Meromo

In 3348, the nation of Meromo was born. It was a nation founded by Mammans (originally from Kava and FILTER) who had settled in an area they at first called Putu Lake. The governing party called itself the Plumes.

Language

See edit history for Sapeepa-specific details.

Because the founders of Meromo were exiles from Kava, they had the same language as Kava. In their civilization, every nation was considered to have its own language, even if it may be nearly identical to some other closely related language. Thus people began to speak of "the Meromo language", not merely the Meromo dialect of the Kavan language.

Kava's linguistic histoiry was cpmplex. They spoke either a Paleo-Pabappa language, a FILTER language, or both.

Since Kâlika is not Dreamland, it is possible that there were no significant populations of Dreamlandic speakers in Meromo.

There was also an alliance between "Teupí" and "Cila" against Tarwas in the mid-3300s. (See Book_H.doc .) Dreamland did not exist yet, so the Teupí referred to here is entirely of Kava stock. Tarwas wins and enslaves the Teupi, but it is not clear whether they conquered their enemies or merely drove off the invasions.

THis also proves that Kâlika is NOT Dreamland.

Early history

Kakpoko

A nation called Kakpoko existed in northern Nama. These people were Lenians who had both Dreamer and Meromo ancestry. Unusually, their Dreamer ancestry had come to them long before the Dreamers reached their area; it had actually happened more than 800 years earlier.

Tarwas sent its army into their territory in the 3300s, intending to establish a foothold in Lenian territory even though they had previously refused to expand anywhere beyond their borders. Tarwas won, and took over the government of Kakpoko. Soon they bred with the locals and the people of Kakpoko became racially distinct from the Lenians. Then, Kakpoko declared war on the Lenians, and invaded the area they called Teupi, which was already at war with Tarwas. Kakpoko became a pocket of dark-skinned people and formed an alliance with Baeba, but Baeba refused to join any alliance that included Tarwas.

Tribal wars in Repilia

There were three tribal confederations in western Repilia: the Lenians, the Merar, and the aboriginal Repilians. These were easily identified by their physical appearance.

Lenians

The Lenians were blonde and blue-eyed with very light skin, easily tanned by the sun and also prone to sunburn. Most Lenians lived in the western peninsular empire of Dreamland, but large numbers of Lenians had also settled Paba and from there moved north into colder climates. The two groups of Lenians were not very closely related, but they shared a similar physical appearance, and as the Dreamers moved eastward, the Pabaps moved northward, and the two groups met up in northern Repilia. Thus, Lenia was born, and defined as all contiguous territories with Lenian or majority-Lenian populations. There were no attempts at a formal political state for all Lenians, however, because the area involved was vast and there were many cultural differences.

For the most part, Lenians in Repilia thought of themselves as Lenians first and foremost, but some Lenians in Repilia still believed in an east-west distinction between their own tribes, who had come from the south coast (mostly Paba) and moved northward and westward, and the Dreamers who had come from the tropics and moved northward and eastward. Paba was much colder than Dreamland despite being located at a similar latitude, so the Pabaps were more accustomed to cold weather than were the Dreamers. Lenians in Repilia believed that they had inherited cold-hardiness from their ancestors and that unlike the Dreamers, they could survive outdoors in cold weather and not succumb to frostbite or hypothermia.

Merar

The Merar were tall, dark-skinned people who had also settled Paba and moved northwards as the climate began to warm up. They had founded the nation of Tarwas in 2414, and also settled many areas of the outer tropics such as Amade and Atlam. Most of the Merari people in the tropics never left their nations, and no longer identified as Merar. The tribal identification was strongest in areas where they were surrounded by other tribes. Over the generations, the cold climate of Tarwas caused the Merar to evolve towards a lighter skin color, but they still stood out from the other tribes in the area.

Aboriginals

The Repilians were the aboriginals of the far north. The Lenians and Merar were both invading Repilia by their mere presence, but few Repilians expected they would ever get their territory back. The Repilians had dark hair and an intermediate skin color, but they had distinct facial features and did not closely resemble either of the two other tribal groups, nor did they resemble people of mixed Lenian-Merar descent.

