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{{Region_icon_Ajax}}
{{Region_icon_Ajax}}
{{Infobox country
{{Infobox country
| conventional_long_name    = Charnean Confederation
|native_name = ⵞⴰⵔⵏⴻⴰ / ''Charnea'' ({{wp|Tamashek}})<br>تشارنيا / ''Tasharnia'' ({{wp|Arabic|Gharbaic}})<br>טשאַרנעאַ / ''Tsharnea'' ({{wp|Hebrew}})
|native_name                = Kel Kaharna<br />ⴾⵍ ⴾⵂⵔⵏ
|common_name = Charnea
|common_name                 = Charnea
|conventional_long_name = State of the Central Scipian Accord
|image_flag                  = CharFlag.png
|image_flag                  = CharFlag.png
|alt_flag                    =  
|alt_flag                    =  
|image_coat                  =  
|image_coat                  =  
|alt_coat                    =  
|alt_coat                    =  
|symbol_type                = Emblem
|symbol_type                =  
|national_motto              = "Reverence to the Mother"
|national_motto              =  
|national_anthem            = "Winds of the Great Sand Sea"
|national_anthem            =  
|royal_anthem                =  
|royal_anthem                =  
|other_symbol_type          =  
|other_symbol_type          =  
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|capital                    = [[Agnannet]]
|capital                    = [[Agnannet]]
|largest_city                = [[Agnannet]]
|largest_city                = [[Agnannet]]
|official_languages         =
|official_languages          = {{wp|Tamashek}}
|national_languages         = {{wp|Tamashek}}
|national_languages         = </br>{{wp|Zarma language|Zarma}}<br>{{wp|Arabic|Gharbaic}}
|regional_languages         = {{wp|Zaghawa language|Beriaa}} <br> {{wp|Kanuri language|Yerwa}} <br> {{wp|Awjila language|Tawilant}} <br> {{wp|Zarma language|Djerma}} <br> {{wp|Siwi language|Siwi}}
|regional_languages          =
|languages_type              =  
|languages_type              =  
|languages                  =  
|languages                  =  
|ethnic_groups               = [[Charnea#Demographics|See Ethnicity]]
| ethnic_groups             = {{unbulleted list
| 22.9% {{wp|Ikelan}}
| 22.8% {{wp|Tuareg people|Imuhagh}}
| 19.3% {{wp|Zarma people|Zarma}}
| 14.1% {{wp|Afro-Arab|Gharbaic}}
| 6.6% {{wp|Yoruba people|Yoruba}}
| 4.5% {{wp|Fula people|Fula}}
| 2.5% {{wp|Sara people|Sara}}
| 2.4% {{wp|Hausa people|Hausa}}
| 1.9% {{wp|Copts|Deshretic}}
| 1.8% {{wp|Zaghawa people|Zaghawa}}
| 1.2% {{wp|Akan people|Akan}}
}}
|ethnic_groups_year          = 2019
|ethnic_groups_year          = 2019
|demonym                    = Charnean
|demonym                    = Charnean
|government_type            = {{wp|Federal monarchy|Confederal}} {{wp|elective monarchy}}
|government_type            = {{wp|Unitary state|Unitary}} {{wp|One-party state|one-party}} {{wp|Presidential system|presidential republic}} under a {{wp|military junta}}
|leader_title1              = [[Amenukal of Charnea|Amenukal]]
|leader_title1              = [[Supreme National Authority]]  
|leader_name1                = [[Martuf ag Lamine]]
|leader_name1                = {{unbulleted list
|leader_title2              = [[Executor of Charnea|Executrix]]
| {{nowrap|[[Martuf Lamine]] {{small|([[Chairman of the Supreme National Authority|Chairman]])}}}}
|leader_name2                = [[Kubra ult Lamine]]
| {{nowrap|[[Rezkou Goma]] {{small|([[Vice Chairman of the Supreme National Authority|Vice Chairman]])}}}}
|legislature                = Agraw Imgharan
}}
|leader_title2              = [[President of Charnea|President]]
|leader_name2                = [[Makhia Anaba Meslar]] (acting)
|leader_title3              = [[Vice President of Charnea|Vice President]]
|leader_name3                = [[Makhia Anaba Meslar]]  
|legislature                = [[Agraw Imegharan]]
|upper_house                =  
|upper_house                =  
|lower_house                =  
|lower_house                =  
|sovereignty_type            =
|sovereignty_type            =
|sovereignty_note            =  
|sovereignty_note            =  
|established_event1          = First Confederation
|established_event1          =  
|established_date1          = 14 August 703
|established_date1          =  
|established_event2          = Imperial Reform
|established_event2          =  
|established_date2          = 2 February 1379
|established_date2          =  
|established_event3          = Second Confederation
|established_event3          =  
|established_date3          = August 13 1888
|established_date3          =  
|area_rank                  =  
|area_rank                  =  
|area_magnitude              =  
|area_magnitude              =  
|area                        =
|area                        =
|area_km2                    =  
|area_km2                    = 2,621,088
|area_sq_mi                  =  
|area_sq_mi                  =  
|area_footnote              =
|area_footnote              =
Line 62: Line 79:
|population_census          = 33,010,572
|population_census          = 33,010,572
|population_census_year      = 2019
|population_census_year      = 2019
|population_density_km2      =  
|population_density_km2      = 12.6
|population_density_sq_mi    =
|population_density_sq_mi    =
|population_density_rank    =
|population_density_rank    =
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|GDP_nominal_per_capita      =  
|GDP_nominal_per_capita      =  
|GDP_nominal_per_capita_rank =
|GDP_nominal_per_capita_rank =
|Gini                        = 25.9
|Gini                        = 35.9
|Gini_rank                  =
|Gini_rank                  =
|Gini_year                  =  
|Gini_year                  =  
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}}
}}


'''Charnea''', formally the '''Charnean Confederation''' (''{{wp|Tamashek}}:'' ⴾⵍ ⴾⵂⵔⵏ, Kel Kaharna), is a {{wp|confederation}} of tribal nations governed by {{wp|elective monarchy}} located in central [[Ajax#Scipia|Scipia]], bordering the [[Messidor Union]] to the northwest, [[Alanahr]] to the northeast, and [[Fahran]] to the east. The confederation occupies a very large region of the [[Ninva|Ninva desert]], also known as the Great Scipian Desert, and in turn the majority of the country's land area is made up of the Ninva's arid and semi-arid regions and only small portions of tropical grassland and monsoon climate regions in the south of the country. As a result of the vast territory it controls across the Ninva desert, Charnea is one of the largest countries in the world by land area and the largest on the Scipian continent. As the country has modernized and undergone various political reforms, the government structure of Charnea has transformed from a loosely united association of self-governing tribes to a far more cohesive pseudo-federal state in which the component tribes have only nominal sovereignty and function similar to constituent states under a federation. All of these component bodies are bound in a state of union under Charnea as signatories of the [[Covenant of Charnea]], the foundational treaty of the Second Confederation of modern Charnea which doubles as the national constitution, as well as numerous subseqient pieces of legislation and further treaties ratified by the tribes. The modern extent of Charnean borders was established in the 1904 [[Treaty of Koros]] and reaffirmed by the armistice signed at the end of the [[Ninvite War]] in 1995. Charnea is an elective monarchy ruling by an [[Amenukal of Charnea|''Amenukal'']] (Female: ''Tamenukalt''), considered a title equivalent to {{wp|King}}, as well as a {{wp|Prime Minister}} known as the [[Executor of Charnea|Executor]] who is nominated by the parliamentary Great Assembly and formally appointed by the Amenukal.  
'''Charnea''' ({{wp|Tamashek}}: ⵞⴰⵔⵏⴻⴰ; {{wp|Arabic|Gharbaic}}: تشارنيا; {{wp|Hebrew}}: טשאַרנעאַ), formally the '''State of the Central Scipian Accord''' ('''SCSA'''), is a {{wp|political union}} in [[Ajax#Scipia|Scipia]] bordered by the [[Messidor Union]] to the northwest, [[Alanahr]] to the northeast, [[Fahran]] and [[Kembesa]] to the east and [[M'biruna]] to the southeast. Originally established as a {{wp|federation}} of constituent states, the SCSA is now a {{wp|unitary state}} made up of [[Territories of Charnea|seven administrative subdivisions]] and encompasses numerous ethnic and religious groups, with {{wp|Tuareg people|Imuhagh}}, {{wp|Zarma people|Zarma}}, and {{wp|Afro-Arab|Gharbaic}} peoples making up the largest ethnic contingents, while religious groups present include [[White Path|White Pilgrims]], [[Azdarin|Yen]], {{wp|Judaism|Jews}} and [[Asalism|Asalists]] which practice their traditions exclusively or in conjunction with the highly {{wp|syncretism|syncretic}} native Charnean faith known as [[Kaharnism]] which deifies the ancient Charnean ruler [[Kaharna]]. The Kaharnic faith in its many variations is highly prevalent and serves as a unifying force in a highly diverse nation, causing Charnea to often be referred to as the '''Kel Kaharna''' ({{wp|Tamashek}}: ⴽⴻⵍ ⴽⴰⵀⴰⵔⵏⴰ, ''lit. "Those of Kaharna"''). The SCSA is currently ruled by the [[Supreme National Authority]] (SNA), a {{wp|military junta}} which has been in power since the [[2011 Charnean coup d'etat]] and is led by its [[Chairman of the Supreme National Authority|Chairman]], General [[Martuf Lamine]] who led the 2011 coup and now serves as ''de facto'' {{wp|commander-in-chief}} of the [[Inter-Charnean Army|Charnean military]] and chief executive of the national government.  


