Smog & Mirrors: Atyria

I've just started a new LiveJournal, linked above, for the Smog & Mirrors Design Journal. It's a bit sparse at the moment (just this article, actually), but you'll find it linked in the title above.

As a note of explanation, Atyria's one of the more 'westernised' pseudo-Arabic countries in the Smog & Mirrors world, which is a fantasy setting in its equivalent of the World War One era, albeit with bits of culture grabbed from a couple of decades or so at either side.


Atyria
Official Name: Republic of Atyria
Nationality: (noun) Atyri; (adjective) Atyrian
Population: 9.5 million humans
Government: Military dictatorship
Alliances: Neutral
Primary Languages: 70% Atyrian, 27% lesser tribal dialects, 3% Appalian languages
Religions: 93% Faith, 4% Creationism, 3% Messianism
Suffrage: None.


Atyria’s History:

Atyria is an ancient country, having existed, with its borders more or less unchanged, ever since the fall of the first Goethian Empire, of which it was a province. For a short period during the 6th century, it was a protectorate of Imperial Lacerta, with whom it shares a remote southern border, but this arrangement came to an end with the War of Seven Oases in 584 TI.

Atyrian government traditionally came under the rulership of the ‘high emir’, who was typically the most powerful of the tribal chieftains in the vast area of desert that Atyria covers. As evidenced by the country’s name, the emirate was dominated by the al-Atyri tribe, who ruled from the city of Atyr. The al-Atyri gained their wealth and power from the fertile plains of the Jebbar Delta, the crops grown on their land providing grain for most of the other tribes.

Following several years of poor harvest in the early ninth century, and the subsequent development of farmland further up the Jebbar River by the al-Husami family, the al-Atyri lost their grip on the emirate in favour of their al-Husami rivals.

Atyria traditionally traded its crop surplus and other resources with Appalian merchants, but this halted during the reign of the al-Husami emirs, who were distrustful of Appalia’s imperial ambitions and wanted as little to do with foreigners as possible. By the second half of the ninth century, Atyria was suffering because of its isolationism; despite an abundance of food in the Delta and al-Husami regions, tribes further out in the harsh deserts were starving because the infrastructure and bureaucracy necessary for moving produce around the country did not exist. Likewise, Atyria lacked the schools and universities to produce the graduates who could organise such national improvements.


The Rise and Reign of Ibn Majid

Despite the government-imposed isolation, a few young men from the wealthier families would travel abroad to study. Inevitably, most adopted foreign ways while overseas but, in the main, behaved in a more conservative fashion after returning home. A notable exception was Ibn Majid al-Atyri, who studied law at the University of Oxton, in Brigantia, before travelling around Appalia. When he came home to his family in 892, he was shocked to realise just how ‘backward’ his culture seemed after spending just a few years in Appalia. He returned to Brigantia and entered the officer training school at Harwick before taking up the rank of captain in one of Brigantia’s native regiments in Khophal, where his race posed only a minor obstacle to his career. Majid soon rose through the ranks, thanks to his heroic actions during the Khophal Rebellion of 896, in which he was awarded the Brigantian Escutcheon (which he chose to be decorated with traditional al-Atyri heraldry) and the Colonial Star.

In 899, Colonel Majid left Brigantian service and returned home to join the Atyrian army, retaining his Brigantian rank thanks to family connections. In 906, he led a cadre of senior officers (mostly of al-Atyri descent, or from traditionally allied tribes) in a coup d’état that overthrew the emirate.

Majid took control of Atyria, declared himself commander-in-chief of its army and navy and dissolved the emirate to form a republic. On a platform of uniting the many tribes of Atyria into one great nation, he appointed a number of less ambitious al-Husami leaders to his cabinet alongside members of his own faction and retained the city of Azhar-Husam, stronghold of the al-Husami, as the capital.

More controversial were his policies towards Appalia. Not only did he open up the old trade routes once more, but he also made sweeping changes to the laws governing Atyrian society, many of which were based on traditional religious rulings. No longer did unmarried men have to conceal their faces in the presence of women, nor were women restricted from entering jobs. By 912, Colonel Majid had appointed three female ministers to his cabinet. More controversially, Majid announced in 909 that Atyria was to be a secular society, with its laws and morals completely separated from the Faith followed by almost all of his people. Religious education was banned from schools, where it had previously made up a large component of all teaching, although was still permitted in temples.

The re-opening of links with foreign lands, Appalia in particular, led to an influx of new ideas and money. Atyria, poor under the reign of the emirs, gained a respectable level of prosperity amongst its urban classes, while Majid’s road-building schemes and the introduction of the internal combustion engine were a great boon to the rigorous lifestyles of the desert-dwelling tribes.

Within a few years of Majid seizing power, Frankish-style street cafes appeared on the streets of Azhar-Husam and Atyr, populated by a new breed of westernised intellectuals and by Appalian tourists, and many foreign fashions in clothing, music, art and theatre (and later film) began seeping into Atyrian culture. Needless to say, there were many traditionalists who feared the loss of Atyrian values in the face of this invasion of alien ideas.


Backlash and Rebellion

In 916, a police patrol investigating a mass horse theft in the Jabber Valley was ambushed by armed tribesmen. An underground group called the Nasirim al Din (protectors of the Faith) claimed responsibility for the attack, which left eleven policemen dead. Colonel Majid immediately declared the Nasirim an outlaw organisation and enemies of the state. The Nasirim responded by assassinating the head of Atyria’s police force and, the following week, blew up two Creationist churches in Azhar-Husam.

A three year clampdown began, in which over 120,000 people were arrested on suspicion of being members of the Nasirim al Din. Several hundred were tried and hanged, but most were released after a few months of imprisonment (largely because of overcrowding due to the unprecedented scale of the operation). However, a significant number of people, including many who it turned it out had no links to the Nasirim, died in custody, often during interrogation.

The brutality of the clampdown angered many Atyrians, particularly those already ambivalent to the new way of life. Several of the desert tribes turned on Majid, along with a number of chieftains of the al-Husami tribe, although the latter group were more discreet than their nomadic cousins. With al-Husami money providing weapons, the desert rebels made the administration of law outside of the larger towns and cities difficult, if not impossible in places. As in the old days of the emirate, a number of chieftains set up their own fiefs, extorting ‘taxation’ from villagers and charging for access to oases they controlled.

The rebellion continues to this day, with no fewer than five outlawed tribes roaming the Atyrian wildernesses, ironically keeping ahead of the military and police thanks to the road network Majid built through their lands. Some in Majid’s government are calling for the al-Husami tribe to be outlawed along with the other rebel tribes, but to date Colonel Majid has resisted such demands on the grounds that the tribe has already officially disowned such treasonous members and that his regime could not survive without at least the partial support of the influential al-Husami.