Birch War

In 3125, the Birch War started, as the Lenians claimed a plot of land in the far north and began exterminating Repilians. This was a slow-moving background conflict, as both the Lenians and the Repilians here were nomads who moved from place to place rather than building compact cities. The aboriginals did not launch a counterattack until 3137, and by this time they had lost many strongholds and could only attack from vulnerable outposts.

The Birch nation soon expanded backwards as well, and came to border on the circular lake later called Putu. This was in Lăro. Female immigrants from Paba (and Aboa) came to settle here, and the nation's growth outpaced its rivals. However, Paba's government restricted the number of women allowed to leave because they did not want their own population growth to slow down.

The Birches also took in immigrants from Repilia, because even though they were at war with Repilia, they were trying to skim off potential defectors in order to weaken Repilia while strengthening their own empire. As immigration from Repilia increased, immigration from Aboa slowed down, as the people of Aboa began focusing on other areas.

Towards the late 3100s, the Birches abandoned their Lenian ancestry entirely and began to identify as aboriginals. Even though their ancestors had acquired their land by slaughtering aboriginals, there were enough aboriginal immigrants in the Birch nation by this time that they considered the debt to have been paid. The Repilian confederation signed a treaty opening its remaining territory to the Birches, but warning them that they would be required to live under Repilian law, and that Repilia would refuse to protect the Birches in a wider war. The Birches realized this meant that they could gain protection by ceding their land back to Repilia, and although they did not give up all of their land, the areas where most people lived were indeed ceded back to Repilia, making Repilia once again the largest landholder in the far north. The new "Repilians" were racially mixed because of the many blonde Birch people who now lived there, but they had all fully come to identify as Repilians.

Birch language

The Birch people spoke Yeisu Kasu, but may have switched to speaking a neo-Repilian language (see Macro-Pabap languages).

Repilia invaded again

In 3302, the Lenian tribes in Kava declared war on Repilia, including the descendants of the Birch tribes who had come to live there. However, Repilia launched no counterattack, as they were too disorganized. In 3315, the Merar tribes also declared war on Repilia, and joined the Lenian invasion. The Lenians knew that the Merar had been hostile to them in the past, and expected that they would be hostile again if they were to meet up with the Lenians inside Repilia. Thus, a three-sided war had begun, with the Lenians, the Merar, and the Repilians all against each other, though for the meantime the Repilians were too weak to even fight back.

The Merar soon defeated the Repilians, but they stopped their invasion at the borders they had defined in a previous treaty with the Lenians, and promised that they would not intrude into Lenian-held areas of Repilia. Thus, many Repilians fled into Lenian-held territory even as the Lenians were massacring the Repilians already there.

Squirrel War

In 3332, the Repilians finally began to attack the Lenians who had invaded them. This thirty-year delay helped them prepare, and when they finally attacked, their army quickly encircled the Lenians and forced them to surrender. However, the land they had trapped the Lenians in had been part of Repilia before the war, and thus they were only regaining their own territory, and were unable to invade Kava.

Even as they were losing their war in Repilia, the Lenians attempted to build colonies in northern Tarwas. They never formally declared war against the Merar tribal confederation that ruled Tarwas, but simply sent their people to live there.

Lenians invade Baeba

Within months of their defeat in Repilia, the Lenians declared war on the dark-skinned aboriginals of Baeba Swamp. These dark-skinned people were distinct from the Merar and did not consider themselves mutual allies. But the aboriginals were much stronger than the Lenians, and outnumbered the Lenians by about 5 to 1. The Lenians had only launched this war because they knew that another army, the Crystals, was approaching Baeba from the south, and that Baeba would not be able to use their full force against the Lenians if they were also fighting the Crystals.

The Crystals were another dark-skinned tribe who had originated in the equatorial regions of Amade and Lobexon. Their party was nearly 2000 years old, and they had spent all of this time slowly growing northward. The Crystals had signed a tripartite alliance with Kava and FILTER, and the Lenians in this area considered themselves to be part of Kava. Thus, the Lenians expected that the Crystals would help them in their war against Baeba.

The Lenian army made no significant progress, however, and Baeba's northern border held firm even as they were being eaten up from the south. Both sides suffered a high body count, and both suffered disastrous defeats: early on, Lenians massacred a troop of Baebans who had been poorly equipped, and later on, the Baeban army returned the favor in the district of Ado by slaughtering a troop of unprepared Lenians.