The Charnean people are considered an {{wp|Ethnoreligious group|ethno-religious polity}} made up of numerous tribes and sub-cultures that were at one time distinct but are in the present day broadly unified by [[Kaharnism|Kaharnist]] religious beliefs, many centuries of shared history, and shared cultural traditions such as the practice of [[Tebillant|Tafekka Tebillant]] martial arts. The {{wp|Tamashek}} language, itself a dialect of {{wp|Tuareg language|Southern Amazigh language}}, was the lingua franca of medieval Charnea and is now the first language of most Charneans, while the related Amazigh languages {{wp|Siwi language|Siwi}} and {{wp|Awjila language|Tawilant}} as well as the southern Scipian languages {{wp|Zaghawa language|Beriaa}}, {{wp|Kanuri language|Yerwa}} and {{wp|Zarma language|Djerma}} are all also spoken as second languages in many regions of the Confederation. However, the Charnean people are not homogenous and are often considered multi-ethnic or multi-cultural to varying extents. In general, Charneans are divided into more Amazigh-associated groups which reside in and around the vast desert regions of the country which are termed ''Kel Tagelmust'' ({{wp|Tamashek}}: ⴾⵍ ⵜⴳⵍⵎⵙⵜ, lit "Those of the Veil") for their distinctive {{wp|turban}}-like head coverings, while the non-Amazigh Charneans of the south inhabit the savannah and delta regions of the [[Obul river|lower Obul]] and are known as ''Kel Fila'' ({{wp|Tamashek}}: ⴾⵍ ⴼⵍ, lit "Those of the Fila hat") for the iconic {{wp|Fila (hat)|Fila}} style headgear similar to the ubiquitous {{wp|Kufi}}. This internal dynamic of a bi-polar cultural continuum within Charnea is further highlighted as the national capital and largest city [[Agnannet]] is almost totally ''Kel Tagelmust'' culturally and is located within the Ninva desert, while the second largest city and major financial and industrial hub [[Koros]] is conversely mixed ''Kel Fila'' charachter and is located in the extreme south of the country at the mouth of the Obul delta.  
Modern day Charnea was once part of three great Scipian empires, the {{wp|Yoruba people|Yoruba}}-{{wp|Hausa people|Hausa}} led [[Sunset Empire]], the {{wp|Zarma people|Zarma}} led [[Hsewa Empire]] as well as the {{wp|Tuareg people|Imuhagh}} led [[Empire of Charnea]] for which the country is named. Various {{wp|Copts|Deshretic}} domains as well as the {{wp|Tamashek}} speaking {{wp|Amazigh}} confederations of the northern and western deserts have also existed within what is now Charnea, eventually being subsumed into the Empire of Charnea. At its peak between 1350 and the 1420s, the Empire of Charnea controlled a majority of the Scipian continent and was one of the largest contemporary military powers in the world. Throughout the early modern period, the empire's frontiers receded to what was considered its core territories, a region roughly equivalent to the modern day borders of the SCSA. From 1906-1909, the empire underwent a period of escalating civil conflict known as the [[Charnean Revolutionary Period]] eventually leading up to the dissolution of the Charnean Empire into several newly independent states and the creation of the [[Central Scipian Accord]] in 1911, a treaty which created a supranational organization for resolving disputes between the former nations of Charnea. By 1925, cohesion between the signatory nations had returned with the resurgence of [[Charneanism]], resulting in the federalization of the treaty signatories and the formation of the State of the Central Scipian Accord along the lines of the former empire with a new republican government. 27 years later in April of 1952 a new constitution was ratified, known today as the [[April Document]], which abolished sub-divisional autonomy and transitioned the SCSA into a unitary state.  


Economic activity across much of Charnea is classified as {{wp|Primary sector of the economy|primary sector}} enterprise, focusing on the mining and petroleum industries with a weak agricultural sector localized in the relatively minute arable regions of the country. The oil and petrochemical industries are notably {{wp|nationalized}} under [[COPEC]], the state owned petroleum company, contributing a significant portion of the national GDP and propping up government finances since the nationalization in the late 1960s. Mining has been Charnea's chief economic activity since the establishment of the Second Confederation and the early integration of the then relatively isolated country into the global economy, and remains the largest sector of the economy. Policy regarding the often very powerful mining conglomerates and their local leaders, the treatment of their workers and their use of Charnea's vital water recourses has shaped the nature of Charnean politics and been the cause of many social movements and revolutions across the turbulent decades of the 20th century. Industrial manufacturing and further {{wp|secondary sector of the economy|secondary sector}} activities have been slow to develop in Charnea, faced with insurmountable competition from foreign markets and anemic government support for the past half century. The only significant manufacturing-based industry to be established in Charnea is that of {{wp|arms manufacturing}} which first developed during the [[Ninvite War]] and has developed in peacetime as one of the primary suppliers of the [[Inter-Charnean Army]]. Charnean arms manufacturers have had some success in catering to the domestic and foreign civilian arms markets, but have to date failed to secure a military contract outside of the Charnean national military, in part due to the derivative nature of the designs in production.  
In the past century, Charnea has experienced two {{wp|revolution|revolutions}}, four {{wp|military dictatorship|dictatorships}}, seventeen {{wp|coup d'etat}} attempts both failed and successful, the ten year [[Ninvite War]] with neighboring [[Fahran]], and the [[Internal conflict in Charnea|longest running civil conflict in the world]]. Many of its internal conflicts can be traced back to the dissolution of the Empire of Charnea and the aftermath of the ensuing events, particularly the unfulfilled promises of independence, self determination and autonomy which were made to many Charnea's myriad ethnic groups living under the often incompetent and heavy handed late Imperial rule. Another cause of political instability has been the outbursts of periodic infighting between factions of the county's upper class over control of Charnea's valuable natural recourses, which include {{wp|petroleum}} and precious metals like {{wp|gold}} and {{wp|platinum}}. Petroleum industries nationalized under the state owned [[COPEC]] extraction and processing company account for roughly 45% of the national GDP and 70% of government income and accounts for a large portion of Charnean wealth, although the national reliance on oil exports to sustain its economy has made it especially vulnerable to disruptive fluctuations in the price of oil on the international market. Despite these frequent disruptions and the occasional imposition of {{wp|economic sanctions}} by foreign powers, the Charnean economy based largely on the processing and export of its natural wealth has become moderately prosperous. Charnea is a member of the [[Forum of Nations]] and party to the [[Four Rising Nations Summit]].


==Etymology==
 
Charnea derives its name from the central figure of Kaharnism and the patron goddess of many Tamashek tribes, Mother Kaharna. Charnea's Tamashek name ''Kel Kaharna'' translates roughly to "Those of Kaharna". This nomenclature follows the ancient Tamashek traditions of a confederation across tribal lines, belying Charnea's origin as a universal confederation of numerous pre-existing nomadic confederations of the Zahra desert. It is uncertain when or how Kel Kaharna came to be [[Standard Latin language|latinized]] into the word Charnea, but its believed to have occurred at some point in the 10th century following northward incursions of the Charnean Empire towards [[Periclean world|the Periclean]].  
==Etymology==  
The first people to be called Charneans were the ancient [[Amazigh]] tribes of the eastern [[Ninva]] which were called the ''Charkesh'' or simply ''Cha'' by the {{wp|Copts|Deshritic}} peoples of the [[Saawa Oasis]]. The Charkesh amazigh tribe are first referenced in inscriptions dating to 1,300 BCE and is no longer recorded after 700 BCE, however it is believed that the Charkesh people may have been one of the founding tribes of the large Amazigh confederation of [[Kaharna|Queen Kaharna]] and remained in the Ninva desert after the dissolution of this kingdom. Historically, the desert abode of the Charkesh and their Tamashek speaking descendants the ''Imuhagh'' tribes has termed ''Charna'', later corruption to  
''Charnea''. This latter term in was associated with the Empire of Charnea, a conquering polity native to what was originally called the Charnean desert, now known as the central and eastern Ninva. Through the Empire of Charnea, the name would come to associated not only with the cradle of its desert-faring civilization but with most of the areas it conquered, particularly those it retained until its late dissolution and reorganization into the SCSA in the 20th century.


