Ancient Aeitian History: As Our Ancestors Told It About Themselves

I. Preamble

'''The Empire of Aeitia''' (also unofficially referred to as ''The Restored Aeitian Empire'') is a country located in The Empire of Friendship, covering the entirety of the landmass referred to as The Golden Continent by its native inhabitants. An ancient monarchy, and the oldest (and only) state still existing on the continent, the Aeitian nation was first consolidated around 25 BC.

Originally but one of many minor states on The Golden Continent, Aeitia eventually came to exert its rule over the entire continent in the course of the next 2000 years, often achieving this though military conquest, though many territories were also incorporated peacefully. As the continent's major power, the cultural heritage and influence of Aeitia has become visible and dominant virtually everywhere on The Golden Continent.

In recent times, however, the empire faced great troubles adapting to the modern world, with its comparatively small, disparate population, lack of industrialization, higher education, and valuable exports, and archaic civic and especially economic system and policy. As a response to this, in 2012, the then-new Kashys dynasty called for an extensive remodelling of the empire.

I. Preamble

The results of this sudden wave of changes was a massive disruption and destabilization of the country, however. Following a period of many revolutions and changing governments, the Aeitian Empire was completely dismantled, and was for a short while replaced by a successor state known as The Greater Avian Confederation (or The GAC for short). The GAC was however greatly fractured over the issue of whether the imperial monarchy should continue in the new state, as well as many other disputes which had never been thought through before its formation.

Eventually the monarchists supporting the Kashys dynasty prevailed, electing the Aeitian emperor Eoforvicius VIII as "Euphus I". Soon enough, Euphus saw it fit to restore the Aeitian Empire in the GAC's territory, which effectively ended the days of the GAC and continued the ancient monarchy as it had persisted for millennia, albeit still in a constitutional form.

II. Etymology

It is believed that the name ''Aeitia'' stems from a butchered contraction of the Japanese words 'Ai' (愛) and 'Tia' (チア) adopted into the Vulgar Latin spoken as the official language of the country. The name became widely accepted due to its use on mass-produced maps of the region, printed in the early to mid 1500's by (Japanese-speaking) Quan explorers and their associates.

The name alludes to a land of love and friendship, however whether this was really the case, or meant as a propaganda effort from either the Aeitian emperor himself, or Quan officials who wanted to encourage settling in the territory remains unknown.

In the Eagle Language, the country is referred to as ''Liicd Dzitidz'', literally meaning: "Eagle Empire", although it is believed that the names "Dzitidz" and "Aeitia" also share a common origin. For most other languages spoken in Aeitia, the name of the country is simply ''Aeitia'', the same as in English.

The inhabitants of Aeitia are referred to as "Aeitians", and occasionally as "Aeites", especially in historical or tribal connotations. The names "Arcnell" and "Aquinell", and variations thereof, are Old Griffonese names for the country which were occasionally used in some older English sources. None of those names are official today, even in Griffonese, though.

III. History

The Early Empire.

The area of The Golden Continent has been home to sentient avian races since the beginning of its known history. Arguably the most prolific of those were the Dzitidz Eagles who by around 0 AD had subjugated most of the other races, gradually forming a network of minor principalities which through time became intertwined with one another and eventually formed the Aeitian Empire; a polity which quickly asserted its domination over most of the central part of the continent.

The coastal areas were, at that time, very sparsely populated (chiefly by various mammalian races), until human settlers started to arrive at the continent's southern and western coasts around 1600 AD, gradually forming their own tiny kingdoms, principalities, counties, duchies, and other feudal states which were largely dependent on sedentary farming and fishery, in contrast to the empire, which at that point still relied to a very large degree on traditional hunting as the primary means of food production, with agriculture primarily being performed by slave labour from different races than the ruling eagle class.

Age of Conquest and Decline.

While imperial control of the coastal areas would fluctuate quite drastically for the next thousand years, its strong, unchallenged position in the continent's center allowed it to emerge as its preeminent armed power, eventually consolidating itself as a unitarian, absolute monarchy, and became an aggressive and militaristic state which went on a massive conquering spree, having subdued the entirety of The Golden Continent to its rule in the late 1800's. Very little priority was however given to development of conquered land, especially in the area of industrialization. This, combined with widespread decadence in the imperial court, the huge drop in military power that the empire suffered with the invention of motorization and aircraft, greater economic competition from states outside of The Golden Continent itself, and a ruling dynasty which had lost itself in religious zealotry and extreme conservatism, and the empire quickly entered a period of sharp decline.