Lenians' opinions split

This new war split the Lenian tribal confederation along east-west lines. The western empire, Dreamland, had always allied with Baeba Swamp's tribal government and worked out any conflicts through diplomacy. They thus supported the aboriginals and opposed the invading Crystals. But the Lenians living east of Baeba were bound by an ancient treaty with the Crystals and thus could not defend the aboriginals. Indeed, they had actually declared war on the aboriginals after losing two other wars in Repilia.

The Baeban aboriginals had traditionally interacted mostly with the Lenians in the Dreamer state of Sessia, whose pacifist government, led by a party calling itself Foam (PDP), had kept it out of wars for more than a thousand years. They were tied up in an attempt to stop a war in the distant empire of Aboa (Paba and allies), but the new conflict in Baeba drew their attention away from Aboa.

When Baeba's diplomats approached Sessia's Foam party to ask for intervention, most Sessians agreed to side with Baeba, but they remained committed to pacifism, and their only participation in the war was to allow Baeba's aboriginal population to move to Sessia as refugees. Some Sessian tribes defected and joined the war on the side of the Crystals. There were no Sessians fighting in the war on the side of the aboriginals, however, because Sessia considered this just as treasonous as fighting for the opposite side, and therefore any people wishing to fight in the war on any side were ruled out of Sessia.

Founding of Meromo

In 3348, the Repilian aboriginals had regained most of their lost territory and pushed the Lenians into unfavorable areas. Here, the Lenians founded the nation of Meromo. Their governing political party was the Plumes. Meromo's founding tribe was called Mamma, but they soon dropped the name in favor of identifying as a political party. Meromo's language was a dialect of Oyster.

Meromo signed a treaty with an older Lenian nation named Kàlika and created the binational empire of Teupí. In the mid-3300s, the Lenians of Teupí declared war on the Merar and invaded Tarwas. At first they won, but Tarwas pushed them back out and then conquered not only Teupí but a third Lenian nation called Čappini (Kakpoko).

Cappini submitted quickly and therefore the Merar maintained control there even when the war turned back in favor of Teupí. However, Cappini cut ties with Merar and declared itself a fully independent tribe. They signed a treaty with the aboriginals of Baeba Swamp but did not pursue unification.

Soon, the Merar regained the upper hand yet again, and enslaved all of the Lenians who had reached Tarwas. They announced a new alliance called the Dark Woods open to all of the tribes except the Lenians, and hoped to unite all of the tribes with dark skin or dark hair — that is, the Baebans and Repilians — on their side. But Baeba's aboriginals refused to unite with Tarwas, and the Repilians also refused because they still claimed that Tarwas had been stolen from them. Ironically the only people who joined the Merari's expanded confederation were the exiles from the Birch society who were mostly of Lenian ancestry. They ceded their land to Tarwas because they considered the Repilians (and the mainline Birch people) to be a greater threat.

Crystals conquer Baeba

The Crystals conquered Baeba and abolished Baeba's slavery-based economy. They declared Baeba to be the capital of their already large Crystal Empire and banished all non-Crystals from the government. Much of the population had been enslaved, and as the Crystals freed them, they became Crystals themselves. But the slaveowners and many of the other free people were hostile to the Crystals, and those who had not already fled into Dreamland before the invasion quickly did so as the Crystals took over their property and blockaded neighborhoods that sheltered resistance.

Three-party government in Sessia

Soon, the dark-skinned aboriginals who had moved to Sessia were so numerous that they began to overrule the pacifist PDP party in many political resolutions. They formed the Hook party (GLK), declared a permanent war against the Crystals, and turned Sessia into a military outpost for any tribes who were hostile to the Crystals. Thus, refugees from the tropical empire of Kxesh began moving to Sessia as well.

The pacifists were terrified when they realized that the Baeban refugees were turning Sessia into a military stronghold and that Sessian pacifists might soon die in large numbers in a war that would gain them nothing. Some PDP members made plans to surrender Sessia to the Hook army and move westward into deeper areas of Dreamland, but most did not want to abandon their relatively prosperous homeland.

The remaining pacifists tried to convince the Hooks to drop their plans for war and admit that living at peace in Sessia was better than fighting to live in Baeba. But the Hooks refused to consider Sessia their home, and only increased their desire to retake Baeba. However, the immigrants moving into Sessia from Kxesh had never lived in Baeba, and they sided with the pacifists on resolutions relating to the war in Baeba. Their party was called the Sheath because they descended from a party called the Swords but had put aside both their desire and their ability to fight a war. (The name "Shield" was already in use.)

