of the Union. In march 259, the High Priest of Inapatea declared that all the former Thousand States henceforth owed political allegiance to him as well. Hundreds of dukes, potentates, pashas, chiefs, mayors, guild headmen, shamans, and greatuncles begged to differ.

"How many spearmen have the priests?" was first asked then, and the answer was "not nearly enough". The Union went from nominally the largest of the Nyugati groups, to outright posessors of one city (Griaetineia), two towns, a bit of barren coast, and the temple courtyards (typically ten yards by fifty) in 790 towns and villages.

So how many spearmen had the Dukes? Not enough either - not enough to hold what they'd wrested from the priests. The Nyugati Inland Duchies went from 108 domains to 125 -- they won a port ciy but little more. The Convocation actually was weakened enough to drop from 78 parts down to 64, as some village strongmen broke away. The Almighty Theocratic Nyugati Union (why must diminished fortunes always result in longer names?) now controlled all of two percent of the area of the former Thousand States, and more like one percent of its people.

The new entity spread across the Nyugatis at the end of the Temple War was the Pineapple Disunion. Just over half the islands' surface, including most of the ports, harbors, and sheltered landings, had become Disunited. With no central authority and no taxation or repression to hate, virtually every village, town, and isolated farm "joined" the Disunion. About all they did together was defend each other with spears (politically) and fight each other with words (religiously).

266 to 305 Out from the strict control of the Priests of Sverikae, the lay leaders of hundreds of temples discussed, argued, and prayed their way to some eight or ten distinct varieties of the Svervontikoe faith. Outsiders probably couldn't tell the difference - goodness knows modern Foldmuvesan history students have trouble - but the doctrinal distinctions provided fertile material for schisms, disputes, mutual excommunications, shunnings, and reams of linen-paged theological tomes.

266 to 279 Also out from the priests' political control, the various chiefs and headmen were free to impose their versions of political organization. In this, the Disunion was aptly named, for no two did things the same way. This thirteen-year period we call the Experimentation interval. Every modern political system now extant and many that have disappeared from Aurora altogether were tried out. Even a technocracy of sorts existed, though the Buvcieota Creek Towns called it an Ironmongers' Autarchy - blacksmiths and tinkers ran the district.

281 and 283 Major eruptions of Jhoivitiea Mountain; several midsized towns wiped out and ash spread over thousands of square leagues. The only name known now is Fio Dita Town, now being excavated on the southeast flank of the mountain itself.

300's to about 425 Gradual statebuilding, as the myriad systems inevitably combined, morphed, and allied. Both the Duchies and the Convocation lost ground to the loose group still known as the Pineapple Disunion.

425 to 434 reign of King Azahejriaea -- riding on the innovation of archer, the former Duke of Hejrkad rose to control over half of the Inland Duchies, and a few of the Convocation's towns. Long-distance arrow attacks overwhelmed the most disciplined spear or pike corps.

Azahejriaea wasn't a very astute politician, and lost his entire kingdom when his neighbors took up bows and arrows too. His reign and its demise showed the Islands still weren't ready for any real unified rulership. The average state, duchy, or what-have-you in the islands then had six thousand people, or at most maybe ten.

The Duchies were more of an alliance or a club than a single nation. And the Convocation, now known as the Nyugati Convocation of Equals, was a related set of families and a trade and fishing cooperative, likewise not a real nation. Frankly, only the Nyugatis' relative distance from "civilization" had kept them from being outright conquered. That their wealth lay in fruit and copper in an age of iron didn't hurt either.

435 to 551 The same political units that made up the Thousand States continued to squabble in a small way. The new archery warfare made fighting more efficient, but once everybody was similarly armed no one tiny army tended to overmatch any other. The Convocation's basic outward outlook - trade and travel - led to it gradually adding members from the Disunion and the Duchies.

551 That openness got the islands conquered in a way that no archers or shieldmen could stop. One or another foreign trade vessel in 551 brought a virulent influenza strain, and over the next year some third to a half the population died. Isolated farms and folks who lived in the open-side huts favored by the Choktaun tribes fared better than town-dwellers.

552 to 570 The next twenty or so years are a silent period in Nyugati history. The priests and scribes lived in close quarters, and their ranks were decimated. Their stone structures still stood, but few survivors spent time writing. One Saa-Thiea Eano, a rare literate farmer, kept a journal on her own farm's rough linen that is the sole surviving written record of the times. Other than gravestones.

580 to 620 Period of immigration, as people from the islands to the north and northwest (now the Kingdom of Smalie and Examplia) moved in and took over derelect farms, empty shops, and no-longer-tame herds. Most of the newcomers arrived in small groups. One notable organized group under a Captain Gree moved in on several adjacent towns of the Disunion, settng up the Principality of Mhovinea. He and his thousand or more followers wound up in control of the largest single political unit on Great Nyugati, ruling over some forty thousand flu survivors and newcomers.

Most of the newcomers were of similar racial stock as the original islanders, so little genetic evidence remains of the influx. They did bring with them pigs, which were a new livestock animal to the islanders. Before, they had herded some sheep, goats, and a runty breed of cattle.

620 to 700 Immigration tapered off, as the land once again filled up with citizens. About as many people as the land could support with then-current farming methods had lived there before the flu epedimic, perhaps 450 or 500 thousand. Any more than that just resulted in fighting for territory until the numbers dropped back to around half a million.

The invaders and immigrants mostly spoke Lyipaeoita, which some have termed proto-Examplian. It bore enough similarity to the middle-Von of the Nyugatis that the two sort of melded together. The resulting Late-Middle Von is what we read our oldest scriptures in, as well as what students wade through the Dhanjicatoea Sagas in. These tales of travel and discovery are filled with fishermens' exaggerations, lies, and myths stolen blatantly from half the world's cultures of the time. Having not the slightest prohibition on plagerism, the Sagas' tellers delighted audiences around beachfront bonfires and in hilltop shepherds' huts for generations. They still delight readers today, either in the original tongue, or in any of the many modern translations. Only when written down in the 800's did these tales stabilize at all.

This period did see some serious long-distance trade, as artifacts from thousands of leagues' distance attest. Coins, broken crockery, and occasional intact inscriptions from as far away as what is now the Osman Empire have been found in middens and the dated strata of town dumps across the Nyugatis. Far harder to date but sometimes better preserved are the cargos of hundreds of shipwrecks that modern Foldmuvesan oceanarcheologists have brought up. These tell of wide-ranging travellers, and what must have been a sophisticated system of ordering and delivering. Brass plates were sometimes used instead of linen or parchment for trade records, and amazingly enough on them actual orders were placed for such goods as pigments, spices, and jewelry from nearly half the world away. The plates do tell of delivery times in years, though, so modern express import services can still feel a bit superior.

644 Major eruptions of Jhoivitiea Mountain, over six months. The entire Duchy of Honea Briia disappeared. Thousands died, and good farmlands were burned, but the rich ashy soil was reclaimed for farms starting in 646.

695 Jniportea The Bald set up shop on Aindu Island, midway between Great Nyugati and the Small Nyugatis. Jniportea would be remembered as the captain who introduced galleys to the islands, if only he wasn't better remembered as the bloodthirsty pirate whose eighteen galleys almost totally cut off traffic between the two Nyugati Island groups for 22 years. Preying at first on the trade vessels making the crossing, when those dried up, he changed to raiding the Small Nyugatis for slaves, provisions, and loot. Haineatucz Island and Ointcvoi Island, closest to his base, got the brunt of hits attacks, but he occasionally attacked towns and farms as far south as Vyborcleeia Island.

715 to 717 On February 9, 715 Jniportea made the mistake of raiding the city of Mhovinea, on Great Nyugati. By this time Greevor VI was running the most prosperous domain on the islands, and his wealthy and canny ire led to the pirate's downfall. You see, Greevor had bought from abroad the use of Tyree Fire (we'd call it primitive napalm). A rush order for more of the stuff from his secret supplier (we still don't know who was supplying petroleum-based armament in the Kozep area back then) was placed, and barrel after barrel arrived aboard his private trade-canoes. He commisioned a fleet of dozens of twin-hulled war canoes rivalling the pirates' galleys. These amazing catamarans were some 60 meters long, with a central platform 20 meters by ten. Each was armed with two massive ballistas, each capable of throwing a lit keg of Tyree Fire some 600 meters.

Sixty-meter catamatrans aren't terribly seaworthy, so Greevor's response to the pirates waited until a spell of calm weather in late 717. Propelled by 168 paddlers each, the war-cats and a host of smaller vessels left Mhovinea and stroked for Aindu. In a sea battle that lasted three days, fourteen of Jiportea's galleys were reduced to smoking, then sunken wrecks. Another five days of work at Aindu sufficed to reduce the late Captain's defenses to ruin, as well as to burn one more galley. Two of the remaining galleys high-tailed it southeast, to an unknown fate, while the last was captured intact, upended in a sheltered bay for barnacle scraping.

Greevor claimed Aindu as part of his Principality, and kept half the spoils he found there. The other half his trade canoes took back to the Small Nyugatis to return to some of the victims of the pirates. This perceived generosity was enough to somewhat mollify the relatives of the galley-slaves his Tyree Fire had killed, though some Small Nyugati Choktaun tribes held a grudge against Mhovinea and its Gree dynasty for generations.

