Lannonia

West Borea
File:Western Borea.png
Population Template:Bullet Density	431 million
Countries	Aucuria Katranjiev Kheratia Luziyca Namor Nunalik Template:Country data Riro Razaria Template:Country data Volomeria Zesmynia

West Borea, also Western Borea, is a subregion of Borea (Esquarium). Geographically, it is defined as the part of Borea west of the Gulf of Gelyevich.

Ethno-culturally, West Borea is mainly inhabited by speakers of Aucurio-Vitrian languages, and the vast majority of the population is constituted of Vitrians. The population of West Borea is over 431 million, and population density decreases progressing from south to north. Most of West Borea has a humid continental climate or a hyperboreal climate while the northern fringes have a polar climate.

Historically, west Borea was first inhabited by several indigenous cultures, among them Pan-Esquarian speakers, North Borean speakers, and ancestors of the plethora of modern natives today found in Veirsia and Slovunia. Much of the region came under control of the Sepcans, a Monic people, in the Bronze Age, becoming one of the first centers of civilization and great empires in history under the Ancient Sepcan Empire. The Lysandrene Empire also extended throughout a sizeable portion of the area, followed by the Neo-Sepcan Empire. Following a series of migrations in the 2nd-5th centuries under Neo-Sepcan rule, Vitrians assumed control of much of the region, and formed many independent nations and cultures part of the modern Vitrian cultural sphere. Costeny is the predominant religion in West Borea.

Economically, most of West Borea are industrialized nations in middle-to-high levels of development, while Luziyca is one of the largest economies in the world. Total GDP of the region was $X in 2017 with a per capita value of $X. Several economies of the area are classified as high-income economies.

History

Ancient history

Main articles: Ancient Sepcan Empire and Lysandrene Empire

Pantocracy and Tastanism

Main articles: Neo-Sepcan Empire and Bibliocracy

Rise of Costeny

Main articles: Panoles plague, Cositene expansion, and Adytum

Cositene serenity

The era that followed the consolidation of the Cositene expansion and preceded the industrial revolution is commonly known as the Serenity in West Borean historiography, due to the relative economic prosperity and cultural flourishing that took place in the period, but also because the social order of the era was largely stable and absent of the various challenges that emerged during the industrial period.

The Empire of Razaria rapidly attained supremacy in the Cositene world through defeating competitors in Zesmynia, and formalized their dominance following Adytum's occultation. The period of Razarian Hegemony lasted from 1227 to 1547; as the home of the first uprisings of the Cositene dawn, as well as the residence of the majority of the Cositene intellectual elite, the supremacy of Razaria in the Cositene world was accepted for doctrinal reasons. More important to the support of the hegemony however was the protracted struggle with the Petrolevian Empire to the southeast, the last Tastanic bastion on the continent; the series of wars between the Razarian-led Cositene coalition and the Petrolevs allowed the other Cositene states to be kept busy engaging this religious enemy rather than challenge Razaria's position. Petrolevia's destruction in 1338 allowed much of civilized West Borea to be completely Costenized. The arts, commerce, and science all flourished in the period that followed, which came to be known as the Jubilation.

Razaria's position experienced a gradual but serious downturn beginning in the 15th century, as its satellites began to assert themselves and became increasingly difficult to control. By the 16th century, they were openly challenging Razaria. Zesmynia's unification into the First Zesmynian Empire in 1517 under Myslivoj Blagoradov created a rising power that unseated Razaria's status entirely in the Berdovinian War from 1544 to 1547 and initiated the Zesmynian Hegemony. In the same period, disputes between the Black and White Lights of Cositene thought intensified, combined with tensions between imperial authority and clergy that resulted in the Separationist Wars. After the conclusion of the wars White Light thought predominated in southern West Borea, where the clergy asserted themselves as the main political force, while Black Light became dominant in the north where its mystical merger of political and religious roles of the monarch saw it become welcomed. Although Zesmynia as a hegemon adopted a religious policy that tried to reconcile the Lights, distinct religious culture was established on the two halves of the continent, even if open schism did not occur. In the later half of the 16th century ideas such as Sepcan nostalgia, White Light-based rationalism, and cultivationism moderated the fanatically iconoclastic and intolerant tendencies of early Costeny and permitted religious harmony in Argilia and elsewhere, as well as revival of pre-Cositene culture.