==History==
==History==
===Classical period===
===Classical Period===
Both the ancestors of the Amazigh Tamashek peoples as well as their Kanuri and Zaghawa counterparts are known to have inhabited what is now Charnea since prehistory, leading up to the advent of the written word and settled agrarian society in the south of Charnea in what is referred to as the [[Obulite Civilization]] in the third millennium BCE. The Obulite culture is strongly believed to be the antecedent of modern {{wp|Zarma people|Djerma}} ethnic groups in Charnea, although the early Obulite kingdoms were not alone in this era. Around 500 BCE, the legendary [[Kaharna|Queen Kaharna]] is said to have unified the disparate ancient Amazighs of the Zahra, at this time significantly less arid than the desert of the modern day. Although Kaharna is deified as the goddess Mother Kaharna by the Charnean Tamasheks, the ancient Queen is also recognized and remembered by other Amazigh groups outside of Charnea, such as the Aghmatians of the [[Messidor Union]]. The ancient Amazigh confederation began to fragment into smaller confederations some time after Kaharna's reign, eventually becoming distinct groups. The southernmost splinters of Kaharna's confederation would evolve into proto-Tamashek tribes, which would enter into periodic clashes with the Obulite civilization. Tamashek confederations would develop a caste system featuring noble ''Imajaghan'' descended from Kaharna's kin group and vassal herders called ''Imghad'' (singular ''Amghid'') as well as semi-settled artisan ''Inadan'' and peasnt ''izeggaren'' alongside bonded slave ''Ikelan'' which primarily formed agrarian communities under the control and protection of the warrior nobility. The Charnean caste system would see many alterations over the centuries but would have long lasting repercussions for Charnean society even in the modern day. Although most elements of Tamashek at this period were nomadic, the establishment of settled and semi-settled communities primarily inhabited by lower caste members of society led to clashes with Obulite dominions over land and resources. Northward excursions by Obulite armies and southward raids and forays by Tamashek confederations are well documented throughout the classical period.
[[File:Moabite_Sarcophagus.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Sarcophagus belonging to Omotanwa the Great, leader of the Sunset Empire]]
 
The Sunset Empire ({{wp|Yoruba language|Yoruba}}: ''Iwọoorun Ijoba, lit. "Western State"'') was the culmination of the [[Ancient Obul|ancient Obulite civilization]] which was established on the banks of the lower [[Obul river]] as one the early {{wp|river valley civilizations}} around 2,630 BCE, making it the first recorded civilization in what is now modern day Charnea and one of the first in the world. Its final ieration as the Sunset Empire was originally established by a northern offshoot of the ancient {{wp|Hausa people|Hausa}} along a portion of the river to the west of the Yoruba tribes who would give the polity its common name and would later become absorbed into the political realm. The Obulite people had long practiced agriculture, which grew to intensive levels under the Sunset Empire and fueled population growth and the emergence of the first major cities in Charnea. While the Obulites had been a settled polity, the Sunset Empire was the first and only state to unify them and achieved great success in doing so, establishing a powerful military caste and expanding the empire's borders aggressively. For much of its history, the empire faced no significant external threats and primarily devoted its military to protecting its borders from raids and incursions by small neighboring tribes. Tributary states were often employed by Sunset emperors as buffers to control territory outside the main Obulite stretch and protect the primary agricultural and urban centers of the empire from attack. Despite its expansionism, the empire never expanded beyond the south Charnean savannah where it remained embroiled with Amazigh tribes from the Ninva desert, and saw no success penetrating the desert itself. At its peak, the empire expanded across all regions of the upper Obul, but was limited to the thin strip of territory along the river as that region was and remains highly arid and devoid of vegetation away from the Obul's lifegiving waters. The Sunset Empire established a long lasting literary tradition, using precursors of {{wp|N'Ko script|the N'Ko writing system}} as well as {{wp|Adlam script}} in some regions. Inscriptions in stone, clay tablets and writing on preserved {{wp|papyrus|reed paper}} make up much of the established record of the Sunset Empire, which was known to keep extensive writings on administrative processes, contact with neighboring cultures and important figures of the day making the few surviving examples of Sunset era writings which survive to this day of great archeological and scientific importance. Many of its larger structures were destroyed by the fall of the empire, and are most often discovered in the rubble buried underneath still surviving structures of the later Hsewa empire which supplanted it in the Obul region centuries after its fall.  
===Medieval period===
[[File:Tuarick_in_a_Shirt_of_Leather,_Tuarick_of_Aghades.jpg|300px|thumb|left|Depiction of 10th century Charnean warriors, showing ''allagh'' spears and a {{wp|takoba|''takoba''}} sword as well as ''tellak'' daggers worn on the forearms]]
 
Beginning around 600 and progressing onwards, Tamashek confederations around the southern [[Ninva desert]] region would begin to expand significantly in scope and power as they extended further north into the desert and along an east-west axis parallel to the edges of the semi-arid savannah and scrubland regions. The rising power of these semi-nomadic polities coincided with the expansion of the [[Trans-Scipian Trade]] which saw vast wealth of salt, gold and other goods traveling in caravans through traversable corridors across the Zahra desert, which in turn led to tribute and payment for mercenary protection flowing into the coffers of local Tamashek confederations. Many confederations existed at this time, though the three most powerful were the [[Kel  Ataram]] (lit: ''People of the West'') and the [[Kel Dinnig]] (lit: ''People of the East''), which together form the basis for the modern day {{wp|Iwellemmedan people}} of central Charnea, and the [[Kel Awakar]] which had the widest degree of control over the Zahra trade routes. By this time, the Obulite civilization had declined significantly since its days as a great power during the bronze age. Nevertheless, many significant Obulite successor kingdoms of Djerma ethnic makeup existed both north and south of the [[Obul River|Obul]]. As the power and reach of the growing Tamashek confederations increased, conflict with these kingdoms and the desert peoples to the north rose as well, seeing many wars between Tamashek and Djerma peoples north of the Obul in the 8th and 9th centuries. These conflicts would serve as the historical backdrop for the rise of the powerful {{wp|Amenukal}} [[Agnan of the Tree]] at the beginning of the 10th century and result in the radical metamorphosis of the Charnean political landscape.  
 
Agnan, the adopted son of the Amenukal of the Kel Awakar confederation, succeeded to the throne in 898 following a protracted conflict between Agnan and his followers battling many nobles of the Kel Awakar which resisted the low born reformer Agnan. Following his tumultuous rise to power among the Awakar, he instituted a number of meritocratic social and military reforms and made plain ambitions to unify all Tamashek peoples under his banner. Conflict soon broke out between the Kel Awakar and the Kel Ataram and Kel Dinnik confederations, former rivals which united against the common threat of Agnan's forces, concluding quickly in August of 903 in the aftermath of the [[Battle of Red Hills]] when Amenukal Agnan defeated and forced the submission of the Ataram-Dinnik coalition to his rule, declaring the unification of all descendants of Kaharna through his victory. The Kel Awakar, Kel Ataram, Kel Dinnik, Kel Korod and the Kel Tessawa were subsequently merged into the Kel Kaharna (lit: ''People of Kaharna'') , marking the official birth of what would become known as Empire of Charnea. Some confederations such as the Kel Azakane remained independent at the time of this unification but would later be subsumed into the united tribes of the Kel Kaharna as they began to expand further in all directions. Conflict between the Djerma and this new Tamashek power would reach a boiling point at the breakout of the [[Kuru War]] in which Amenukal Agnan sought to show the superiority of his Tamashek forces over the Djerma principalities north of the Obul, which united against him. Sources document Agnan's intent in invading the southern domains was to extract tribute from the Djerma and to make a show of force to resolve many minor land disputes in favor of Tamashek settlements now under his protection. Agnan of the Tree would perish, however, at the [[Battle of the Four Corners]] near the site of modern day [[Agnannet]] and be succeeded by his protégé and second in command, the emancipated Ikelan [[Ihemod the Inheritor]], who would prosecute the latter half of the Kuru war.
 
In contrast to his predecessor Amenukal Ihemod had no intentions of leaving Djerma lands after defeating their princes in battle, a fact made clear when in 917 construction began on a new permanent settlement at Agnannet which would become the Charnean imperial capital. By 925, Ihemod's regime had displaced or enslaved many thousands of Djerma living north of the Obul, radically expanding the reach of settled Tamashek communities and creating a massive influx of Ikelan slave caste populations in this new occupied territory which Ihemod used extensively for the expansion of his empire's domain and infrastructure despite being of Ikelan origin himself. The Charnean military would also be reformed, implimenting Djerma auxiliaries, adopting new technology and siege tactics and undergoing structural refroms. Amoung these reforms was the foundation of the ''Yezzaren Imedrayen'' or "First Brothers" which served as the Amenukal's personal bodyguard and as a proto-general staff, which would later become a lasting insitution of Charnea even surviving the fragmentation and refoundation of the Kel Kaharna in later centuries. In 927 Amenukal Ihemod and an army of an estimated 40,000 Tamashek and Djerma warriors crossed the Obul. This marked the start of the [[The Nefecane|Nefecane Wars]], a series of invasions across southern and eastern Charnea which were initiated by the expansionistic Kel Kaharna under Ihemod's rule. The Tamashek, although now unified and boasting large numbers of assimilated Zahra tribesmen among their numbers, were still numerically inferior in terms of population to many of the {{wp|Zarma people|Djerma}}, {{wp|Kanuri people|Yerwa}}, and {{wp|Zaghawa people|Beri}} groups they conquered. This led to the implementation of what has been called practical brutality, the escalation of atrocities and massacres particularly the razing of entire cities which had resisted conquest, which was also used as a propaganda tool to convince cities to surrender without fighting, thus being spared such treatment. Consequences of the violent subjugation of these ethnic groups into the Empire of Charnea would be felt for centuries to come, particularly during the later decline and fragmentation of the Empire. Additionally, this wide reaching depopulation of central and southern Scipia would profoundly affect the demographics of the area and be felt even into the modern day.
 