724 to 758 Greevor VI and his successor Ondainigreei II built upon their success in cleaning out the Aindu Island pirate nest by developing the most modern fleet of the Nyugatis. Jniportea had shown the effectiveness of galleys -- swift, manuverable, and long-distance sailers, decently seaworthy even in heavy seas. The Mhovinea war-catamarans were relegated to harbor defense - the sheltered bay there permitted their use afloat when they would have gone to the bottom out in deep water. A new class of Nyugati boats were built -- decked galleys or longboats, lateen-rigged, and equally suited for war or trade. The Mhovinea shipbuilders became suppliers to all the Nyugatis -- all that were on good terms with the Grees. Soon Nyugati boats were turning up thousands of kilometers away, where earlier trade had been pass-along dealings involving six or a dozen middlemen. With the new kind of efficency, the Gree dynasty only got richer, the Principality more influential, and all their associated client states grew right along.

740, 743, 744 Numerous minor eruptions at Mount Pataeipwoca - ash deposts ruined some crops, but few people died. Notable due to the place in legend given the "shaking sages" who correctly predicted eruption activity based on primitive seismographs.

759 Haeitiaona, Duke of Svabord Forest, declared himself King of Inner Nyugati. His father then he had built support among the Duchies by marriage and treaty, and 46 of the 61 Inland Duchies pledged their allegiance to his crown. These were mostly contiguous, and included both river and coastal ports, and upland mineral territory. The duchies left out were not pressured, they just went their way and Haeto went his.

In obvious response to this development, Ondainigreei III as the first act of his Princedom later that same year, declared Mhovinea likewise a kingdom, and issued scrolls of invitation to the Disunion, Convocation, and Ducal clients that owed his family or domain some amount of respect or duty. His proposition was for interested states to join and be part of a big Nyugati realm, rather than merely one among many small fry. A motley assortment of some sixty Pashas, Chiefs, Dukes, and Guildsmen pledged support as vassals; their allegiance for his protection and leadership.

760 As of the middle of 760, the Kingdom of Inner Nyugati numbered some hundred and twenty thousand people, spread over a quarter of Great Nyugati. The Mhovinea Kingdom had collected over two hundred thousand in population, across a third of Great Nyugati (in patches and strips), Aindu and Ointcvoi Islands in entirety, and parts of Akinia, Vybordeeia, and Haineatucz Islands. By comparison, the remaining, still-informal grouping of the Disunion numbered maybe eighty thousand across several dozen domains, the Convocation Trade Convention counted by census "22,455 able-bodied adult males" - call it a hundred thousand total people, and the rump Inland Duchies numbered a scant 50,000. No longer a political force at all, the Grand Theological Autarchy And Association of Priestly Nyugati Domains consisted of the High Priest's family, 1400 retainers, and about 8000 scattered village priests. Stubbornly independent groups scattered about the islands, the largest number in the Small Nyugatis, may have numbered another forty or fifty thousand people.

760 to 785 Both Kingdoms worked at consolidating their power -- Haeto by force of arms and Ondaingreei by bureaucracy. In Inner Nyugati, the Dukes ceded most of their adsministrative power to the King, who eventually wound up as head not only of administration but also of the only force of armed men in the realm. In Mhovinea the Gree dynasty's forceful personas were augmented by five layers of bureaucracy, such that if anyone wanted something done, permission came through one or another of the King's agents. The bureaucratic situation sounds worse than it was -- in practice, permission for anything that advanced the kingdom's prosperity or influence was absurdly easy to gain.

786-843 Once internal control was settled in the two new kingdoms, both turned to the rest of the islands' territory for gains. The long and short of it was that by 843 there were but three political entities ruling the Nyugatis. Inner Nyugati covered all the center of Great Nyugati, and the coastal district around the great bay at its east end (now Joktoon Bay, but then Giakh-hatu bay). In addition Inner Nyugati controlled all of East and West Nikapitalonati Island through what might be called a wholly owned subsidiary, the Grand Duchy of South Pitalo. Mhovinea comprised most of the Great Nyugati coast, call it from 4 o'clock around to 2 o'clock, save for four city-state enclaves on the west coast. In addition, Aindu, Ointcvoi, Akinia, and some smaller Islands entire, and much of Haineatucz and Vyborcleeia Islands. Lastly, the aforementioned Great Nyugati city-states, a few isolated islets, and the remainders of Haineatucz and Vyborcleeia Islands made up the Free Nyugati League, a republic of sorts.

850 to 1250 Generally a period of stability among the three (once again) Nyugatis. They fought occasionally, but usually over other things than territory. The League occasionally included member states from the island to the north, now Smalie, but it was distant enough that such formal association always degenerated back to simple trade ties.

The League did rather more long-distance trading than the two kingdoms - they were pretty self-sufficient, while the League needed commerce with either them or elsewhere to meet many of its needs. Free League shipyards were the earliest Nyugati adopters of 'foreign innovations', and sold some of their excellent products to the Kingdoms' fleets, both those of military and of trade.

Inner Nyugati held the majority of the islands' mineral resources, with the exception of building stone and lime. With most of Great Nyugati's highlands, it also grew some crops that the jungle and coastal plains of Mhovinea lacked, in particular grapes and cotton.

Mhovinean fishermen supplied much of the Nyugatis' need for protein. Though all three realms had sea traffic and free passage across the banks and shoals of the Small Nyugatis, the Mhovineans just seemed to specialize in ocean harvesting. One exception was that the League's larger ships tended to be the ones that went after whales. By the 1100's whales were being taken for oil as well as meat. In the ships the Nyugati whalers used, the men didn't have a much better chance of winning than the whales, and many who went out never returned.

1140 to 1157 saw more frequent serious eruptions than the Nyugatis ever had before, or at least than had been recorded. For once, Mount Pataeipwoca remained silent, but Jhoivitiea Mountain, Hapapasada Volcano, the Tueineato Craters, Epaeo, and Fionicz Tisaiea Mountain all had long periods of activity, spreading mostly ash and rock bits. Mount Jhindjio and West Yamadjia both had major lava flows, Jhindjio's reaching the sea on several occasions. No period of over a month in that 16 years saw no volcano activity at all, and more than once several were simultaneously erupting. Like Nyugati volcano activity even today, periods of small earth tremors presaged almost all eruptions, so only the stubborn and stupid perished. Nineteen towns either vanished or were so badly damaged that they were abandoned. Some cattle got barbequed on the hoof, and the 1148 and 1149 crops on the east end of Great Nyugati completely failed. As a compensating effect, the heavy ashfall enriched many square miles of soil, and once reclaimed, the downwind farmlands became some of the islands' best. On August 4th 1157, all activity simultaneously ceased -- two eruptions and some quiet smoking had been going on. Adherents of several religions attributed the cessation to their fervent prayers. Historians note a tsunami on that date that swept coasts to the west of the Nyugatis, as far away as [tech - not yet named /tech]. If prayer stopped the volcanos, it was likely through the means of the quake that must have generated those big waves. No Nyugati volcano so much as sputtered smoke for thirty or more years, and even the several hot springs areas became nearly inactive as well.

Politically, the volcanos had little effect, other than to end a minor boundary dispute between Free League member Hapa Togracz and the neighboring Mhovinea district of Fort Bruaberto -- the entire area in question was covered in lava and ash, and both parties lost interest in the argument.

The tsunami of 1157 didn't damage coastal Nyugati - its force seemed directed south and west. But it did, according to other nations' histories, wipe out a Free League trade convoy some 3000 kilometers away -- no profit, and only a handful of sailors ever made it home from that disaster.

Potters in east-coast O'opeatuntscz made a virtue of a necessity and developed an ash-sprinkled glaze that is still used by that area's craftsmen to this day. Scientists can date artifacts of that pottery quite accurately, from the composition of the ash used. This capability is mostly a curiosity, but did aid in solving the noted Beta Hundreatia murder case in 2099 -- though that's a subject more for current events than for this history log.

1250 to 1370 saw the rise of land-based military power, at least on Great Nyugati. The impetus for this was the importation of horses in great quantities, then their local nurture and deveopment. Occasional horses had been present in the Nyugatis before, but had been a curiosity. Only the breeding abroad of varieties that tolerated heat and humidity well permitted their local use to mount cavalry. Further Nyugati breeding produced the Cvan Khamma breed, which most Nyugati armies would use for hundreds of years. Actually classed as a pony, the Cvan Khamma was (and still is) tough, smart, and strong - though at this size, heavily armored mounted knights were out of the question. Until this period, most island military activity could be called naval, or at most marine. After the mid 1300's though, all three occupants of Great Nyugati maintained standing armies as well.

Naturally limited by topography, wars tended to be brief affairs, of limited scope. On two occasions, an Inland Nyugati king actually let vassal dukes fight out their disputes on the battlefield -- one suspects thereby ridding himself of not one but two troublesome irritants at the same time. In both cases, the warring factions weakened each another enough to result (surprise!) in takeover of both domains as crown territories.