Despite the Sheath's opposition to the war, the Hooks continued to bring boats to Kxesh to deliver Kxeshian immigrants into Sessia, and both PDP and the Sheaths came to believe that the Hooks were not interested in democracy, and were intending to start a war and so they could push the people of the two pacifist parties onto the front lines while the Hooks hid out in secure forts.

Baywatch settlement

In 3373, Dreamland's dominant Baywatch party fortified the border state of Popa, located immediately north of Baeba, and signed a treaty with the Hooks which granted them and Baeba's aboriginals the right to settle in Popa so long as they helped the Baywatchers overthrow the Crystals in Baeba. The Baywatchers wanted to conquer Baeba themselves and make it the capital of all of Dreamland. They promised to abolish tribalism and win their war by uniting an army drawn from all the tribes of the world against the Crystals and anyone who chose to side with them. The Baywatchers promised that racism would be impossible in Popa because all of the tribes would live in harmony and blend together as they married each other and had large families.

However, the Baywatchers quickly changed their minds when they realized that many Crystals were claiming to be Hooks and thus moving to Popa as well, and that the Baywatchers could not tell the difference between the two dark-skinned groups because they did not understand either of their languages. They thus enacted a racially restrictive immigration law and told the aboriginals that they would have to move to Sessia instead of Popa.

When the other Dreamer states learned of the war, they all aligned with the Baywatchers, and although they did not prohibit immigration, they preferred to let the Hooks stay in Sessia and overrule the Sessians because they knew that Sessia was the only area of Dreamland that had not committed itself to the war.

Military stalemate

It soon became clear that Dreamland would not be able to push the Crystals out of Baeba. The Baywatch party refused to surrender, however, as they believed the Crystals were intent on reaching Dreamland's north coast, which was entirely held by the Baywatch party. Dreamland's opposition party, the Wild party, was strongest in the extreme west, far from Baeba, and had no interest in helping the aboriginals retake Baeba. In return, the Baywatchers warned that if the Crystals tried to conquer western Dreamland, the Baywatchers would build a wall and trap the Wild supporters on the western side to face the Crystals. But they knew that this was unlikely, because western Dreamland was difficult to reach from Baeba and would be of little value to the Crystals.

The Baywatchers maintained their strict rule against immigration of foreign tribes, so the Hooks and Sheaths were confined to PDP's territory, Sessia. The Baywatchers soon passed a law prohibiting even Lenian Sessians from moving to Baywatch territory, meaning that the Baywatchers had uncontested rule over their territory. (Lenians in Sessia spoke a different language, and could not easily learn Baywatch.) Thus Baywatch territory became a de facto one-party state. The Baywatchers promised they would lift the restrictions once their war against the Crystals was over, whether or not they won the war.

Crystals push west

As the Crystals tightened their grip on Baeba Swamp, they sent diplomats into Sessia to try to convince their people to join the Crystal Empire.

The Crystals told the Hooks that Crystal Baeba was the wealthiest city in the world and that merely by living near it they could share in its wealth, if only they signed an alliance with the Crystals. They said that Hooks could be allowed to move anywhere in the Crystal Empire so long as they declared themselves to be Crystals.

The Crystals told the Sheaths, who had recently arrived from Kxesh, that Kxesh was a full ally of the Crystals and that the people living in Kxesh were much better off than they had been in the past. They promised that the Sheaths would be allowed to convert to the Crystal party and move anywhere in the Crystal Empire just as the ex-Hooks would, and that even if they preferred to retain their original identity they could still move to Baeba and share in the growing economy.

The Crystals told the pacifists in PDP that pacifism was a noble but unrealistic idea, and that if they remained in Sessia when the Crystals began their invasion, they would be the easiest targets and the most likely to die or be captured. But the Crystals promised that they, too, could convert to the Crystal party, or if they preferred, move to the arctic and live among their fellow Lenians in young, growing nations carved out from Repilia.