Ihemod's attempts to conquer eastern and northern Scipia would eventually be thwarted both by military action of the local states and by rising logistical and organizational problems within the Empire. Which his vast armies stretched thin over even greater territory, Ihemod reluctantly heeded his advisors and halted Charnean expansion by the latter half of the 10th century, instead focusing his recourses on consolidating the Empire, putting down rebellions and expanding the city of Agnannet. The Empire of Charnea would never again launch such massive campaigns as had been seen during the Nefecane Wars, although some conquests of lesser scale would be made in the following centuries. Instead, Charnea would remain relatively stable through the 14th century and oversee the partial assimilation of many of the cultures it had conquered, influencing some groups with Tamashek culture in some places while adopting local customs into Tamashek practice in others. Tamashek {{wp|Animism|animist}} beliefs would merge the the local faiths of conquered peoples and the remnant beliefs of the ancient Obulites to form the first iterations of recognizable [[Kaharnism]] in these centuries, establishing many religious and social orders across Scipia.
 
Charnea entered a period of precipitous decline and fragmentation in the 14th century, usually described as beginning around 1388 during a particularly violent succession crisis which for the first time since unification had redrawn sub-ethnic lines within the Kel Kaharna Tamashek tribes. In 1501, the [[Kel Awakar]] had reformed and seceded from the Kel Kaharna, followed by many upstart states made up of {{wp|Zaghawa people|Beri}} and {{wp|Kanuri people|Yerwa}} ethnic groups. The Empire of Charnea would survive as a rump state of mixed {{wp|Tuareg people|Tamashek}}-{{wp|Zarma people|Djerma}} ethnic composition until the [[Sack of Agnannet]] in 1690, which finally dissolved the Kel Kaharna remnant.
 
===Warring nations period===
The start of the warring nations period is debated, traditionally marked at the fall of Agnannet in the late 17th century but in the modern day more often described as beginning with the seccesion of the Kel Awakar at the turn of the 16th century. In either case, the root cause is generally believed to have been the 1388 succession crisis in the Charnean empire and a general decline and failure of imperial authority in Agnannent which followed, leading to disunity not only among the multicultural subjects of Charnea but also among the Tamashek tribes which formed the core population of the empire. The secession of the Kel Awakar, which inspired some other tribes to subsequently break away in turn, weakened the principal powerbase of the Empire and as a result saw many subjugated peoples rebel or in some cases simply declare their independence and undergo virtually uncontested secessions. While some Yerwa rebellions were quelled by the Charnean army in this time, others were deemed too strong or too far afield for the military to handle and were simply granted independence rather than risk their forces joining the rebellions of their kinsmen along the southern bank of the Obul, close to Agnannet. The more powers broke away from Agnannet's rule, the further the Empire declined, until eventually the Charnean rump state in Agnannet was eclipsed by Tamashek and Yerwa states which had broken away. A general power vacuum left by the once powerful Empire saw an escalation of conflicts and ethnic tensions which had not been seen in hundreds of years due to overpowering Charnean overlordship. A near constant state of civil war and and upheaval followed, as although most tribes had now broken away from Agnannet many still viewed themselves as Charnean or  as Charnean successor states and aimed to reunite the Empire under their own rule.
 
In the latter stages of the protracted warring nations conflict, Tamashek society would see a fundamental upheaval of its caste structure with the [[Ikelan Rebellion (1769)]] which was only the largest and most recent of a long series of escalating slave uprisings across the semi-nomadic society of the Tamashek. The Ikelan had by this point developed the combat art known as [[Broken Chain]] and were highly organized among their communities. Concurrently to this escalating uprisings by the Ikelan, Tamashek noble society had become decimated by the civil wars and battles against rival nations and tribes. The noble Imajaghan caste had historically held dominance and served as the main military body of their confederations, and so their decline resulted in a loss of cohesion across the caste system and facilitated the emancipation war of the Ikelan. The successful Ikelan Rebellion of 1769 established several independent Ikelan settled communities and states in central and eastern Charnea, while the ongoing upheaval in Tamashek confederations across the Zahra saw a general split into nomadic groups formed from the merging of Imajaghan (noble) and Imaghad (herder vassal) castes as well as a sedentary Tamashek group formed from Inadan (artisan) and Izeggaren (peasant) castes of society. Nomadic Tamashek now occupied the Zahra desert while the settled Tamashek and now independent Ikelan groups shared the north bank of the Obul and more broadly the non-desert lands of central and eastern Charnea.  


Following the Ikelan Rebellion and independence movement, powerful blocs of various ethnicities had largely consolidated their local areas and reached a tentative peace through the stabilization of this new balance of power among Charnean successor and seceded states. The largest polities roughly aligned to what are now known as the [[Eight Nations of Charnea]], these being the Amazigh Tamashek which are subdivided into the nomadic Imajaghan/Imaghad nation and the settled Inadan/Izeggaren nation, northwestern {{wp|Awjila people|Tawilant}} speaking tribes, eastern {{wp|Siwi language|Siwi}} speaking tribes (both of which are considered distinct from "true" Tamashek tribes), the newly established Tamashek speaking Ikelan nation, in addition to the largely settled sub-Zahran {{wp|Zaghawa people|Beri}}, {{wp|Kanuri people|Yerwa}}, and {{wp|Zarma people|Djerma}} ethnic groups. All eight of these nations largely practiced [[Kaharnism]] and could use Tamashek as a common language both in their attempts at diplomacy and in day to day life as neighboring communities. Eventually, as the standstill of the the warring nations period cooled down and mounting foreign pressure created unifying forces among the former Charnean states, armed conflict eventually gave way to common front anti-colonial struggles against Belisarian and Oxidental powers and a mood of general toleration between the rival states, although deep rooted enmities from this period and prior wars yet remain to this day. Nevertheless, the turn of the 19th century brought about a wave of unification movements in many Charnean successor states, which sought to set aside their differences and combine their forces to re-establish the Empire of Charnea, although this would later be altered simply to a multicultural pan-Charnean Confederation concept to include non-Tamashek peoples who did not wish to be once again subjugated by a Tamashek dominated Agnannet. Regardless, the advent of the unification movement which reached its peak in the 1810s is seen as the end of the warring nations period, as it would directly lead into the reunification of Charnea.  
===Tamazgha===
{{main|Tamazgha}}
[[File:Garma_(Garama)_-_Ruinen_der_antiken_Stadt_Garma_02.jpg|225px|thumb|left|Ruins of Ekelhoc, the capital of Tamazgha, located within the Azalay mountain range in the western Ninva.]]
The establishment of the [[Tamazgha]] confederation in [[Ajax#Scipia|Scipia]] marks the beginning of statehood for the northern Charnean tribes, which have retained and transmitted their ancestral Amazigh culture to neighboring peoples. Recorded mentions of Tamazgha and confederation of tribes is part of recovered military reports of the late Sunset Empire in what is now southern Charnea, detailing clashes and raids undertaken by the nomadic Amazigh of the conferation. Archeological finds suggest that the Sunset Empire undertook a massive fortification of its northern frontiers between 565 and 540 BCE, suggesting an increase in the frequency and strength of incursions into their territory or that of their buffer states.  


===New Confederation period===
The founder of the Tamazgha confederation was the legendary [[Kaharna|Queen Kaharna]], who unified various Amazigh tribes native to much of northern and central Scipia, including the ancestors of the [[Messidor_Union#Classical_era|Aghmatians]], as well as Charnean {{wp|Tuareg people|''Imuhagh''}} and their [[Talakh|Talaki]] cousins. At its peak under Kaharna and her succesors, Tamazgha streached from the [[Periclean world|Periclean coast]] in the north to the north bank of the [[Obul river]] in the south, from the [[Saawa Oasis]] in the east to the borders of ancient [[Yisrael]] and parts of the Thassalian coast of west Scipia in the west. Although many of the tribes which were joined under the rule of Kaharna and her successors were traditionally semi-nomadic or fully nomadic pastoralists at that time, Tamazigha was an emerging urban civilization, the second one to arise in the barren expanse of the Ninva after the Deshritic civilization of the Saawa oasis. This was achieved through the digging of extensive tunnel networks which allowed Amazigh city builders to tap into {{wp|fossil water}} of the central Scipian region, specifically in regions such as the [[Royal Valley]] and the [[Thumer basin]] where such excavation into the flanks and mountainsides around the low ground would reach the lowlying {{wp|Aquifer|deep aquifer}}, where water could then be moved by {{wp|Aqueduct (bridge)|aqueduct}} to sustain a permanent settlement in the desert.
The modern form of Charnea was established under the second confederation by a general congress of tribes in Agnannet, known as the Congress of Eight Nations, on the 25th of February, 1817. Many talks between the disparate tribal states in the north and petty Kingdoms in the south had occurred in the lead up to the Congress. This wave of unity had been spurred on by the rapidly increasing foreign interest in the region, and the threat of subjugation to foreign colonial powers, which the warring governments of Charnea hoped to stave of by working together, especially by combining their military commands with the intention of throwing out any colonial incursions into historically Charnean lands with overwhelming numbers. Although many of the nations attending the Congress spoke different language, held differing religious beliefs, and were generally distinct culturally as well as politically from one another, all of them held shared history as long occupied territories of the former Empire of Charnea, and had been deeply influenced by northern Tamashek culture as the longest held regions of the Empire. Particularly, most of the remaining states in the lands of Charnea were local successor states to the old Empire and had viewed reunification positively, despite repeated disagreements and conflicts with their fellow successor states. Although it required the settling of by now long held grudges and disputes as a prerequisite, reunification of the old imperial confederation of the Charnean Empire was generally viewed favorably. Eventually, a new system was drafted by which many of the Empire of Charnea era political systems would be restored while also placing new emphasis on a devolved confederal nature, declassifying this new Charnea from being termed an Empire, defaulting instead to the Confederal nomenclature.  
[[File:Pyramids_of_Nyuserre_Ini_and_Neferirkare.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Thumer Necropolis, the burials of Queen Kaharna and many of her dynasty which ruled Tamazgha during its golden age.]]
Tamazgha was highly successful in its military engagements with its neighbors, making use of its vast manpower and advantages in cavalry to prevail in conflicts. Particularly, Amazigh forces were engaged in escalating hostilities against the Sunset Empire to the south, which was considered to be one of the principal rivals of the confederation. Although the Sunset Empire survived the conflict, records show they suffered many resounding defeats and their armies took irreparable losses. The collapse of the empire's military at the hands of Amazigh riders loyal to Tamazgha may have caused the empire's decline in the following decades as its military would never fully recover from the conflict. From then on, the Sunset Empire lost control of its northeastern portions accounting for more than half the land the empire ruled at its zenith. Evidence suggests Tamazgha was not interested in conquering the Sunset Empire or annexing the northeastern lands, as the Amazigh polity appears to have been fully capable of doing so if its rulers and tribal leaders desired it. Instead, the war with Tamazgha shifted the balance of power in what is now southern Charnea from a mostly Yoruba-Hausa dominated state to the Zarma dominated state of the later periods.  