With those notable exceptions, Inland kings tended for hundreds of years to be executives of great political power but little personal wealth. The dynasties in power lasted but four or five generations before some other noble's power of wealth overwhelmed that of the monarch. In total, between 759 and 1370 Inland Nyugati saw eleven dynasties, of nine separate families. This led to pretty much everyone in the kingdom being related to royalty, at least at the third-cousin level. Inner Nyugati people tended to lord it over their "mere" League and Mhovinea neighbors -- many of whom were in the one case simple fishermen or shopkeepers of ten generations, or in the other serfs or shepherds of just as long standing. All that being said, ruling Inland as a kingdom seemed to be a way to spend wealth rather than amass it, giving rise to the phrase "poor as an inland prince". The traditions of the land really did lead to investment in the kingdom rather than looting it, which raised the overall prosperity of the domain quite handsomely.

The league armies of this time - all nine of them - were small, tough forces, each beholden to a specific member state, but under the directing authority of a single captain-general hired by the League Council. This general, often an outsider either truly experienced or else a good salesman, was kept in check by the Council's other quasi-military force, the Sneak Corps. These would probably be termed professional assasains nowadays. At least a dozen times before 1370, such a captain-general thought to take the reins of power himself, only to wake up dead soon thereafter. The League armies did see numerous actions, mostly against Mhovinean encroachment on their territory.

And the Mhovinean army, the largest of the three Nyugati forces, remained largely a mob force. It was a mounted mob -- very many Mhovinean farmers had eagerly adopted horses for transportation and other farm labor, and when they were called into active service for their king (an every-eighth year thing for most of the able-bodied men) the horses went too. If they had been a disciplined fighting force, there would no doubt soon have been but one Nyugati realm - the few times they went into battle at all organized, they whipped their opponent soundly.

The results of this new era in Nyugati warcraft were that the League and the Mhovinean Kingdom each expanded slightly, and the first of a double invasion attempt in 1362 was handily thwarted. Dozens of ships showed up off the shore of northwestern Great Nyugati, disgorged a considerable army, then stood off to sea to await the outcome. The strip of shore they landed on happened to be in dispute between Mhovinea and the Free Nyugati League, so the troops surreptiously arrayed across the shallow creek valley had a new target. Considering the size of the invading force (some 5000-plus armored men and sixty- or eighty-strong cavalry), the Nyugati combatants declared a quick truce, and invited the Duke of nearby Uvenhaariea Duchy (of the Inland Kingdom) to come join the fracas. He did, and the temporarily allied Nyugati forces wiped up the battlefield with the invaders - a group styling itself the Cartinrian Scouting Force. The Cartinrian sea-captains saw the way the battle was headed, dashed in to pick up perhaps a hundred survivors, and left for parts unknown. The armor of the defeated soldiers was a good deal tougher than Nyugati norms, so it was apportioned out to all three local domains as war spoils.

As a footnote, the next week the League and Mhovinean contingents picked up where they left off; a desultory fight for posession of a few hundred square kilometers.

1362 to 1369 That was the first attempt. The second came four months later. Nyugati military folks at the time should have considered the implication of the first invasion being titled a "Scouting Force", but hindsight is of course 20-20. The second group was the Second, Third, and Seventh Combined Cartinrian Expeditionary Forces. These totalled over 35,000 men, and very nearly overturned the three Nyugati realms.

To establish a beachead on the north coast of Great Nyugati, a fleet of hundreds of sailing barges escorted by galleys put in at Mhovinea's Tyricaie Point Bay, offloading a flood of archers and wiping out the town there, man, woman, and child. Once in the Cartinrians' control, further cargo ships docked, offloading hundreds of horses and an entire baggage train of wheeled conveyance. Oddly the carts were human-propelled - the horses were all for mounted troops and for messengers. Even the large trebuchets they had brought were pulled by men. This puzzle resolved itself as the army moved toward Giakhatu Bay and the Inland Kingdom's city and towns there -- instead of killing defeated soldiers and captured countrymen, they were harnessed and put to work hauling the invaders' supplies. Within fifteen days they had reached Has-Jhaeinia, and another eleven saw the Cartinrian banner flying there and over the surrounding towns.

Pausing only to sharpen their weapons and resupply from the inland Kingdom's warehouses there, the Cartinrians split into two columns - one aimed at Mhovinea on the south coast, the other at the inland Kingdom's upland cities due west.

There's no sense in repeating the exhaustive examination of Drin of Cartrin's campaign found in Haeponihanaa's four-volume work -- Island and mainland Foldmuvesan schoolchildren have all studied it. Suffice it to say that in eleven months, the Inland Kingdom (except the Nikapitalonati dependency to the south), much of Mhovinea from Great Nyugati to Vyborcleeia, and a third of the League cities were under his control. On the plus side (if you were an Original Nyugati), the superior maritime strength of the Three Nyugatis had annihilated Drin's fleet, leaving the men he'd landed on the various Small Nyugati islands isolated and unsupported.

The Nyugati folk crowded onto the western end of Great Nyugati kept pressure on Drin's thin-spread men, winning back league by league their farms and towns, and continually landing small forces here and there around the coast. The Cartinrians had landed in the dry season (such as it is) - the wet season and its more prolific insect-borne diseases had fought for the natives, and over six years probably killed as many invaders as the Nyugati defenders did.

At the end of six years the thousands of Cartinrians remaining - perhaps as many as ten thousand - bereft of Drin himself (felled by an assasin), sued for peace. The terms left Akinia Island totally Cartinrian, as it had been totally overrun. Other than the massacre at Tyricaie Point, the invaders had been sparing of Nyugati lives, and the likely cost to root out their dozen remaining fortresses would have been high. So the other Cartinrians were permitted either to move to Akinia or to remain where they were for twenty years of bondsman status.

1370 to 1374 The distinctions between the three realms of the Nyugatis had been pretty well obliterated by a half-dozen years of cooperative warfare. Both Kingdoms' monarchs had been killed, with minor heirs overseen by regents, and the League's Council was heavily in debt to Mhovinean lenders. And somewhere to the north or west lay Cartinrian armies, numbers one and four through six... a daunting possibility just over the horizon.

Both regents were military men, accustomed to thinking in terms of efficient organization and economy of operation. Neither they nor the lead League Councillors wanted a repeat invasion - while they had won over the Cartinrians, it had been a near thing. Another such victory might lose them their domains for good. Not to mention their lives.

So after some rebuilding and healing in their scattered state, Regent Hue Tuiepaana of Inland and Regent Gyorgh Diavaghree of Mhovinea met with the remaining League High Council, and worked out a unified government for the islands. It was to be a chartered monarchy, with the royal house at any one time holding authority derived from a random selection of the nobles of the various political units. Some of those were self-governed - the former League cities were basically small republics. The Inland and Mhovinean territories, far worse affected by the Cartinrian attacks, were reorganized into fewer, larger domains -- duchies and grand duchies. Mhovinea City itself, and Uluuta Hariina, the former Inland capital, were to be termed principalities, with the former ruling families to be headed by Princes of the Realm, second only to the High King. And the new capital was to be the city of Khatuusiaia, once rebuilt on the shore of Giakhatu Bay at the east end of Great Nyugati. The new state would be referred to as the Nyugati Consolidated Kingdom, and its stated intent would be to hold the Nyugatis regardless of the foe.

Some of those foes still technically existed nearby. The remnant former invaders, now peacably occupying Akinia Island, would be disarmed - no cavalry, no arms other than bow or pike, no warships. Nyugati would see to their defense, and would permit them a status of near-autonomy. In return, the former Cartinrians would marry into Nyugati families, would cede a tithe of their food and mineral production directly to the Consolidated Kingdom's crown, and would send laborers to work on Kingdom defense projects. Techically they would be a subduchy, and their leader a noble, though junior to any other duke of the realm.

1375 to 1388 Under the new High King Freid Hvantiea, the Consolidated Kingdom worked like mad to build itself defenses to withstand any further onslaught, and built itself a single military with which to take the fight to the Cartinrians. Nyugati religion of whatever stripe had never been big on this "turn the other cheek" business -- they were out to stomp their one-time invaders, and stomp them well. Coastal towns had crumbing fortifications built into presentable forts. Armor was forged, and war horses bred and trained. And naval seige engines were built into a new fleet of twin-deck galleys. These ships still had the round-bottomed build of their canoe ancestors, and indeed they still mounted outriggers that swung down for stability under sail.

1384 Bad storms - probably typhoons - sank dozens of Freid's new vessels, not to mention caused great loss of life in the Small Nyugais. On one shore pineapple, papaya, and mango plantations active for hundreds of years were scrubbed away down to bare rock. One of the new war galleys, the Jayonapatu, under a Captain Gordu managed to ride out two successive storms despite all canvas being carried away and all but seven oars being smashed to kindling. They fetched up on the shore of today's mainland Foldmuves nine weeks later, their seamanship and the galley's obvious sturdiness impresing the locals enough that two Dukes sent the company back to the Nyugatis after rest and a refit with an order for ten just like it, and enough sailors to train locals.

In March 1388 High King Freid I abdicated in favor of his eldest son Jan, and resumed his military career in command of a fleet of 355 galleys and further various cargo and support ships. Nyugati traders on around-the-Kozep routes had identified the origin of the Cartinrians (the home nation bore a different name) and had quietly spied out their defenses.

