Merar

Merar was a nation of people who had immigrated from Paba to Subumpam during the late stages of the Vegetable War after they had pushed the battlefronts westward out of Paba. After the war they stayed in Subumpam and married Subumpamese women. THey set up a new government stating that only military officers were allowed to hold government posts. Without irony they told the Subumpamese that they had a history of being submissive to outside powers and that they had come to put an end to it by turning Subumpam into the world's strongest military power. The Merar claimed that they themselves had moved to Subumpam but were here to stay, and held no allegiance to any other nation, and thus were themselves not an "outside power".

History

Politics

The Merar promised the Subumpamese that they would never allow Subumpamese people into their government; Merar had conquered Subumpam, and Merar would rule Subumpam. However, many of the women that the conquerors had married had had previous children from a Subumpamese husband, and these children were adopted into the new families and, provided they converted to the Yiibam religion, were considered as Merar. Thus Merar was no longer a true race but rather a racially mixed but hereditary upper class.

The Merar party made pacifism illegal and required that all males serve in the military. THis did not mean that all males were eligible to serve in the government, however; only soldiers who advanced sufficiently high in the ranks of the military were given roles in the government. This in fact brought Subumpam far closer to democracy than it had ever been before, even though power was restricted to a small subset of males; for the first time in history, the seats of power were not simply handed down from one family to its children. And also, the Merar held to their promise of not allowing Subumpamese people to be promoted in the military, which meant that they could not hold government power. However the primary distinction now was a linguistic and religious one rather than an ethnic one, as Subumpamese people who learned to speak Tarpabappa (the Merari language) and converted from Sisnasi to Yiibam were welcomed as new Merari people.

Language

Subumpamese remained the common language of the Subumpamese people after the conquest; the Merar people spoke a dialect of Pabappa called Tarpabappa, and although this dialect soon split from the trunk and developed into a language of its own, the Merar preferred to learn standard Pabappa and thus Tarpabappa came to be associated only with people who were ethnically Merar but locked out of access to the ruling class and its power.

Culture

Religions

The dominant Merar people believe in the Yiibam religion, which worships gods who are physically present in both Paba and Merarvas. Their Subumpamese subjects believe in the Sisnasi religion and consider Yiibam to be primitive and overly violent.

Ethnic minorities

Since the national boundaries of Merar's new country corresponded exactly with those of Subumpam, the ethnic minorities of Subumpam remained ethnic minorities in Merarvas. The war had killed most of Subumpam's population , but it had killed indiscriminately: no group was spared more than another.

Merar The Merari people are soldiers from Paba who had conquered Subumpam, and the children they had with native Subumpamese women. They are the only ethnic group legally entitled to hold political power in Merarvas. Their religion is Yiibam, the same religion practiced over the border in Paba, but they consider themselves independent from and superior to Paba. They had previously been a minority mostly living in Paba, but since they had filled most of the posiitons in Paba's army, and the war demanded mobilization of the entire population of Paba, very few of them did not immigrate to Subumpam during the war.

Tarpabaps A small number of conquering soldiers did not marry Subumpamese women and thus referred to themselves using their old name rather than "Merar". They were legally considered identical with the Merar people, however, particularly as immigration of Tarpabaps increased after news of the creation of the new government reached Paba.

Subumpamese The Subumpamese had been an alliance of eleven nations sharing a temperate climate with lots of rainfall, and they merged their countries into one in the 1700s. They mostly practiced the Sisnasi religion, and were not pressured to convert to Yiibam unless they intended to marry into a Merari family. Over the last 1000 years, many ethnic minorities had married Subumpamese people and the Subumpamese had absorbed their culture. The Sukuna had been the largest minority for a long time, as they were the aboriginals of most of Subumpam's land area, but by 2700 almost no people identifying themselves as Sukuna were left. They had all married into Subumpamese families and became Subumpamese. The original Subumpamese had been uniformly blonde, blue-eyed, light-skinned people, and Sukuna were very dark-skinned, but even in 2700 the Subumpamese people were still predominantly blonde, and thus had absorbed the Sukuna entirely and thus become, in the eyes of the Merar, the true aboriginals of their nation. Other ethnic minorities such as Repilians, Pabaps, Nik, Namans, Stars, had also married Subumpamese people, but in lesser numbers and most of these tribes still considered themselves to have survived the war as a distinct tribe rather than as merely part of the Subumpamese.

Andanese A tribe of very small-bodied people who preferred to live in other nations rather than build their own. Most Andanese were killed in the war, and few returned to settle in Merarvas after it was over, so their importance was greatly dimished in the new country.

Pabaps A tribe of small people believing in the Yiibam religion, who had previously been economically powerful in Subumpam but now lived as an underclass and primarily dealt with their fellow Pabaps across the border in Paba rather than the other Merarians. They had always preferred to live close to the seashore and deal with trade and fishing, but the new treaty took away their boats and their role was reduced to merely holding positions of servitude aboard the ships of the new Merari navy.

Stars Immigrants from Lobexon, previously known as the Star Empire. They are actually a large number of cultures rather than one, but who nevertheless, when immigrating into Merarvas, came to identify themselves simply as Stars rather than as immigrants from their original home state.

Sukuna A dark skinned aboriginal minority in Subumpam. Though very numerous at the foundation of the Subumpamese Union in the 1700s, Sukuna people had mostly assimilated to Subumpamese culture by the 2700s.

Repilians A light skinned aboriginal minority in Subumpam. Known for their strong tendency for their women to be taller than their men. Most Repilians were killed in the war, but Repilia was a large place, and Repilia itself was not greatly affected. Repilia is part of Nama, but its people do not consider themselves simply as "Namans".

Namans Non-Repilian immigrants from the very large and diverse Empire of Nama. As above, they are not a single culture, but a cooperation of hundreds of distinct tiny nations, with no majority and no single dominant culture that controls the others. Nevertheless, once in Subumpam, they have always tended to stick with other Namans and to give up their subnational identity in favor of just calling themselves "Namans".

Nik A tribe of very tall, thin, dark-skinned people who immigrated from Laba. They are not closely related to any of the other dark-skinned groups and are not generally interested in assimilation. Like the Pabaps, they preferred to settle close to the coastline and make a living through fishing, but the new treaty took away their boats and they were reduced to servile positions aboard the ships of the new Merari navy.