The [[Covenant of Agnannet]] was later issued as an announcement of the resolutions agreed to within the 1817 Congress of Eight Nations, outlining the nature of the new Charnean confederation and affirming the will of each of the attending parties to assent to the terms laid out and join their forces with the new Charnean Confederation. In the absence of a formal constitution, the Covenant of Agnannet has served as an ad hoc constitution by later governments of the Confederation, particularly as a means to refer back to the original intentions and terms of the Founders, those leaders and delegates that through their participation and consent brought about the second confederation.  
Tamazgha eventually dissolved in large part because of the depletion of the fossil water reserves which had sustained its most important urban centers in the central Ninva, near the shared border of modern Charnea and the Aghmatian portion of the [[Messidor Union]]. Without water to sustain its political centers, the sedentary portion of the Amazigh hegemony dominating Scipia abandoned its capital and resettled near the Periclean sea in modern day Aghmatia. The disruption of its powerbase and dissolution of much of Tamazgha's infrastructural connective tissue cause many of the Amazigh peoples under its rule to secede and effectively ended the confederation. The southern portion of Tamazgha which remained in the Ninva after the dereliction of the major Amazigh settlements there became the ancestors of the ''Imuhagh'' and reverted to their pre-unification pastoralist lifestyle and living a hard, nomadic existence in the harsh expanse of the deserts.  


For many years following this new unification, the Charnean Confederation perused a degree of rapid modernization and adoption of new technology, particularly of a military nature, in an effort to further protect itself and its constituent members from foreign aggression and influence which had been the primary motivation of the reunification. The railroad and foreign drill and military organization were adopted during this early period, from 1817 to approximately 1860, a period known as the Rule of the Founders, although generally many of the Founders died or stepped down, their ruling style and objectives continued by their heirs and allies in their stead.
===Early Medieval Period===


After 1860, Charnea had been armed with up to date foreign weapons and tactics, and its unification had successfully insulated it from most foreign incursion. Indeed, in 1866 the Charnean Confederation annexed the Urush region and the ex-colonial city of Koros in what modern historians have termed an ironic reversal of Charnea's anti-colonial founding sentiments, as many of the Urushar local peoples were not granted the same representative rights and self determination as had been enshrined in the Covenant of Agnannet for other groups residing in Charnea, even those outside the Eight Nations. Following this begins an era known as the Rule of the Land Masters, generally described as beginning in the 1860s and terminating around 1910, characterized as a period of expanding power of landlords and decline of the original founding states and parties of the Confederation, which found themselves increasingly at the mercy of landowners and private business forces. Many internal conflicts began to arise among the Charnean people, as the forces of the modern world exemplified by the new landlord class and the advancing mining industry clashed with local peoples and tribal groups. Many Charneans, finding themselves pushed out of ancestral lands, denied water or otherwise put down by these new powers over the land began to resort to insurgent resistance, banditry, and early forms of terrorism, as is the case with such well known figures as [[Lamine ag Sahra]] and [[Red Hands Rali]].
===Late Medieval Period===


Many of the trends of the Rule of Land Masters continued into the later eras of the early and middle 20th century, known both as the Gold Time and as the Rule of City Kings, which saw not only the boom of gold and nickel mining in Charnea, but also the beginning of the lucrative petroleum industry. The Charnean economy, previously dominated by agriculture, pastoralism and hand-crafts was in this era totally transformed into an industrial primary sector economy of mineral exploitation, triggering a wave of urbanization and modernization in the country. This brought widespread expansion of railroads and roadways across the country, advent of the telegraph and telephone, and electrification, sanitation, and other practices which accompanied the sudden growth of many Charnean cities. In addition to these technological and infrastructural improvements however, the Rule of City Kings also saw the birth of an entirely new form of social conflict between the new caste of industrial workers and the owners of businesses and the well connected upper class of this new Charnean society, seeing the birth of the Charnean labor movement, unionization of miners and numerous resulting labor conflicts between syndical groups, worker militias, private security and mercenary forces hired by private companies, and local and national police which were punctuated by political instability and the ongoing previous conflicts between the modernizing forces and the old traditional groups of Charnea which viewed both big business interests and the industrial workforce as threats to their own way of life.  
====Consolidation====
Ihemod ag Jeqan, Amghar within the Awakari tribes of the Imuhagh, was the adopted son to the Amenukal of the Awakar confederation, Jeqan ag Boru. He was named heir to his father's influential position on the latter's deathbed, a proclamation which is contested by modern historians and was largely discounted by contemporary sources. Jeqan's three surviving biological heirs contested Ihemod's status, igniting a war across the Kel Awakar. The significant military resources and portions of the nomadic population of the confederation were split between the claimants, Ihemod retaining only a small number of Jeqan's closest followers with whom he had worked as his father's lieutenant. Ihemod tracked down and confronted Tenge, the youngest of the three Jeqid brothers and the claimant with the second smallest force after Ihemod. While the forces were preparing to do battle, Ihemod challenged Tenge to a duel as a means of settling the dispute, which was not uncommon in that time. Tenge was pressured by his followers to accept, and was then defeated and killed in the duel with Ihemod to their dismay. With Tenge's forces joining his, Ihemod was cornered by the remaining brothers Agtab and Mechtegen who had agreed to temporarily join forces to defeat Ihemod after hearing of their brothers death. The brothers surrounded and attacked Ihemod's forces, but in doing so a portion of their army came under ambush and was destroyed, allowing Ihemod's riders to escape and regroup. After reinforcing with a group of Zarma mercenaries, Ihemod counterattacked at the [[Battle of the Red Way]] and defeated Agtab and Mechtegen, consolidating their remaining forces into his army and executing them. Unusually, he spared many of his former rival's top officers to integrate into his own army, which began to swell as he prepared to expand the domains of the Kel Awakar. Following the conquest of the Kel Atram and Kel Dinik confederations of the Lullemmeden Amazigh tribes, Ihemod further bolstered his numbers and began to absorb many smaller clans of Imuhagh peoples across the Ninva without conflict. Many voluntarily joined Ihemod's confederation upon request, as the leader had proven himself in combat and had already united a large portion of the Imuhagh, while others resisted and were coerced into joining the confederation by threat of war if they refused. In some cases, the threat was insufficient and further conquests were undertaken, resulting in minor Imuhagh clans being destroyed, their population enslaved as {{wp|Ikelan|Akli}} and their herds and wealth distributed equally as loot among the confederation's tribes.  