1388 to 1395 The Cartinrian Campaign [tech] left undetailed, so I can coordinate histories with other nearby nations -- if you're within old-time sail-and-oar distance, and want an old war, let me know! It's timed to be one of the last big pre-gunpowder conflicts of the Kozep Ocean area. [/tech]

1396 to 1481 The Consolidated Kingdom / The Nyugati Trade Empire. This period was probably the widest influence of Nyugati traders. Plenty of other traders sailed the Kozep - Nyugati had no monopoly - but Nyugati captains were the most energetic, and their enterprises were the best financed of the area. Advances were brought in from around the world - while not direct circumnavigators of Aurora, Nyugati trade cartels regularly ordered goods from and sent goods to every corner of the globe. Travel time was improving - why, a load of prime Haineatucz copper ingots might take no more than 11 months to get to Osman or the like. Citrus Guildsmen from the Feiatooana and Grajicaneia families developed dessicating techniques and materials that permitted dried and candied pineapple, mango, and kiwi to arrive at distant ports in edible condition, and those same dessicants kept the crews' vital lime and orange supplies available to stave off scurvy.

1404 The Mad Duke Qotakanitele introduced shoes to the Nyugati people. The attempt failed. At most, islanders don sandals if working on rocky ground or on coral surfaces.

1422, 1423, 1431, 1434, 1435 -- years of terrible storms. Tens of thousands lost their lives, and as many as a million were at one time or another without roofs above. The Nyugatis' mild tropical climate kept the homeless families from suffering too badly. The loss of crops was a far worse calamity. The Consolidated Kingdom had to import large amounts of food for many of those storm years and the years following.

1434 Rastanacati penned The Uliatia Lament -- carried far and wide by Nyugati traders, no doubt along with uncountable forgettable melodies and ditties, it became one of the most recognizable symbols of Nyugati to Aurora at large. It remains so - 2100 saw over 40 Foldmuvesan bands and individual singers performing some version of it on recordings.

1446 Ueapitea Mountain, overlooking Great Nyugati's Giakhatu Bay, had never evidenced any volcanic activity... until now. It did not catastrophically erupt, as occasional Nyugati mountains did, but for eight months it spewed ash continually, driving many of the capital city's residents out for the duation. And it continued to emit a small plume of smoke thereafter, for some nine years.

1482 to 1520 Rise of the competing [tech] Somebody-or-other's Empire [/tech] as major mercantile competitors. Simultaneously, pirates started employing the new gunpowder weapons, making trade risky unless naval vessels patrolled the trade routes. All this cut into profits, but did give the Nyugati Kingdom reasons to develop its own modern weapon systems.

1520 to 1611 Period of decreasing authority for Consolidated Kingdom monarchs. The nobles had heard of the inroads on absolute monarchy their peers in other lands had gained, and wanted a piece of the action too. This pressure culminated in the 1611 Ultimatum of Iautiapia, where the weak (mentally as well as politically) High King Jan XII granted the nobles a list of concessions, ones which not coincidentally became the model for our own Republic's Bills of Freedoms.

1548, 1551, 1552, 1555 -- Years of the Red Tide. The waters between Ointcvoi, Haineatucz, Akinia, and Vyborcleeia are not only shallow, but in some springs became the focus of an eddy of the primary current past the Nyugatis. Other years that eddy was further southwest, well off the banks where locals fished. When that eddy coincided with calm weather, the warm-water tropical conditions were (and still are) ripe for a bloom in growth of the reddish algae Kozepsangina. This red tint to the waters was the signal to just pull fishing boats ashore and figure out something else to do for a few months, for any fish taken from those bloody waters would already be dying of their own little aquatic plague. The algae itself was not harmful to humans, but substances fish secreted when infested by the stuff are toxic eough to sicken or kill people. Unfortunately, the 'monkey see- monkey do" level of medicine then practiced equated the red source of the toxins with blood, and typically perscribed a bloodletting as a cure. More afflicted islanders probably succumbed to the cure than to the tide, the toxins of which were basically like a bad food poisoning.

1561 Typhoon killed some 8,000 along the south coast of Great Nyugati and the north coast of Haineatucz. Sizeable boats (for the time) were driven over a kilometer inland.

1577 Crowning of the first Cruisian High King of the Nyugatis, Ivan Tyyveriea. Cruisian missionaries had been active among the islands for seventy to a hundred years, but the nobility had been slow to adopt the new faith. By Ivan I's time a considerable minority of the dukes claimed Cruis as Lord, as did some forty or fifty percent of their people. Acutely aware of the spiritual scope of Cruis' kingdom, Ivan was neither threatened by the church's authority over congregants, nor did he feel a need to lend his secular weight to their 'conquest' of hearts. Omitting the "becomes official and manditory state religion" step common in many converted lands left Nyugati churches filled wth believers who truly held the faith, not with those plus the droves who would convert out of political convenience to match a monarch. One notes that Nyugati churches to this day have a healthy distance from secular authorities, and feel little need to bow to them.

1589 Ivan I was counted as a competent king, and a fair one. He unfortunately died heirless, having raised two sons who had died in naval service before his coronation (at 54). The chosen successor was Dinu of Gricipaetia, who was not only venal and paranoid, but who also had married a first cousin, as the Old Church actually encouraged rulers to do. He and Queen Anaeia begat but one son, and a poor example at that, the already-mentioned Jan XII.

1590 First group immigration of the very dark-skinned peoples from the west. Several hundred show up in voyaging canoes, fleeing famine in their native land. They are welcomed, as are most of those that follow sporadically over probably three hundred years. Some fled famine, others left home in times of plenty when too many people stretched resources thin. Most were either good fishermen or otherwise energetic outdoor workers, and their work ethic made them a welcome addition to the kingdom.

1611 Already mentioned is the significance of the year -- the imposition of the Ultimatum of Iautiapia upon Jan XII. The rest of the year was of historical note as well. Once that curtailment of the High King's powers was in place, the nobles formed the Constad, one of the first parliament-like bodies on Aurora. The difference between it and former nobles' groups is that the others, both in Nyugati and elsewhere, had mostly been advisory bodies. The Constad actually held political clout. Delegated to it, for example, were the selection of all the Kingdom's minor judges, of its ambassadors, and of some senior military posts. In addition, the Constad wrote laws up for submission to the King - he still had to approve them, unless the Constad vote on one was unanimous.

1611 to 1802 So this period has become known as the Age of Constad. Several times during it, the body was dissolved by a High King -- for due cause, he could. In 1648, in 1779, and in 1793 the Constad was disbanded, and an entire new selection of nobility had to be installed. The Constad was initially 31 nobles, later (1714) expanded to 85. The upper house of today's Lower Nyugati megye legislature is still known as the Constad; a direct decendant of the selfsame body.

1630 The priest Zebelera attempted to get his faithful to consistently wear shoes, claiming that dirty feet equated to impurity. The attempt fails about as miserably as Qotakanitele's similar misguided crusade back in the 1400's.

1650's Importation of Zerlo (early Szereloi) brass enables production of tuned, diatonic versions of traditional Nyugati conch shell horns. The use of brass instruments (later other horns, then various tuned-cylinder and tuned-bar percussion) permitted island music to progress to a written form. In Nyugati heat and humidity, stringed instruments were useless - wildly untuneable until the advent of synthetic strings just ten years ago. Traditional horns were of random keys, in often odd tunings. Drums with skin heads were out of the question, the leather expanding and contracting by the minute. Wood xylophone-equivalents and tongue-drums provided patterns for metal adaptations -- even now central instruments in Szereloi bands and Foldmuvesan ensembles.

Nyugati people seem content that other mainland staples of musical expression don't work in island climate - notably the reeds of accordions and droning bagpipes...

1668 In another metallic innovation, Kazharticec Duchy inventor Teritepitabe built upon his locale's production of lead and its casting technology, and the recent importation of wood-carved moveable-type printing, to develop cast moveable type. Teritype printing, exported eventually worldwide, opened up the mass-printing of books, enabling a leap in Aurora's literature.

1684 to 1690 The Great (Nyugati) Revival -- a spiritual awakening of earthshaking scope, which spanned not only all the Nyugatis, but by travelling preachers, also many locations on the mainland where Foldmuves and Szerelo now lie. One casualty of the revival was the budding trade in narcotics -- in the late 1600's, tobacco, cocaine, and hashish were becoming popular among the well-to-do of Nyugati and several adjoining nations. An application of the Cruisan scriptural admonition to "strive always to remain in control of your own mind, lest some wicked acquaintance lead you astray under the sway of his influence". The reference then was apparently to either betel or peyote, and of course alcohol, but the extension was pretty clear. This sudden self-imposition of a dose of restraint and morality had good diplomatic effect too -- some of those nations full of good narcotic customers were starting to treat Nyugati as a source of a contagion. Cessation of drugs' sale was a lot like cessation of hostilities -- trade that had been tightening reopened, and foreign governments once again placed orders for Nyugati products. So, far from "imposition of a straitlaced religious code", the awakening was a trade boon and a PR coup.

Official portraits of several recent Nyugati monarchs were retouched to remove the pipe (of hash).