Sessian Civil War

Thus the Crystals soon invaded Sessia, and found that indeed many of the locals had switched sides and agreed to fight for the Crystals. They pushed the pacifists, including the Sheaths, into the Baywatch state of Peri. Baywatch's army immediately counterattacked, and forced the pacifists onto the front lines of battle even though they knew that they would be very poor soldiers. The Crystals killed the pacifists, but some Baywatch soldiers worked their way into the battlefield just as the Crystals were celebrating their victory, and pushed them back to near the original Baywatch/Sessia border. Baywatch ceded all of Sessia to the Crystals, however, as they declared that a pacifistic ally was no ally at all, and some Baywatchers even sent diplomats to the Crystals hoping they could sign a pact that would give the Crystals control of all of the non-Baywatch areas of Dreamland. But the Baywatchers merely intended to distract the Crystals here, as they had no intention of honoring such a treaty.

The Crystals declared victory over the pacifists, and enrolled each of the Sessian states into the Crystal Empire. The surviving population was allowed to continue to identify with their original parties — the Foam (PDP), Sheaths, and even the Hooks all became legal parties within the Crystal Empire — but new laws were passed which ensured that the Crystals could always overrule these other parties on crucial issues.

Satisfied with their rapid conquest of Sessia, the Crystals signed a ceasefire with the Baywatchers even though they planned to revive the war and invade Baywatch in the distant future. Baywatch likewise had not given up on its plan to conquer Baeba, but they realized that surrendering the pacifists' territory would allow the Crystals to greatly strengthen their control over Baeba and that any future war in Baeba would be very difficult for the Baywatch army.

Birth of Sapeepa

Meromo was the parent empire of Sapeepa.

The people who were in charge of Sapeepa and felt more love for their subjects than for the rulers of their parent nation, Meromo. The governors of Sapeepa raised their children as Sapeepans, not Meriras. Since Sapeepa was both distant and an economic liability to Meromo, Meromo treated them as an independent state without formally relinquishing their land claim.

Meromo's governing Plume party sent food and even laborers to Sapeepa because Sapeepa was so much poorer than the rest of Meromo. The Sapeepans disliked this, and tried to become economically self-sufficient in order to acquire a sense of pride while also helping Meromo. Yet, the Plume party also supported the killing of poor people, in order that they might not be able to suffer or cause other people to suffer. Thus their ideology caused problems for its supporters.

The Sapeepans developed a new, secret party based on "angry" egalitarianism, and stated that people who were unsuccessful were simply not trying hard enough. Thus their philosophy was often not much kinder to fellow Sapeepans than that of the Plumes. They gave speeches to their supporters saying "You have no rights." The Sapeepans forged close relations with the Kâlika people^{*NOT* Dreamers} living in slightly better conditions to their west. They sometimes called their alliance Têupí, and people moved in both directions.

Sapeepa grew slowly, and they could not conquer Baeba Swamp. Throughout the generations, Sapeepans often led invasions on weaker villages outside the Swamp, and stole food and other basic supplies which were scarce in their own territory. Their weapons were made of stone, and much weaker than the Baebans', but Baeba was not ready for a war, and treated the intruders as mere criminals. Sapeepa was also hostile to Repilia, but Repilians avoided attacking Sapeepa in the vicinity of the Swamp because they believed the Sapeepans and others would cast magic spells that harmed only Repilians.

Independence

In 3431, Sapeepa revolted and became an independent nation. They said that they were going to reproduce faster than all other peoples and eventually take over the world. But many of their leaders were very perverse, and many of the people revolted and became savages disliked by all others on the planet except the Dreamers, who had rejected racism and come to embrace every race except the dark-skinned ones as fully deserving of love.

The savages lived like animals, in almost total ferality. Children were ill-treated by their parents, and often not protected well enough to survive in the forest. Thus, even though the savages were reproducing very quickly, their kids kept dying. Warfare broke out among the many Sapeepans living in the forest, and they began to eliminate their weaker members through warfare.

Foundation of Thunder philosophy

Shortly after the breakup in 3431, another new political party, the Thunder party, began to take over Sapeepa. The Thunderers believed that the rights of the majority were the only rights that mattered at all - and there was no such thing as fairness, because everyone was ultimately part of the same universal being. Thus they were communitarians.

Thunder philosophy was very much the opposite of the Plume government that had preceded it, but the Thunder leaders had taken no steps to burn off the frustration they had accumulated while living under the Plume government, and they were as perverse as the people they replaced. (The Plume government was still in control of Meromo.) They believed that all crimes should be legal, so long as they benefit the perpetrator more than they benefit the victim.