The majority academic opinion contends that the Rule of City Kings ends in the 1960s with the death of [[Mzagar ag Mawa|Amenukal Mzagar]] and the rise of power of [[Zaragan Zina|Amenukal Zaragan]] and his infamous Executor [[Baseel Madoun]]. Modernization and self reliance plans made at the tail end of Mzagar's reign, such as the [[New Dawn Plan]], many of which where later adapted by Madoun's administration are generally taken to signify the final point of transition in Charnean history, delineating the point when Charnea could be considered to have fully entered the industrial world, although this is contested by scholars which point to the continued survival of traditional ways of life in Charnea despite the undeniable industrial expansion across much of the Confederation. The period following this end of traditional Charnean history is divided generally into the Madoun Era and the Lamine era, describing the period of Madoun's administration which survived two Amenukals, characterized by some nationalization and centralization measures largely in corrupt self service for the ruling faction and powerful political figures as well as the general turmoil brought about by the [[East Scipian Wars]], followed by the aftermath of these conflicts, the [[Triple Coup]], and the following Lamine regime which as ruled Charnea from the end of 2000 onwards.  
====Formation of the Empire====
[[File:Tuarick_in_a_Shirt_of_Leather,_Tuarick_of_Aghades.jpg|225px|thumb|left|Imuhagh warriors, a {{wp|Takouba}}-wielding noble (right) and a ''zagaya'' spear-wielding common herder (left)]]
Having consolidated the Imuhagh tribes of the [[Ninva]], Ihemod began a number of military reforms and began to reorganized the tribal forces into a more unified army under his command. The new army was established along the lines of Ten-Thousands or ''Meraou Igiman'', massive army formations consisting of thousands (''Igiman''), hundreds (''Temad'') and finally squad level tens (''Meraoued''). Commanders for the top level units were to be appointed by Ihemod, while lower level commanders were elected by their men. Within these decimal units, Ihemod intentionally mixed multiple tribes and clans with the intention of erasing their tribal identity to form a homogenous Imuhagh army. He also adopted many technological reforms, adopting advanced {{wp|composite bow|bows made of multiple materials}}, new riding equipment and later transitioned the entirely mounted army of the Imuhagh from camelry to cavalry mounted on {{wp|Barb horse|Barbs}}. Camels were still used in an auxiliary role, and led the initial conquests in the desert regions where they could outrun and outlast horses in the dry heat. Ihemod's immediate target was the Hsewa Empire to the south, which he perceived as having oppressed and divided the Imuhagh for their own gain, a sentiment which many of his followers shared. The war against the Hsewa empire began in April of 1351 with the sacking of several border towns.  


==Government and Politics==
The initial Charnean cassus belli was to retaliate against the Zarma people of the Hsewa empire by showing their superiority in battle and extracting tribute as restitution for past wrongs. In the early stages of the war, Imuhagh forces commanded personally by Ihemod or by his closest advisors attacked Hsewa garrisons, raided the countryside and ambushed the forces sent to deal with their raids. Almost immediately, the Hsewa emperor was alerted that the Imuhagh were not merely raiding the borderlands as had been expected, and mobilized a major force to destroy it. This force was caught in a pincer movement by the far more mobile mounted Imuhagh who had begun to wage a guerilla style war while within enemy territory. The resulting battle, the [[Battle of Achra]], was pivotal in the conflict and is seen as a key moment in history in large part due to the unexpected rout which led to the death of the near totality of the massive Hsewa force. The Imuhagh victory at Achra was of such an overwhelming nature that the Hsewa would be virtually defenseless to further attacks for a time. Ihemod decided in the aftermath of the battle to alter the course of his offensive, turning it from a war to extract tribute to a war of conquest and subjugation, deciding to eliminate the threat posed by the powerful Hsewa now that he saw the opportunity to do so. Historians label the Battle of Achra and its aftermath as the moment at which the Empire of Charnea truly came into being as an empire of the Imuhagh subjugating the neighboring nations, rather than a simple confederation of tribes like the ancient Tamazgha.
Charnea is a voluntary union of 44 sovereign and independent {{wp|constituent states}} which have entered into a condition of perpetual confederacy under the terms of the 1817 [[Covenant of Agnannet]], the treaty of unification which doubles as an ad hoc constitution governing the functions of the Confederation's central government which are delineated in the document as part of the treaty. The first Article of the Covenant enthroned the war leader of the Alliance to Restore Charnea, the Amenukal of the Kel Awakar, as the first [[Amenukal of Charnea]] and established the powers, restrictions and succession laws of this royal office that would be used to elect and enthrone every subsequent Amenukal. The third Article of the Covenant outlined the form of the Confederation's unicameral legislature representing the member states, known as the Great Convocation, which drafts and approves the laws of the Confederation and convenes in smaller committees and councils to govern specific aspects of general policy affecting multiple member states. Although legally complicated by later established laws, the retained sovereignty of the member states grants the implicit right of secession. Seceded states, or other external states, can reconfederate through voluntary assent to the terms of the Covenant of Agnannet and a vote of confirmation by the Great Convocation. Although no new states have been added to the Charnean Confederation, some current member states have seceded and later been reconfederated in this manner.  
[[File:Schlacht_bei_Zama_Gemälde_H_P_Motte.jpg|250px|thumb|right|War elephants and war-{{wp|Paraceratherium|hornless rhinos}} were adopted by the Charnean armies after the conquest of the Hsewa empire]]
Following the capture and burning of the Hsewa capital, the lands of the large empire were partitioned into vassal states. The invasion had displaced and killed predominantly Zarma farmers and citizens numbering in the hundreds of thousands, even millions by some estimates, depopulating large swaths of the Obul river particularly in the north. As a result, many Imuhagh people began to settle the land and establish sedentary communities in the derelict villages and farms left behind by those who had fled or been killed by Ihemod's forces. Ihemod encouraged this as a means of strengthening the core of his empire, and authorized the ''Iklan'', the slave caste of Imuhagh society, to be settled in the captured regions under a system similar to {{wp|serfdom}}. Additionally, many engineers and public servants of the former Hsewa empire were taken into Ihemod's service as administrators and military auxiliaries following his victory. In 1357, Ihemod attacked the [[Mawla|Mawlen Sultanate]] to the east, capturing the ancient city of Azut and driving off many of the Gharbaic Mawlen rulers. Azut became Ihemod's capital and seat of power as the staging area for further invasions to the east and west. With the fall of Mawla, Ihemod annexed Hatheria with the help of the Saawa Deshritics who became vassals of the empire, and then prosecuted a short war to vassalize the Saadian Emirate, conquering all of what is now eastern Charnea by 1360, a mere nine years since the beginning of his war with the now defunct Hsewa.  


Historically the Confederation of Charnea held weal central authority and afforded constituent states almost total autonomy in all areas of government spare foreign policy and some aspects of military affairs. Similarly, laws passed by the Great Convocation or the orders of the Amenukal even in full compliance with the established rules of the government would need ratification or subsequent approval and implementation by each individual constituent state to take effect locally. However, the limitations imposed by the highly devolved powers of the early Confederation would often held back the government from functioning effectively, which in turn created political pressure to gradually curtail autonomy, centralize authority and generally adopt traits resembling those of a {{wp|Federation|Federal state}}.  
During the war with Saadia, the Imuhagh forces made ample use of Zarma engineers from the west to overtake the many fortifications the defenders had prepared. With their help, the Charnean armies where quickly becoming highly proficient in siege warfare on top of their increasingly refined cavalry tactics and supremacy in field battles. On the heel of this conflict, Ihemod advanced further into what was the [[Azdarin]] Caliphate. It was in these offensives that the Empire of Charnea suffered its first defeat, in 1366 at the [[Battle of Al-Hira]] by the Charnean General Ahag ag Salla at the hands of an Azdarin Gharbaic prince. Nevertheless, since the decline of the Almurid Caliphate years earlier, the region was divided and Ihemod met success in his invasions despite setbacks. In 1372, Ihemod invaded the Periclean coast of Scipia, launching incursions beginning with the conquest of Alanahr in a two pronged invasion from 1372-1373, to the incursion on modern day Aghmatia in 1380 which ended the Periclean campaign and extended Charnean rule from the Periclean to the Thessalian. The period of 1380 to 1395, known as the Crushing in many histories, was marked by massive waves of rebellion across conquered areas, including a mutiny of some of Ihemod's Generals and other officers objecting to his absolute rule and what they saw as reckless expansion. The delay caused by these rebellions undoubtedly postponed many further invasions and significantly impacted the final size of the Empire of Charnea on Ihemod's death. Ihemod would go on to spend his remaining years conquering the south and west before his death ended the so called "Age of Terror", the period of unchecked Charnean expansion and seemingly unstoppable military supremacy.  


The seat of the central government is [[Agnannet]] which once served as the capital to the Empire of Charnea and is, along with joint military bases of more than one [[Charnea#Military|Inter-Charnean Army]] component force, make up the central territories of the central government. Extended territories of the central government are those small portions of territory which have been requested for use by an agency or subsidiary entity of the central government and which were subsequently granted by the constituent state to which the territory belongs. These extended territories, because they were not granted by the articles of the Covenant, may be revoked or overturned by the appropriate legal actions by the Great Convocation or an individual constituent state and so are typically referred to as leases rather than cessions.  
====Pax Charnica====
[[File:Bent_Pyramid_曲折金字塔_-_panoramio.jpg|250px|thumb|right|The Pyramid of Ihemod, tomb of the Empire's founder.]]
Amenukal Ihemod died in 1409 at the age of 66, from what historians suspect was a brain tumor based on reports of headaches and seizures in the old conqueror's later years. His death soon halted the campaigns of expansion, granting a reprieve to the [[Periclean world]] and the lands of eastern Scipia, modern day [[Fahran]], [[Vardana]] and [[Kembesa]], as the invading Charnean armies retreated and their generals returned to Ihemod's temporary capital at [[Azut]]. There, the imperial assembly of elders known as the ''Agraw Imgharan'' met to elect as new ruler in the traditions of the Imuhagh confederations. The new Amenukal, Magdan ag Barka, was slow to send the armies back to the front lines of expansion and prioritized internal matters of the empire. Magdan had been one of Ihemod's generals, assigned to put down rebellions in the region of the Obul river bend, and had in that time developed a concern that the mighty Imuhagh empire would soon face major internal threats to its integrity greater than any outside foe. Magdan and his successors are largely credited with the administrative reform of the empire, which codified the Agraw Imgharan as a permanent deliberative assembly with important powers and responsibilities, set up the provisions for the government of captured cities and internal relations with the empire's many new tributary states and vassals. While new territories were added into the empire when the Generals and their armies returned to the frontiers, this was only a fraction of the meteoric expansion that had been seen under Ihemod's reign. In 1435, Magdan ordered the construction of a pyramid in the ancient style of some Tamazgha era tombs to house Ihemod's body, which had been mummified and kept in the Azut crypts after his death. Ihemod's reburial was an elaborate ceremony, one which drew clear parallels between the Empire of Charnea and her rulers, and the ancient Tamazgha confederation which Magdan wished to evoke as Charnea's predecessor state. Soon thereafter, Magdan established the new imperial capital at the Fish-Blood Bastion, a citadel in the desert near Ihemod's new pyramid monument. The resulting settlement would soon develop into the city of [[Agnannet]], which has been the seat of every Charnean state since.  