Several High Kings since Ivan I had been Cruisans, but all were of the faith well before coronation. 1689 saw the conversion of a reigning High King - during services he had invited to be held in his Royal Music Hall, Grygor Ptaniff Olivanaratanae Jurgal Ynivor -- Grygor VII of Nyugati -- laid his crown on the altar and prostate, begged the preacher to help him embrace Cruis as Lord and Savior. Jurgen Uinifetepeta raised his sovereign to his knees, and introduced him to his Heavenly Sovereign. Jurgen went on to later become the first Royally Chartered Evangelist. Grygor went on to change from a modestly effective and modestly corrupt royal to a paragon of kingly virtue - a statesman and a true example to his subjects. His declaration that even the king was subject to God did much to endear him to his subjects - a real human admitting his humanity had a whole lot more credibility than a fallable man pretending to be infallable.

The Great Revival saw the Nyugatis go from around fifty percent nominally Cruisan, to well over seventy-five percent strongly committed Cruisan, and perhaps another twelve percent professing, if only in name. Over the first decades of the 1700s, evangelists and missionaries became some of the Nyugatis' best (and best-recieved) exports.

1725 and 1726 Ueapitea Mountain, overlooking Giakhatoon Bay and Khatu-Jhaeinia City, experienced another eruption much like the one in the 1400's. This time, with no more than a few tiny tremors to presage the event, it commenced spewing thick ash and did not stop for fourteen months. When the eruption tailed off into occasional spurts and a small smoke column, a third of Bayside Duchy and most of the beautiful city of Khatu-Jhaeinia were covered by eight to forty feet of ash. Prevailing winds from the southwest prevented the blanketing of the rest of Great Nyugati. Few lives were lost, but some 55,000 people had to move away.

We can say the city was beautiful, because its state at the time is largely preserved, the ash having prevented the wear and tear that have dimmed the 1600's glory of some Nyugati cities. Excavations began in earnest in the 2090's, and continue today.

1728 to 1761 The rebuilding of the buried port city to today's Novy Jhaeinia took decades, but the result was a delightful unity of style and a dedication to purposeful use. Broad avenues, white limestone buildings with red tile roofs, the rebuilt Haetanatare Cathedral -- all can still be seen today. Most of the replacement construction was to the south of the buried city -- the area of which became farmland, with occasional structures jutting up from the volcanic soil.

Other eruptions - major and minor - did occur in the 1700's, after a fairly quiet period in the 1500's and 1600's. They're usually glossed over in historical accounts due to the comparison with Ueapitea.

1731 Pasta came to Nyugati. Wheat won't grow well in Nyugati's climate, and grain doesn't respond well to the dessication (drying) that helps preserve our fruit. But the dessicants do keep dry pasta dry, so wheat can be imported in that already-prepared form - in barrels, sealed. First imported in any quantity by the merchant Ter Kuzikanilele and family, who later got rich on the proceeds of the famous Pasta Fleet, then in the 1900's multiplied that wealth further through the Pasta Clippers.

1750's Red-haired High Queen lastinafaracec, acknowledged to be the Nyugati beauty of several centuries, created an import market for henna dye. Significant amounts continued to be brought into the islands for 110 or 120 years.

1769 Playwright Stebo Hananatala produced Ten Lanterns. Critics coined the phrase "joyful doommonger", forever to be Stebo's nickname. Audiences flocked to see his works anyway. They still do.

1783 Second Dissolution of the Constad by High King Loonri III led to civil war. The action wasn't entirely uncalled-for -- that body had taken to voting itself and its supporters lavish lifestyles, all from the treasury. Loonri, an administrator of dubious ethics himself, had once before in 1779 turned the Constad out on its collective ear. That time caused little unrest, save among the noble houses that wound up unrepresented in the new Constad. The second Loonri dismissal was the act of a frustrated, fading old man, and the nobility took his physical condition as an opportunity to try to seize the kingdom. The whole war lasted but nine months, but the forces were so nearly matched that carnage was great among the various military factions. Loonri's heir Altamacari came out on top - the old king died of a stroke in bed after two weeks of the war. The Altamacari restoration consisted of a new Constad, made up of a bunch of mostly new-minted nobles, with a few of the King's perrogatives that had eroded over the years back firmly in his hands. The basic structure of the Ultimatum still held the kingdom together, though, and after a brief few years, things were back to business as usual. One exception was that the military took more like twenty-five years to recover. It had suffered doubly -- combat losses at first, then decimation of the heavily-noble-born officer ranks.

1795 Reintroduction of the sweet potato to the islands. Once a Nyugati staple, the sweet potato was wiped out here by a blight in the 1500's Some were imported as food, but none would grow in any island soil. Modern analysis of records and traces of both old and new plants point to the new variety having come from all the way around Aurora; a sufficiently different species that the blight was diminished. The new potatos were still on the runty side - award-winners totalling at most a kilo and a half in weight, where if the old records are to be believed, the original strain topped out sometimes at five kilograms apiece.

1802 With the consent of High King Tiuipatea Bvarda, the National Constad split itself into three parts. The portion which survives today became the Small Nyugatis' local legislature. It opened its membership to all mayors, all town councilmen, and a selection of influential tradesmen, in addition to the remaining southern islands' nobility. A second portion, termed the Assembly, became the natonal legislature. It consisted of the wealthy landsmen who had in years past literally bought themselves titles. And the final section of the former Constad was the old-time nobles - those heads of families who had been Nyugati nobility for ages. These mostly inactive gentry were named as a body The Veto -- their function was to approve (by default) or veto (by two-thirds majority) the Assembly's actions.

Beau Gritinideani was a respectable member of the Veto, if that tells you anything about the body's composition and social standing. Beau Duke Griti may not have studied many laws, but he did try hard to bend and break most he came across.

1807 Bvarda's second major reform was introduction of a full-fledged constitution to replace the old Ultimatum. in its brief few pages his own power was perhaps diminished, but it was at least firmly encoded as law. The powers and duties of legislature, judiciary, and military were likewise spelled out in detail. This constitution of 1807 made Nyugati not the very first but still one of the earliest constitutional monarchies.

1807 to 1853 First (Nyugati) Constitutional Monarchy -- Over this half-century Nyugati politics opened up to include a greater portion of the populace in its machinations, schemes, and intrigues. It is said that Nyugati governance then was best prepared for by a stint as a spy, a term as a soothsayer, and time spent overseeing three-year-olds. The 1807 constitution did introduce some innovations that worked - a truly independent judiciary, representative selection of politicians (mayors, ducal councils, and some crown advisors). It also had some provisions we're better off without -- automatic immunity from prosecution for most civil servants, a rigid. protected guild system, and tax collection by an arm of the military.

1808 In the celebrations accompanying the new Nyugati constitution, fireworks set off a conflagration in the center of Vytu Jorinidar, the capital city. Hundreds lost their lives, not fleeing to safety but believing until too late the smoke and flames were part and parcel with the party.

The reorganized and redefined government went on about the business of running the islands, though its first legislative act was to appropriate public funds for rebuilding Vytu. King Bvarda put most of his considerable fortune into the building program as well.

1818 Hesterhozy Royal Gardens in O'toapiea bugun. Today's "world's largest banyan tree" planted. Azalias first introduced to Nyugati as an exotic - now of course they grow like weeds everywhere.

1821 - Princess Syveen, favored daughter of King Grutesh of Nyugati was lost at sea on a clear day, during a routine crossing from Akina to Haineatucz. Grutesh became known as a great patron of exploration when he sent sixteen ships out with an open-ended mission of finding her. They were not to come back until ten years had passed or the princess was rescued (pirates were assumed to be at fault). The ships went out in twos and threes, well-provisioned, well-funded (gold and silver in abundance, for ransom or just for expenses), well-armed, and well-manned (a short company of marines aboard each). Nine were lost on the quest (see 1876), but seven returned to Nyugati between 1832 and 1835. They brought reports of exotic lands, samples of merchandise, envoys of far-off kings, maps of new routes, and quite a few pirates' ears - each ship having a keg of rum specifically for preserving the traditional trophies of antipiracy operations. No word of the princess ever came to light.

Grutesh died heartbroken in 1840, already on his way to impressive riches from the new trade ties the questers brought to be. In a musical-history footnote, "Syveen's Quest" became one of the more popular folk ballads of the late 1900's.

1821 to 1831 Rise in excitement about horse racing, mostly on Great Nyugati. As a craze, this lasts over sixty years, uninterrupted even by the events of 1853. As a constant part of island culture, lasts right up to today; waxing and waning but always present.

1828 Discovery of gold in the deep mines of Kazharticec Duchy. While these played out in twenty years, the wealth they brought Luvar of Kazharticec and the kingdom as a whole financed many improvements in transportation and science. Luvar's deep-rock lead production had already made his duchy an industrial center; the additional capital made possible his hundreds of kilometers of toll roads, the six Luvar Arch Bridges that cut hours or in one case days from travel, and the Luvar Tunnels. His mining engineers just needed to drain water from the extensive deep workings, but the resultant shafts, once extended, provided not only a considerable road shortcut, but also storm shelter for thousands.

As a footnote, a decade after the gold veins had petered out, the continued pursuit of rich lead deposits ever deeper beneath Kazharticec drove Luvar's employee Engineer Tomas Feinneana to devise the first multistage steam-driven pumps.

1836 Carrier pigeons introduced. Native hawks devour the entire nascent postal system in six months. The king goes back to relatively fast two-man sailing catamarans to carry his messages from island to island. Average citizens continue to rely on a "it'll get there eventually" system of forwarding by irregular boat traffic to handle mail.