The new government was run entirely by Thunderers who had great and terrible plans for their new nation, which they immediately transformed into an army. They claimed that true Thunderers could never let a disease confine them to a life of suffering, and refused medical treatment for many common diseases.

The Thunderers excused sin after sin, saying the misdeeds of their people were not sins after all but expressions of the power and beauty of their God. They exonerated their entire population, essentially declaring all Sapeepans, even those who had not joined the Thunder party, innocent of all sins. With this mentality, Sapeepa became strongly united and ready to begin attacking outside nations. Even though its military was very weak, the Thunderers began preparations for war against Têupí almost immediately after they declared independence.

In 3434, the Thunderers entered the state of Lăro and attacked Punu Lake, but they were driven back by the Têupíans. Early in 3435 they attacked again, and took over the Lake. Then they quickly began attacking more and more of the nations around them, winning most of their battles. Those battles that they lost were not terribly upsetting to the Thunderers, because their own nation was not hurt at all by the defeats.

The Thunderers stressed the great importance of maintaining a high birth rate in their society, and praised good mothers who raised large families for the nation. The Thunderers abolished marriage and replaced it with a system designed to maximize the amount of children each woman could bear, where each man who was allowed to would live with as many as ten women, and the rest of the men would be in the army, ready to fight (some women were in the army as well, but not many).

Over the next sixty years, the birth rate increased, the death rate fell, and the material wealth of the population rose. However, the birthrate was still among the lowest in the world because Sapeepan children did not typically gather berries or other food items and thus each new child reduced a family's food supply. Neighboring nations began ruling out the Sapeepans, so they could not easily leave.

The Thunderers began to settle more and more lands around them, mostly mountainous areas to their west that lay between the Swamp and Punu Lake. They captured the highest peaks of the Black Mountains, a poor environment for humans but one that was very difficult to attack. Thus, they promised they would never be conquered even if they were to lose a major war.

The Thunderers despised the Crystals. Crystals sent their people into Thunder territory, trying to make converts, but the Thunderers thought little of killing the Crystal immigrants.

Southward war

At one point, Sapeepa invaded all of the south, trying to conquer Aboan nations like Thaoa. They poisoned water and claimed that they would make the land unlivable. (This is why Lenians still lived in Subumpam in later ages despite losing the war against the Stars; they were not merely immigrants from Paba.)

They by this time had some slaves from Baeba. Baeba had invaded and conquered them, but when they revolted, many Baebans were trapped in their territory and became slaves.

GLobal war

Dreamland (with Laba) & Sapeepa signed a pact and launched a war against Baeba and Nama simultaneously. They won, killing most of the people in the territories they conquered, but they did not actually occupy the other territories.

Lantern Empire history

Sapeepa conquered most of Meromo, but a few strongholds of the Plume party remained in outer areas. These areas did not join the Lantern Empire, and therefore the Plume Empire continued to exist. Most Plumes aligned themselves with Dreamland as Dreamland was the only competent enemy of the Thunder party, but the Plumes knew they were of little value to Dreamland, and feared than in a war they would be left unprotected as the Dreamers focused on defending their own people. Therefore, they never signed a formal pact with Dreamland.

War of 3564

Nama surrendered in 3564 and focused on squishing weaker territories like Kava instead of trying to kill all of Sapeepa.

Sapeepa-Taryte relations

In 3696, Taryte invaded Sapeepa and conquered most of Sapeepa's territory in the lower latitudes. This war cost them the support of the Crystals, however, and therefore the war also became Taryte's war of independence from the Crystal Empire.

In 3958, Taryte and Sapeepa met up again, this time as allies against the even greater power of Adabawa. At this point, the Plume party rebuilt its army and joined the war on Adabawa's side. Adabawa won, but his rule was so weak that the conquered territories began to split up into many small armies. Soon, Sapeepa ceased to exist as a cohesive territory, and Taryte was split up by many immigrants who ruled tiny stretches of coast in the tropics, while the interior became poor once its contact with the coast was cut. The Plumes were simply one of many small empires now, and they again began to look towards Dreamland for a potential alliance. However, just as before, Dreamland was not interested.