===Executive Authority===
The period of internal peace and stability which followed Magdan's reign, historiographically known as the ''Pax Charnica'', saw very little further military expansion and largely defensive wars or reconquests of insubordinate vassal states. In some areas, the empire indeed lost territory as tributaries broke away, although Amenukal Madgan reportedly viewed some of the losses as beneficial, seeing some of his predecessor's annexations as either undue overextensions or as vestigial first steps into campaigns which never occurred due to the conqueror's death. Many of Magdan's contemporaries criticized him for not following up of Ihemod's great conquests, while the Amenukal himself routinely cast himself as upholding Ihemod by securing his legacy rather than persuing his own. Amenukal Magdan focused the veteran Charnean armies, which had never numbered more than 95,000 soldiers during Ihemod's reign, on occupying and pacifying the empire's aquisitions, knowing that mustering the forces into a concentrated army to invade more territory would only jeopardize the existing conquests by draining their garrisons and reserve forces. Thanks largely to his effors, Charnea prospered without a major rebellion for nearly 300 years. Tamashek language literature as well as patronage of the arts and sciences was at an all time high under this new reign of the Imuhagh tribes, and many monuments, tombs and elaborate palaces were built in this period which stand in the modern day.  
The executive power vested in the central government of Charnea is split between the monarchy, which is traditionally associated with the administration of the military and foreign affairs, and the civilian administration which deals with the daily operation of the government's agencies and subordinate entities. This split reflects the political traditions of the Tamashek culture which has had similar civil-military divisions in its government structure dating to the ancient past, in which the martial and civil government of the tribe was split along gender lines. The civil-military split was further reinforced during the Imperial era when Tamashek tribes and their Amenukal were largely concerned with military activity while being exempt from taxation and the repressive administration of the Imperial bureaucracy, and thus the Amenukal would establish a separate parallel government to oversee the settled communities of conquered peoples to be run by his civilian subordinates. In the Covenant of Agnannet this was used as a means to regulate the activities of the central civilian government without imposing further restrictions on the Amenukal's already relatively narrow purview which could render the martial utility of the royal office ineffective.  


In keeping with traditional roots, the [[Amenukal of Charnea]] is the {{wp|Commander-in-chief|supreme commander}} of the [[Inter-Charnean Army (ICA)]] as well as paramilitary police forces and common militia forces found across the expanse of Charnea. While each constituent state in the Confederation retains its own native armed forces, these are all integrated into an overarching joint command in the form of the ICA, and it is the function of the Amenukal to lead this umbrella organization and maintain the general staff and command structure of these integrated upper echelons of the combined Charnean military apparatus. Coordination of the combined forces of the ICA is often difficult and is usually reserved only for times of war, although the Amenukal does coordinate with the militias of the ICA to a lesser extent for the purposes of maintaining readiness and conducting peacetime security operations. The Amenukal is also vested with powers to represent the Charnean Confederation as head of state and is therefore placed in charge of all executive functions pertaining to foreign policy, including deals on trade, immigration and extradition with foreign nations. Because the Confederation possesses an internal single market without customs or immigration checks between states, the Amenukal's dealings on foreign trade and immigration must be secondarily approved by the Great Convocation in order to take effect, as it would be unconstitutional for the Amenukal to unilaterally negotiate on matters concerning the states without their approval and consent to any deal agreed upon. International military or security cooperation is at the discretion of the Amenukal, although this right to unilaterally enter into military dealings with foreign nations is dampened by the restriction that any mobilization of Charnean military assets cannot be attained without the explicit approval and oversight of the specific state authorities to which those assets belong. In 2011, the Great Convocation passed a law further restricting this power, stating that the Amenukal may take no action of intervention or military cooperation that may carry the declaration of war on Charnea by a foreign nation as a foreseeable direct consequence.
It is also during this period that much of the assimilation into Imuhagh culture took place, especially among those taken as captives during the initial conquests. These populations had diverse ethnic backgrounds and hailed from all over Scipia, and even had representatives originating in Malaio, Ochran and Belisaria. Under the Charnean form of slavery, the slave caste was not held as chattel but instead lived in settled villages, especially in along the Obul and in the south Charnean grasslands, where they established agriculture and practiced pastoralism. The fruits of these labors would be collected by the Imuhagh tribes which remained nomadic, and served as a more direct and reliable source of food, material and wealth than the vassal states and occupied foreign peoples such as the Zarma or Gharbaic nations under Charnean rule. Over time the slave population adopted the Tamashek language and many aspects of the Imuhagh culture which had enslaved them, while retaining some mixed vestiges of their mother cultures, often confused and fragmentary due to the heterogenous cultural backgrounds introduced into the slave caste communities. As they began to homogenize into a new culture and partially assimilate into the Imuhagh world, these ''Iklan'' would be recognized as a unique ethnicity. Where previously the Iklan had only been a caste label denoting people in bondage living in heavily exploited sedentary communities, the Iklan were now considered a new subject nation of the Imuhagh led empire, and despite their state of subordination they would serve as one of the central components of imperial power and a counterbalance to the Zarma and Gharbaic subject peoples which remained under Charnean rule.  
===Okha Dynasty===
[[File:Portrait-Fatma_N'Soumer.jpg|225px|thumb|left|[[Ziwa Soumer N'Okha]] led the Azut rebellion and successfully raised the Okha dynasty to the throne of Charnea]]
===Modern Period===


The office of the Executor is created by the first Article of the Covenant as an addendum to the powers of the Amenukal. Originally little more than the chief of civil affairs for the Amenukal in keeping with the traditional civil-military split, the Executorial office has since expanded significantly in its role as Amenukals became less involved with the daily administration of the central government. The Executor is still by the Amenukal and approved by the Great Convocation, and in turn selects a cabinet of ministers referred to as the Circle of Viziers who must each be likewise approved by the Great Convocation. This established civilian government is then fully endowed with the powers of administration on a national confederacy-wide level in such matters as the construction and maintenance of inter-state infrastructure, the upkeep of the national healthcare and education systems, the collection of vital statistics, conduct of the census and the administration of the Confederation-wide national identification system, through which Charnean passports may be issued to its citizens. In practice, most of the Executor's functions require ongoing approval and dialogue with the Great Convocation or special committees thereof, making the Executor the de facto bridge between the Confederation legislature and the executive branch. One of the central powers the Executor holds, and one of the few independent from the interference of the Great Convocation, is the appointment of court officials for the Confederation's high court systems which may controlled exclusively by executive power as they belong specifically to the central government and so are outside the purview of any individual constituent state.
====Transitional Decade====


===Deliberative Assembly===
====Central Scipian Accord====
The ''Agraw Imgharan'' ({{wp|Tamashek}}: ⴳⵔⵡ ⵉⵎⵗⵔⵏ, lit. "Council of Elders") or simply the Agraw is made up of the tribe leaders from each of the 44 founding and constituent tribes, which represent both the northern desert nomads and the southern farmers and city dwellers. Due to the nature of Charnean tribes, this body is biased towards the smaller and more numerous nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes of the Ninva desert which are of a ''Kel Tagelmust'' cultural persuasion. The primary power of this body is the election of the Amenukal to rule all of Charnea. Traditionally this is done after a great deal of consultation with the previous Amenukal as well as the ministers and representatives of the military and the public, however under the law no such tradition need be observed and the Agraw Imgharan may unilaterally nominate the heir to the Charnean throne and decide matters of succession. Each ''Amghar'' ("Chieftain" or "High Elder") for each clan or tribe are selected according to that tribe's traditional methods, usually by seniority succession within a royal lineage of the tribe, or by open election amongst the tribespeople. In Charnean society, tribal governments are generally run by a council of senior women of the tribe known as the tribe's Circle while the male Amghars were historically the military leaders and royal electors of their confederation's paramount leader. With the military function long since taken over by the Charnean state, each Amghar today functions as a royal elector and tribal figurehead leader typically residing in Agnannet or periodically traveling to and from the capital and primarily serving as their tribe's representative in national politics while the tribe itself is governed by the Circle.