1842 and 1843 The Backwards Cyclones, particularly the big ones of August 1842 and July 1843, battered the Nyugatis. Slight shifts in weather patterns not only increased the severity of these years' storms, but also brought them in from the south and southwest, rather than the expected northwest. The two biggest ones caught the bulk of the Nyugati fleet out on manuvers, and reduced most to driftwood and seafloor debris. Crops and herds suffered as well, as did coastal towns.

1849 to 1852 The Szantar Takeover -- thousands of kilometers to the east, yet an integral part of Nyugati history. In 1849 forces under Admiral Har Gunez of [tech - somewhere S or SE of Szerelo /tech] moved into the Kingdom of Szantar - then entirely north of the Szantar Strait. At the time Szantar was the largest single polity among the patchwork of Chagasz peoples. Most states now making up Szerelo and Foldmuves were fairly small duchies and principalities, with alliances temporary and peace always unsettled. Gunez was under orders from his king (also his nephew) to secure access through the Strait, whether by treaty or by conquest. Szantar's excise officers had been charging merchant shipping for passage there, to the ruin of profits. Considering Gunez' armada, we know he intended takeover or at least intimidation.

Chelebv of Szantar was an unpopular king, and Gunez' pressure at the capital city of Rivec won defections of a dozen duchies before a single cannon was fired. The remaining two-thirds of Szantar's duchies, counties, and guildcities held with their king. The defectors and Gunez spent three years and 86 thousand lives - mostly Szantari - reducing the king's borders right to Rivec's walls. Faced with a promised siege, Rivec's tired loyalists flung King Chelebv's already dead body over the walls at Gunez' camp, and sued for peace.

Gunez set up a puppet regime, since derisively called the Defectorite Monarchy, owing allegiance but little added tribute to Gunez'. Some senior military staff were Gunez' imports, but most were drawn from 'defectorite' ducal officers. Why he didn't install more of his own people became evident the following year.

1853 Gunez' ultimate objective had not ever been Szantar, as great a prize as that was. In June of 1853, having recieved confirmation that the Nyugati fleet was being rebuilt at a politics-hamstrung snail's pace from its 1842 and 1843 storm decimation, he provisioned his ships and two thirds of the reasonably capable Szantar fleet (mostly intact after being bottled up in harbors during the Defectorite War), loaded more marines and support men even than he had brought to Szantar (the Szantar Defectorite Monarchy was glad to be rid of a large chunk of its remaining expensive and restive military), and set sail. Operational secrecy had been tight - his captains-adjutant did not even distribute charts of the Nyugatis and the route there until eight days at sea.

High King Tomatabele II of Nyugati had no inkling what was descending on his domain. Military historians mostly agree that even if he'd had warning there wouldn't have been much he could've done. Gunez had battle-hardened men in ample supply, one of the finest and largest fleets afloat, and as ballast in over two dozen ships, the bullion of Szantar's treasury, to serve as bribes. Gunez, whether he had read the ancient Osman strategist Sonzu Fesh or not certainly applied his thirtieth maxim "Why expend soldiers when coins will fight as well?"

Again showing his canny use of 'research', Admiral Gunez landed first not on Great Nyugati, the center of power, but on two Small Nyugati islands, the center of discontent. Judicious exenditure of some of his bribe money bought Gunez the loyalty of all the dukes of Ointcvoi, Akinia, and neighboring Vyborcleeia. A modest demonstration of force, and most of Nikapitalonati's nine duchies and counties capitulated, joining whom they could see would be an eventual victor.

Used to the Small Nyugatis being comfortably subordinate, the High King and his advisors just couldn't see any force based there as a major threat. Overconfident, Tomatabele sent his General Kindakaperatete and half his fleet "to put down these rebels and this foreigner". Twenty years before, half the Nyugati fleet might have stopped Gunez, but after the Backwards Cyclones, half his equalled maybe a tenth of Gunez'. Kindakaperatete and his ships were slaughtered at sea, not even getting a chance to test the foreigners on land. The defeat was so total that no word even got home of the ships' fate. Adding error to error, Tomatabele then sent his son Duna to "mop up" the foreigners and bring the rebel dukes back for justice. Gunez easily captured Duna's force, put the heir in a convenient dungeon, and sent the fifteen ships back to Vytu Jorinidar, fourteen stuffed full of crack troops and one stuffed full of gunpowder.

This "returning punitive party" sailed right into Vytu Jorinidar and anchored. The flagship headed in to the docks, tied up, and disembarked a stream of "chained prisoners". The fortress gate opened for this party, who filed in about the time their bombship blew up, taking half the royal dockworks with it. Caught totally flatfooted, the fortress guard instead of buttoning up their accesses, threw open every gate and door to run to aid the docks' workers with fires. Meanwhile, the "downcast prisoners" who had been hastily chained in the fortress courtyard quietly burst from their (wooden) chains, siezed arms, and took the fortress. The several thousand aboard the fourteen ships at anchor weren't even needed ashore, in-town. They instead took to longboats and spread to secure the three posts guarding the harbor. Large guns mounted there against seaborne attackers by design could not traverse to train upon the inner harbor or city, and the only cannons the invaders faced were small ones hastily moved around wrong-side by a few alert defenders.

Total cost to take the capital's main defenses --36 men and a single cutter.

Once in charge of the fortress, Gunez' men locked down Vytu Jorindar's primary armories and barracks, and were able to fire mortars into the palace compound. The High King and his entire council were able to make good their escape, but by the skin of their teeth. Left behind were the majority of the personal royal treasure, many family members, and the morale of the nation. By the time army units from outside the city were able to mount a counterattack, some 4500 of Gunez' best men were on the walls, and had rounded up over 500 prime hostages, from the Bishop of Hutininrede to the High King's two nieces to wives and children of dukes, judges, and army officers. Word was passed out to the High King's men that the plume of smoke going up was the palace -- in truth it was barrels of pitch from chandleries that survived the bombship blast, but that wouldn't have been quite as effective as propaganda.

Over three days, the High King's army moved every available man from half of Great Nyugati's army posts into position around the capital city. And that was about the last mistake he had left to make. For on day four, the remainder of Gunez' men and quite a few from 'bought' Small Nyugati ducal forces, in what must have seemed like an unbelievable number of ships, landed at twenty-one port cities around the Great Nyugati coast, taking most with fights of under five hours' duration.

High King Tomatabele may have been tactically dim, but at least he was stubborn. Still not conceding his kingdom in the face of Gunez' superior forces, he and eight or ten thousand fighters retreated upcountry, to the central highlands. With defensible passes and trails to hold, he set about making his little corner of Great Nyugati unassailable. Having his hands full with the several million new subjects of his nephew King Gderat III, Gunez elected to invest the highland remnant of Tomatabele's kingdom with a few thousand troops, and let him rot.

But rot he didn't. One of the few things Har Gunez apparently hadn't found out about the Nyugatis was just how self-sufficient the old Inland Kingdom had been. Tomatabele may have held only nine duchies, comprising at most 160,000 people, but that territory had at least the essentials for survival, and if he was surrounded, well at least that conferred the advantages of 'inside lines of communication' . The High King insisted he remained the rightful ruler of all the Nyugatis, but most of his subjects admitted the reality - the kingdom was now lost to foreigners.

1854 The winners of any conflict get to write the histories. Gunez' account labeled Tomatabele as the Inland King, and himself as Har Gunez I of New Nyugati. Sure - in Tomatabele's line's records, they were all still High Kings of all the Nyugatis. Even that dubious claim lasted only another 41 years, before the 1896 incorporation of the Inland Kingdom back into Nyugati. Gunez' chronicles also tell of his and his stepson's reign as vassals of far-off [tech - been avoiding it, but again need the name of some home kingdom under his nephew Gderat III, south or southeast of Szerelo... any takers? /tech], and later the looser association until 1887 as an "Autonomous Dependency", then finally as the once again independant Kingdom of Nyugati.

1854 to 1859 Period of adjustment, as the native Nyugati culture absorbed elements of the Chagasz rulers' society. Thirty thousand immigrants, mostly soldiers, even as eventually augmented to perhaps seventy thousand total from Szantar and other Chagasz duchies and principalities, don't totally remake a kingdom of 2.3 million. The most serious changes were the use of the Chagasz language in court and most official dealings, the upgrading of the islands' military to mainland standards, and the importation of some of the immigrants' preferred foods. Wheat will grow on the islands, just not as well as rice and barley. Onions and peppers are still grown in Nyugati, in even more variety than Gunez' people brought in. And some imports shook up island agriculture for but a short time -- mutton being a favorite of the immigrants just didn't mean sheep would tolerate the climate. The language did stick - witness the closeness to the Republic of Foldmuves' Morzhat tongue at the time of the Great Agglomeration a hundred years later.