The period of decline reached its zenith in the mid 20th century, which became a tumultous period with many revolutions and rapidly shifting governments, eventually fracturing the empire and forcing it to give up most of its human dominated territories, abolish the slavery which was an integral part of the imperial economy, and make further concessions until the point where it was essentially so weak that, despite a last-ditch attempt at an extensive modernization reform, the emperor ruled in name only, as the country itself was effectively an uncontrollable anarchy.

Formation of The G.A.C.

It was during this period, a few years after the turn of the millennium, that the idea of a single state for only the avians of the former imperial territories was conceived, and, in early 2015, the situation had stabilized enough that a central authority could again be established in the avian areas of Aeitia, a government which came to be known as The Greater Avian Confederation, or informally, the GAC.

However, the GAC was also quickly splintered by many disputes and arguments about several key issues, notably, whether it should remain a monarchy under the Aeitian imperial dynasty, the rights of the non-avian population, what language to use, gender equality, democratization, and whether it was beneficial, or necessary, to force rapid industrialization and armament to stay competitive with other states, which, admittedly, The Golden Continent had been quite safely isolated from until that point.

Fate of The G.A.C.

In the very loose and largely undefined confederation that was the GAC, four major political factions ended up competing for power:

Two monarchist factions; The restorationists (also known as aquilists), who wanted to resurrect the old imperial system exactly as it had been, preferably under the very conservative Crustum dynasty, and the Kashys supporters, who, like their name implied, supported a constitutional monarchy under the allegedly more liberal and tolerant Kashys family, as well as modernization of the state. However, while they did not wish to reintroduce slavery they still reserved the rights of avians, and the "Three Elder Races" as superior to other races, at least early on. Their initially racist and patriarchal stances gradually moderated until they eventually decided to announce their support of full racial and gender equality for all Aeitian citizens, hoping to get popular support in doing so.

There were also two "republican" factions; The confederationists, who argued for a loose union of autonomous states formed from both the avian and mammalian territories of the empire, and were strongly inspired by socialism and anarcho-socialism, and the pro-avians, who were highly nationalist and backed a centralized, however not very well-defined quasi-republican state consisting of only the avian territories of Aeitia, while the non-avian populations were to be granted independence if they wished.

III. History. Fate of The G.A.C.

In the end, the fact that the two monarchist factions were able to cooperate better than the two republican ones resulted in them forming an alliance against the republicans, who continued to bicker among themselves despite both their factions rapidly losing power and influence in the GAC.

Restoration.

By the start of 2017, the monarchists were so firmly in power in the GAC that the ''Quadragintana'' (Council of 48, also known commonly by the German name ''Achtundvierzigerrat'') of the GAC were able to push through the election of a new emperor. At that point, it had already been decided that the restored monarchy would be limited-constitutional, but not which family should actually ascend to the throne. In the end, it was decided that the most fair outcome would be to return the throne to the Kashys dynasty, which had reigned before the downfall of the original Aeitian empire (despite the fact that they were largely the ones guilty of its fall in the first place), and as such, the deposed emperor Eoforvicius VIII rose again as Euhpus I, initally as "Emperor of The Greater Avian Confederation", but it was not before long that he decided to reintroduce the name ''Aeitia'' for the country, as well as a version of the imperial Aeitian flag and all of the old imperial symbols.

Though many feared that this move were to indicate a return to authoritarianism, the emperor largely kept his promise of preserving the new constitution, and, in accordance with his other promise of full equality for the mammalian minorities, invited to open negotiations for the civil and legal rights of all races; this was the first time in the country's history that races commonly thought oppressed in the empire, such as the mustelids and canines, where able to let their voice be heard, at least in theory, as their comparatively small populations and general lack of prestige still made it very difficult for them to make any demands.

IV. The Present Situation

As of June 2017, the political situation in Aeitia seems to have stabilized steadily, and the country may finally be ready for the major economic, scientific, and military efforts urgently needed for it to modernize itself. However, it seems a daunting task: The road and rail networks are basically nonexistent, the only places of higher education in the country are the archaic priestly and military academies, and, despite Aeitia recently becoming a major innovator in the field of renewable energy, 80% of the population still have no access to electricity. A such, Aeitia is currently classified as a developing economy. Due to the undeveloped infrastructure and the claimed "alienness" of the Aeitian culture, foreign companies are rarely willing to invest much into the country's economy, although it has been proposed that one day, tourism might become a critical industry for Aeitia due to its large amounts of virtually untouched nature and rich cultural heritage.