Zesmynia's decentralized structure was extended to its nominal subordinates in its hegemony, who had become in any case too powerful to truly maintain dominance over. The barriers to commerce between West Borean states instituted prior by Razaria to undermine their ability to strengthen was replaced by a system of free trade and easy passage between domains. This, along with a generally non-interventionist attitude of Zesmynia as a hegemon, allowed the different states in West Borea to come to parity in broad economic terms, and be able to truly rival each other as powers. Although the regional order became multipolar, internal governance had became increasingly centralized; the nobility were targeted by power-reducing policies of imperial governments in the 17th century, who regularly deposed powerful nobles, confiscated oversized estates, and strictly regulated the domains allowed to be possessed. The increased power over resources with these policies allowed West Borean polities to further their own rise as states. Rural gentry and minor nobles had also been promoted to powerful positions en masse to manage productive estates; their ascent also ensured their loyalty to the central government and created a proto-managerial class. These conditions drove the rise of the nabory, a type of estate significantly less tied to land and became an early type of company. Also in the 17th century, under the White Light's influence, science in much of the Cositene world took on a rationalist and later empiricist bent, even though this was questioned by Black Light scholars of Razaria, Caznia, and Zesmynia, whose discourses formed the base for an anti-intellectual reaction that curtailed science in those areas. The further progression of White Light rationalism, combined with other philosophical developments, evolved into a clergy-questioning tendency that was also swiftly suppressed in southern West Borea.

Transoceanic trade in Esquarium developed with the rise of trade between West Borea and Conitia across the Central Ocean; interactions were also made with Nordania. Aucuria unexpectedly rose to become a regional power in this context, profiting from becoming the first and main stopping point of Conitian traders. The spread of Conitian culture and ideas into Aucuria had a profound influence. With such opportunities emerging, the accumulation of capital began in West Borea, pioneered by increasingly expansive nabory activity. Aucuria eventually came to enjoy its own period of hegemony starting in the 1670s, its status cemented by its preeminent position in the trade network.

Industrial revolution

Industry in West Borea has origins in increasingly optimized production organization being adopted by sualnic estates in the 17th century, and remained characterized by these sprawling enterprises for a considerable time. The spread of ideas, and with it science and technology, across the continent through both transoceanic merchantry and the continental free trade system, allowed the development and spread of technological innovations that catalyzed industrial production of textiles and other developments in the 18th century. Industrial technology was enthusiastically adopted on part of nabories, who had mainly peddled crafted products and were eager to use these new technologies to quickly meet increasing demand from the continent as a whole, which many nabories did operate across. Early industrial centers included the states of Luziyca and of Dark Decades Razaria. The Razarian states turned to optimizing economic production since they no longer had access to abundant resources from across Razaria after the War of Razarian Succession, and later fuelled industrialized iron production by their war efforts. Nabories became an important vector for both industrial and capitalist economy, their deep presence across countries allowing what resembled a market of the entire continent to emerge; areas such as Zesmynia and eastern Luziyca, which lacked industry themselves, provided demand for the goods produced by early industry, and also supplied the resources that fuelled it both figuratively and literally (with the invention and application of the steam engine).

Politically, social issues caused by the mass displacement and discontent of farmers due to industrialization drove a period of political instability. Divleny and syncary emerged as contrasting cultural movements with increasing interaction with other parts of the world, and their ideas seeped into political thought as well; divleny would cement imperial authority through reinforcing the mystified figure of monarchy and reforming the government on meritocratic lines in emulation of East Borea, while syncary manifested as the introduction of Conitian Enlightenment ideals, which resulted in protests against absolutism, the rise of republicanism, and the profoundly influential Aucurian Revolution (1790-92). On continental Borea, Conitian-origin republicanism was fused with the revival of egalitarian notions of Cositene community (the Obishty) dating back to the Cositene expansion, and due to resentment against monarchy and clergy by the growingly powerful burgher class, achieved popularity in Luziyca. In Cositene theology, White Light rationalism re-emerged and turned into another liberal, anti-clerical sentiment, followed by a wave of ideas that formed what was known as the Enlightenment in the East.

As industrialization spread and covered most of developed West Borea, new resource markets were acquired in eastern Kheratia, modern day Kresomyslisk, and outside of West Borea, Hao Namor as well as Pasdan (later Nautasia as a whole). Nabory activity in these countries, pioneered by Luziycans, opened them up for resource exploitation. Anti-foreigner policies by these stagnant empires temporarily set back the regional market's expansion, but punitive actions such as that seen in the First Namo-Luziycan War (1897-99) secured West Borean intrusion into these regions.