The military was certainly brought up to par - continuing his momentum, Gunez personally led the successful invasion of what is now Smalie's southeastern islands in 1858. Using the selfsame fleet that took Szantar and then Nyugati, Gunez overwhelmed the local forces there. That a later Nyugati King permitted the Smalian Dependency to go its own way thirty years later was more a matter of economics than of failed conquest. The Smalian attitude now about that period of their history is just that its Nyugati and Chagasz influence made for one more ingredient in their tapestry of peoples, so it was all for the better. The start of his reign was a period of naval building that did much to endear him to the locals, at least those in the shipbuilding industry. Once his local fleet and army were strengthened, he honored an old agreement with Gderat back home, and sent a large number of those original ships back, under small crews of those who did not want to remain as New Nyugati's leading citizens.

1860's Squid-based ink becomes a minor but consistent export, its qualities being better than those of many other pigments. You can still buy squid ink in island shops for fountain pen use.

Also in the 1860's pearl-hunting brought oysters to extinction in the best beds, in the bay of Joktoon and nearby sheltered waters. The pearl market crashed, and Sebeleta Duchy's ruling family was actually driven to destitution. Their wealth depended totally on pearl exports, and the then-new financial concept of 'pearl futures'. No future business, no income, no duchy.

1868 Nyugati Royal Astronomer Jan Hezopachiv discovered the planet Mazlis, 11th from the sun. He named it Mazlis, or "lucky", since as he put it "I was lucky to have even noticed its motion in a series of observations that were actually focused on Zeno".

1874 - Har Gunez I abdicated in favor of his cousin Orben, hence known as Gunez II. Orben had been understudy for the position for over twenty years.

1876 - The Gryphic Cat, one of the nine 'lost' ships of Syveen's Quest (see 1821) returned to Nyugati captained by Abdul Abdul Amay -- who had been a gunner's mate when the quest embarked 55 years before. His story deserves a saga of its own, and indeed many have been written. Given the journalistic standards of the time, half the exploits attributed to Amay are sure to be invented. But nobody has figured out quite which of the thousand-and-one amazements chronicled in the dozen contemporary accounts are even based on truth, and which were the product of an admitted champion liar.

One truth recorded by the Nyugati treasury is that the net result of the voyage was an eighty-fold profit.

1885 Earthquakes accompaning the onset of a four-month eruption of Tikopetare Mountain seriously damage cities and towns in four duchies. The eruption itself is more smoke than either ash or lava.

1887 In return for absolution of massive personal debts (of the King of****** to the King of Nyugati), the parent nation finally released Nyugati from its Autonomous Dependency status, and declared it completely independant. Nugati had functionally been independent for years - its economy about twice the size of the mainland parent.

1890 - Return of Smalian Dependency to independence. The short-lived conquest of the northern island was dropped as an economic matter. As part of Nyugati it contributed revenues scarcely able to pay for its administration, while the lingering hostile state with the rest of Smalie kept a lot more trade from even happening. In effect, it was traded back in return for a nonagression treaty and some mutually beneficial tarriffs.

1892 Dedication of the Coral Cathedral in the capital, Vytu Jorindar. Construction had taken 78 years.

1896 Anticlimactic conquest of the Inland Kingdom - the last remnant of Old Nyugati. The High King at the time, Bvarda IV, died heirless, and in the contest for the kingship, the then-Duke of Kazharticec, long a power-broker in the remnant Old Kingdom ("Inland Nyugati Kingdom") came out on top. Having had excellent relations with the New Nyugati ruler - as a devoted son-in-law of G'hanchiv II -- he simply declared himself a loyal subject of dear old dad, and retooled his crown into that of a high prince. Thereafter, except for a minor rebelion scarcely the size of a decent riot in the mountain town of Hoduhabelede, the Inland Kingdom peacefully rejoined the rest of Nyugati.

1903 Creation of the cargo and passenger outfit Jewel Lines, in a merger of six smaller companies. Jewel had a slow start, but is now the premier oceanic transport firm in the Nyugatis, and for Nyugati commerce around the Kozep.

1903 Switched Pens is written by Arto Haincru, and sells 200,000 copies in the first year of its publication. Along with his other dozen or so masterpieces, it defines the PreAgglomeration literary period in Nyugati.

1904 - Founding of Duke Cazbac University, in Djesbryea. DCU remains one of the premier research and learning institutes of all of Foldmuves. The Duke's shipping fortune upon his death in 1911 went entirely into the University he had started, leaving the Duchy actually underfunded and in debt for decades.

19XX to 19YY Nyugati involvement in the widespread ***** War [tech - i don't want to write a regional or world war, but i figure Nyugati got involved in whatever one happened in the 1900's. Somebody with a military-history bent, and a warlike nation (in history), please let me know when this great conflict was, and what it was all about, and I'll be glad to write Nyugati into it in some way. It just needs to have been sometime before Nyugati joined the Republic of Foldmuves in 1988. /tech]

1905 to 1960 The age of the Pony Post and the Nyu Express Wagon Company. With their fortunes tied by common ownership and common business, these two delivery services together brought at least Great Nyugati into an era of swift and reliable commuication. Small Nuygati islands had fewer roads and tended to rely more on coastal transport, but even those many vessels interchanged with the postal duo, and the Kingdom overall benefitted.

1920 and 1946 - Statue Near-War -- The theft of the Mara Tara. The national treasure "Mara Tara", the ancient obsidian sculpture of an early Thousand States courtesan, was stolen from its pedestal in front of Royal House in Vytu Jorindar. Weighing well over 1000 kg, Mara Tara had to have been hard to spirit away, but she was, and in a very brief time. Investigators combed the city for years, turning up thousands of leads, all of which were dead ends.

The government of primo minister Yutele Czhaska fell, dozens of judicial and investigative personnel and sixteen military commanders were sacked, and she remained missing. A replacement statue was put on the pedestal, but after public outcry it was removed -- the spot empty in memory of the great lady who had stood there so long.

Twenty-six years later the statue was found in a disused machine-tools warehouse in far-off Binjar City, oceans away, by pest-removal workers. She was very slightly dinged and nicked, but otherwise intact. The warehouse had stood mostly vacant for years, its ownership hidden by a veil of false deeds and dead lease agents. Whether pinched by a foreign power, or by some criminal entrepreneur, Nyugati citizens took the lukewarm response of Binjar City's mayor and law enforcement as evidence of guilt, and almost succeeded in forcing Nyugati to declare war. Cooler heads prevailed, barely, and Mara Tara was returned to Vytu Jorindar without military intervention. There's a legacy of bad feeling between islanders and Binjar to this day.

The truth of the theft was never discovered.

1921-22 - The Greater Earthquake Swarm -- Prior to a very ordiary eruption of Mount Pataeipwoca, a solid five months of almost constant tremors shook Mebataka Duchy. Few did any damage at all; indeed many were on the verge of imperceptable. Animals, who typically react to earthquakes, were driven crazy by the constant shaking; humans fared somewhat better at ignoring them.

1932 The Royal Accountancy Scandal -- all eighteen major finance and accountancy firms in the Kingdom were caught in collusion to commit fraud, embezzlement, and stock manipulation. Heads literally rolled, and for a decade most official finances in the kingdom were overseen by outside (Szereloi) auditors. The response to the criminal behavior would not have been so strong, had not the perpetrators defrauded King Yneszc II's family seemingly in preference to more discreet targets. Much of the missing wealth was recovered, but some millions of ducats made it overseas and were never seen again.

1933 Founding of Jairicetai Conservatory, even now one of Aurora's most respected music schools. With some instrument families distinctly not favored by the climate, Jairicetai concentrated then, as now, on voice instruction. Jairicetai started in Obonodoca, and moved to Chzuguladu in 1939, where it remains today.

1937 - The lesser Earthquake Swarm -- Leading up to a spectacular eruption of Fionicz Tisaiea Mountain, two months of small quakes shook the area for leagues around. Six were large enough to do slight damage -- cracked buildings but few collapses. The rest were mere trembles, but they occurred at most ten minutes apart for the whole 56 days. This was at first taken as a very bad omen, but after the mountain went weeks without erupting, people went back to farming and fishing. When the mountain did get around to blowing its top, it did so with a great deal of ash -- virtually all straight up thousands of meters. Almost none fell on the island itself, but enough hit the upper atmosphere to turn sunsets red for three and a half months.

1958 - Princess' Pale Lye Soap formulated. Originally dependent upon the Princess Owalakacz Herds' lard-rendering operations, the brand quickly grew to the point that lard had to be imported to the small Ointevoi Island. It still does.

1958 The Great Agglomeration -- the formation of the Republic of Foldmuves out of the patchwork of micronations and sub-states that predated it had all kinds of serious impacts on the whole Chagasz area - roughly today's Foldmuves plus Szerelo. For one, commerce (always a lynchpin of Nyugati society) was wildly uncertain when the customers changed alliance, or nationality, or treaty, or even currency, every few years. The stability of one nation over that part of the Chagasz world made for greatly improved economic interactions. Too, the movement of people was facilitated by a single border where dozens had existed before. And of course, in a negative sense (for Nyugati) having one big competitor instead of many weak ones was quite a challange for Nyugati businesses.

1964 to 1993 Too-brief life of composer and musician Onak Dvindspev Ai, writer of the unofficial Nyugati anthem, until the islands joined Foldmuves -- " O'towapitae Chana"

1967 to about 1976 Period of recession (some say depression) in the kingdom, as the temporary boom economy fueled by wartime spending burned out, and all the debt started coming due. Nyugati worked its way out of this slump, which in comparison with some governments' massive public-works response to the same worldwide slowdown was a slower but heathier road back to prosperity.

All the same, the prosperity of the 1980's was a fragile thing, and the kingdom's financiers at the time knew it. The desire to be even a part of a healthier economy was one of the several factors that drew the Nyugati Kingdom to the point of joining with Foldmuves.

1969 - Founding of Gullwing Preparations, as a pseudopharmaceutical manufacturing and marketing concern. Patent-medicine compounds: Barnacle Salve, eel oil, crabshell elixir -- these sorts of miracle "medical" products were their specialty. From such an scientifically inauspicious but prosperous start, the firm has matured to develop and produce real medicines - Doctor Hutu's Ear Balm, Shark-cartilidge powder, and McTavish's Cough Elixir are but three examples; all are sold worldwide.

1975 to 1980 Cotton gin is adopted in the Nyugatis, revolutionizing the small local cotton production to the point that the islands go from a net importer to nearly break-even. Linen use and production declines somewhat from then until about 2005, when fashion (and new comfort-weave products) once again call for linen. The islands aren't ideal for either fabric plant, but importation of mass amounts is expensive, so farmers have economic reason to push the issue.

1978 Death of three family members in the same house fire loses forever the secret for producing Pineapple Bay Glassworks' famous blue crystal.

1981 First Nyugati soda fountains opened, starting in six shops in Apateria Duchy. Initially, they offer ten flavors, the favorite being "Formula Six". Formula Six's recipe has since been revised to remove the cocaine and five sixths of the caffeine.

1985 - Mhovinea Ferry Transport was founded, in an amalgamation of several smaller oceanic transport companies. MFT was not by any means the first Nyugati ferry company -- rather, it was the first to use exclusively steam vessels.

1991 Very limited use begins of ice-refrigerated railway transport of perishables. "Swamp-cooler" evaporative refrigeration continues to be the main island method of cooling down people and perishable foodstuffs, at least until mechanical refrigeration becomes commercially practical in the 2070's (factory production of ice) and 2090's (with on-train refrigeration units). Natural ice in the Nyugatis occurs on one and only one peak, so its use in the 1990's was far more common in a pineapple julep than a railway car. Mainland Foldmuvesan railways had access to more natural ice, so Nyugati produce often got cooled better on the last leg of a journey to mainland markets.

1994 - Royal Nyugati Motorcar Company founded -- Duke Haneita Cruz sunk his family's fortune into construction of two assembly plants. Overseas technical expertise was hired from Szerelo, and materials were stockpiled. The total 1994 model year production was 19 cars. The 1998 production was 12,540 cars, 1070 light trucks, and two highway-paving machines. Production was continuous until the company folded in 2081. None of the six other tiny automobile makers in the islands survive - all such vehicles now come from the mainland or from foreign manufacturers.

1997 Formal joining of Nyugati to the Republic of Foldmuves. We do not refer to this as the dissolution of the Nyugati Kingdom, since in form if not in substance the Kingdom continues to be Nyugati's persona to this day. Indeed, the monarchy itself survives, in the form of a figurehead ruler ("head of state") over the four Foldmuvesam Nyugati Megyes. 1997 was the culmination of a decade-long process of negotiation and proposals. The Nyugati joining has to be one of the most deliberate changes of statehood in recent Aurora history

2002 - In one of the few examples during the joining to the Foldmuves Republic where Nyugati law came out on top, overall RF law was amended to match the islands' prohibition on harming porpoises. Nyugati islanders had long respected the friendly mammals, noting their occasional help of humans -- rescue of swimmers, leading lost boats home, even pointing fishermen to rich schools of tialaipi or dinkfish. Mainland Foldmuves had no such protection, though both coasts have quite a few porpoises, and many similar tales of their helpfulness.

Neither Nyugati nor Szantari nor Foldmuvesan whalers are troubled by any such prohibition. While a few citizens have pointed out the big mammals' obvious intelligence, whaling continues much as it has for hundreds of years, modified only by care to avoid overharvesting. In the 2000s reliance on whale oil for lighting has diminished, but it remains a popular lubricant. And the 2000 through 2040 whalesteak market outweighed the beef cattle market, at least in the islands. Whale milk, definitely an exotic beverage, has been experimentally obtained from captive animals -- three different suppliers export to a number of overseas markets.

2009 First local oceanic heavier-than-air flight, when Ordu Radocec flew his twin-engine, twin-wing aeroplane from Haineatucz to Akinia. The feat was trumped the following year when his colleague at the College of Haineatucz, Mordicai Svenat flew a modified amphibious 'otterplane' all the way from Haineatucz to Great Nyugati.

2011 Nyugati gemcutter Gardu Hamadala, losing eyesight and dexterity to age, takes up work in his brother's stone quarries. Thus is born a minor-great sculptor, and more prominently, the Cleft-Basalt cut-stone for construction and export that continues to be a Havanc Duchy specialty.

2022 - Island Airways opened for business, with two scheduled flights per week. Their 2100 schedule was more like two hundred seventy per week.

2029 to 2032 Malaria-II epidemic sweeps through much of Nyugati and some of mainland Foldmuves. It runs a 3-year course and thousands die, but eventually the peoples' natural resistence to malaria reasserts itself, and the new strain dies out. The mainland situation was more severe (less-resistent people) and was brought under control with strict quarantine, quinine, and mosquito-reduction by poision and oiling of stagnant water bodies.

2030's Island building-supply house Joicitac Lumber branches out into greenhouses as an export item, pairing knocked-down kits with seedlings of mangos, papayas, and paw-paws, fruits which do not store or ship well. Some overseas locations taste these for the first time, and are hooked.

2038 - Duke Ayadadalete Chemist Supply commercially introduced a powerful antibiotic made from some substance in the Chapac Duchy's Jungles. Ayacin had undergone clinical trials at Hatoa University Medical School, but its effectiveness had already been established among the Duke's household and farm workers over a decade.

2041 Mainland's Pytor Anaduluta's Paintworks took over Nyugati Islands' Syan'afor Pigment Labs - the combined company becomes the largest paint manufacturer in the Republic.

2050 to 2060 - Red-tide algae were discovered to have potential as a condiment. Once heat-sterilized, treatment with a cattle-based enzyme (rettin, the same as is used for cheesemaking) of an alcohol-based suspension can be turned into a paste much like Aldocorian Mushroom Paste, or perhaps Lyhotzc Yeast Paste. So now instead of being idled by red-tide blooms, fishermen just change their equipment from nets or hooks to skimmer-booms and suction pumps. Crimson Goo and Agrometric's Scarletta Paste are two notable current products.

Agrometric's other big product - Cayley's Clotted Kelp was also developed in the 2050's. Unlike the algae-based Scarletta, the kelp can be harvested reliably eight to ten months a year.

2052 End of the last island rubber plantation - better materials have become available from elsewhere, for less. Nyugati-developed innovation of mulakized rubber (heat treated to add durability) still means raw latex is needed as an import, for local manufacturing of rubber products. Auto tires with mulakized rubber last as much as 10,000 km, as compared with perhaps 2,000 - 3,000 km before. Competition from Teknikratioj-manufactured artificial rubber plagues Nyugati suppliers through the rest of the 2000's. Their secret process is suspected to be coal or petroleum based.

2058 The Nyugati Islands surpass one radio per household -- through the 2050's and 60's radio becomes an increasingly important way for island citizens to get news, though local happenings continue to be best known through the thousands of small local newspapers.

2060 to 2080 Island songbirds, their colorful plumage exotic to outsiders, are an economically lucrative export. They are not only admired for their appearance, but are also excellent bug catchers. Exports briefly top the value of papaya and of dried fruit. The worldwide marked declines somewhat thereafter, as similar birds become available from elsewhere.

2070's Domestic radio market is shaken up by introduction of Teknikratioj models. Local suppliers take back some market share as manufacturing methods improve, but the Tek minaturization is hard to beat for mobile radios.

2080's to date Nitrates that are a byproduct of TNT production in Szerelo are used across Foldmuves for fertilizer. Agricultural yields improve across a number of types of vegetables, fruits, and grains.

2084 - Moloku Geyser, in the Kalukita Crater Preserve, stopped erupting abruptly after having done so steadily every six to ten hours as far back as recorded Nyugati history mentions it (at least back to 741). Suspected culprits are the Duke Ozencrantz Steam Co. power plant across the crater wall, or possibly the use of nearby Ekitanidu Crater for RN Air Corps bombing practice. Numerous smaller geysers in the preserve still erupt sporadically, but none with the regularity once exhibited by Moloku.

2090 - In the Nyugatis' one brush with moving-picture greatness, famed director Alan Tidbusel picked Vyborcleena to film a movie. Unfortunately, the result was "Dancing Delivery", a stinker that even islanders stayed home from in droves.

2094 - In a surprisingly slow development, the mulakinizing of rubber [tech - can't have 'vulcanization' on Aurora, don'cha know - Vulcan is an earth-specific 'god of the forge'; hence my on-the-spot decree that the Auroran equivalent is 'Mulak' /tech] finally made it to the footwear arena. Shoe soles for some sports nor bear the Nyubounce logo. Nowadays only the higher price of a set of their tires (higher than the shoes) keeps Nyubounce-soled shoes from bringing in more profit yearly.

2104 - today