An Amghar negotiates with other tribes and the national government with the authority of his own tribe, however he is usually not authorized to make unilateral decisions without the approval of the tribe's Circle. While this is not formally established, the Circle is responsible for the daily government of the tribe and the tribespeople and may simply ignore or refuse to enforce a decision they don't approve of, and as the collection of all the most influential and respected women of the tribe they are often able to discredit and thus affect the removal of an Amghar. Historically, this model and the title "Amghar" itself originate with the northern tribes of the desert and demonstrate the influence of the more gender egalitarian Amazigh northerners over the historically more patriarchal southern tribes and cultures. The modern Agraw Imgharan is relatively unchanged in structure from the body of the same name which served as the deliberative assembly for the [[Empire of Charnea]], although the Amghars which were once the primarily military leaders of the Empire are today lacking any military role or authority.
==Government==
 
Any law which is passed by a vote of the Agraw Imgharan must then be approved by the Amenukal, excepting the vote to decide matters of succession which cannot be vetoed and requires no approval to take effect. The function of the Agraw emphasizes the nominally voluntary nature of the Charnean Confederation, as laws passed by the assembly must be secondarily ratified by each tribe in order to take effect although they will automatically take effect in territories directly overseen by the national government upon their approval by the Amenukal. Even in past eras of Charnean history, in which the Agraw was reduced to a {{wp|Rubber stamp (politics)|rubber stamp legislature}} at the mercy of the executive authorities, laws passed without the actual consent of the tribes were not effectively enforced by the tribal governments on the local level, demonstrating that the Charnean legislature operated and operates on a principle of voluntary compliance whether this is formally the case or not.
 
Because of the Agraw's intensely tribal nature closely tied to the nation's origins as a voluntary union of Charnean tribes, those Charneans which live outside of the tribal structure are effectively excluded from the assembly and have no direct representative. This affects naturalized citizens, nationals with no tribal documents and members of tribes not represented within the Agraw. However, they do retain rights to participate in their own local communities such as town and city governments which are almost always democratic in Charnea. To address this, cities and territories with large numbers of such tribe-less Charneans are often granted special status which grants autonomous rule independent for any tribal authority, empowering the often democratic local government. Such special status territories are ruled directly from the national capital of Agnannet, which is itself a special status territory with its own local democracy overseen by the uninhibited authority of the Amenukal.
 
===Administrative Divisions===
====Tribes of Charnea====
{{div col|colwidth=18em}}
* Kel Sahra
* Kel Awakar
* Kel Ahadez
* Kel Akuja
* Kel Amrra
* N Achra
* N Ajowat
* Kaokazuka
* Kaokawari
* Kel Ghuul
* Kel Ugara
* N Ayer
* Kel Adagh
* Kel Inannagar
* Kel Sankaragh
* N Sartec
* Kel Jekara
* Kel Seseyi
* Kaokamiso
* N Zylla
* Kel Ziwa
* Kel Lis
* Kel Azawagh
* Kel Ahuddan
* Kel Noumibillt
* N Norworo
* Koromara
* Kel Madan
* N Zubad
* N Ziga
* Kel Jehetne
* Kel Tannaghast
* Kel Yido
* Kel Zetalu
* N Amina
* Kaokavinta
* Kel Arrzen
* Kel Elmetreg
* Kel Agunama
* N Horragh
* Kel Yissi
* Kel Oban
* Kel Eiyr
* Kel Mzaad
{{div col end}}
====Special Status Territories====
{| class="wikitable"
!Division Name!!Population
|-
! colspan="5" |Autonomous Cities
|-
| [[File:CharFlag.png|50px]] [[Koros]]
|
|-
| [[File:CharFlag.png|50px]] [[Agnannet]]
|
|-
| [[File:CharFlag.png|50px]] [[Ganima]]
|
|-
! colspan="5" |Autonomous Territories
|-
| [[File:CharFlag.png|50px]] [[Obul Delta Territory]]
|
|-
| [[File:CharFlag.png|50px]] [[East Charnea Territory]]
|
|-
|}
 
===Law===
 
===Military===
{{main|Inter-Charnean Army}}
 
The Charnean military follows the devolved political structure of Charnea as a confederated military force made up of the specific armed forces of the constituent nations operating under a unified confederate command structure known as the Inter-Charnean Army or ICA. The ICA includes paramilitary and irregular forces operating under constituent armed forces. However, the Charnean military had previously deviated from this structure under the 1899 Armed Forces Reform which disarmed the constituent nations and centralized the Confederate military, a status quo that was effectively undone in the turmoil of the [[East Scipian Wars]] and formally repealed under the Lamine regime in 2002, which saw the restoration of a confederal mode of national defense. Component forces are typically trained and specialized by their respective nations to operate in their varied local environments, leading to a high degree of variation in equipment and tactics across the ICA, ranging from combined arms urban warfare doctrines utilized in the developed and densely populated southern regions to the highly irregular, mobility based insurgent warfare endemic to the Zahra desert commonly employed by militias of nomadic populations. The ICA is primarily a ground based organization, although it does feature a subordinate army air-force known as the ICAA (Inter-Charnean Army Airforce). Maritime operations conducted off of Charnea's small coastline are relatively insignificant and have few resources allocated to them which makes them strategically insignificant enough to lack a dedicated subordinate force, instead placing these light maritime duties in the charge of local constituent army units.
 
==Geography and Climate==


==Economy==
==Economy==
The Economy of Charnea is a strong primary sector economy, primarily exporting mineral resources and petroleum and importing most manufactured goods and a measured amount of agricultural products. Industrialization is a high priority for the current Lamine regime, and is planned to be carried out through {{wp:Import substitution industrialization}} specifically of manufactured or processed products based on resources exported by Charnea, for example the refining and manufacture of petroleum products such as kerosene, gasoline, and petroleum derived manufactured products such as plastics. Laminid economic plans of this nature are typically focused on industrial products wholly or mostly derived from materials already exploited by the Charnean mining and petroleum industries, and generally do not apply to goods that are either several levels of complexity removed from current Charnean manufacturing ambitions, or are manufactured using a majority of materials not readily available to the Charnean domestic market without importation of materials. The primary sector also features a rice-based agricultural sector, which has enabled Charnea to be largely self-sufficient on foodstuffs, with importations for the most part being limited to products that cannot grow in Charnea and are not basic staples. The Charnean economy currently depends on its exported mineral wealth, which is directed primarily to Oxidentale and trading partners such as [[Sante Reze]], [[Yisrael]], and [[Mutul]], in addition to developed [[Ajax#Belisaria|Belisarian]] and [[Ajax#Ochran|Ochrani]] markets. The Charnean currency, the Dinar, has suffered fluctuations historically but is relatively stable in the present day with inflation under control.
===Energy===
The energy sector is of particular concern to the Charnean confederation, as profits generated by the state owned petroleum and energy infrastructure firm [[COPEC]] nearly supersede taxation as the confederate government's source of income. Oil rich regions are located in the northwest and far east of Charnea, around the frontiers of the Zahra desert, and are exclusively exploited by COPEC since the 1979 Petroleum Nationalization Law. Refining and petrochemical manufacture were previously contracted out to foreign companies by COPEC or else simply done overseas after the exportation of crude oil from Charnean ports, although this has largely transitioned to domestic operations wholly owned and operated by COPEC under the Laminid industrialization plan. Additionally, electrical generation is run by the state corporation and is largely specialized in solar generation, replacing older coal and oil fired fossil fuel generation plants. Wind energy is secondarily perused, to a more limited extent. Unlike the petroleum industry, COPEC does not have a national monopoly on power generation although it does control a large portion of the market as the primary investor and developer of new energy infrastructure.
===Transportation===
===Recycling===
===Recycling===
Charnea is well known for its recycling industry, which is locally referred to as the reclamation industry. This sector of the Charnean economy, widely practiced in southern regions of the country, is based on the importation of foreign industrial and consumer waste products typically by rail or by sea to be processed by comparatively cheap Charnean labor. Reclamation firms in Charnea draw their profits from selling salvaged materials back onto the market as cheaper alternatives to what are called first generation materials, such as plastic pellets made from recycled plastic waste as opposed to being produced directly from petroleum products. [[Wikipedia:Ship breaking|Ship breaking]] is also a hallmark activity of the Charnean reclamation industry, making the Charnean coast and particularly the port of Koros international hotspots for the disposal of commercial ships, where the vessels are cheaply demolished and taken apart for the purposes of extracting raw materials and metal scrap.  
Charnea is well known for its recycling industry, which is locally referred to as the reclamation industry. This sector of the Charnean economy, widely practiced in southern regions of the country, is based on the importation of foreign industrial and consumer waste products typically by rail or by sea to be processed by comparatively cheap Charnean labor. Reclamation firms in Charnea draw their profits from selling salvaged materials back onto the market as cheaper alternatives to what are called first generation materials, such as plastic pellets made from recycled plastic waste as opposed to being produced directly from petroleum products. [[Wikipedia:Ship breaking|Ship breaking]] is also a hallmark activity of the Charnean reclamation industry, making the Charnean coast and particularly the port of Koros international hotspots for the disposal of commercial ships, where the vessels are cheaply demolished and taken apart for the purposes of extracting raw materials and metal scrap.  


==Society==
==Culture==
===Demographics===
[[File:Tuareg.JPG|thumb|upright=0.75|A Tamashek man from the [[Kel Awakar]]]]
{|class="wikitable" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px"
! colspan="4" style="text-align:center; background:#cfb;"|Population in Charnea
|-
! style="background:#cfb;"|Year
! style="background:#cfb;"|Million
|-
|style="text-align:left;"|1940 ||style="text-align:right;"|9.16
|-
|style="text-align:left;"|1990 ||style="text-align:right;"|22.32
|-
|style="text-align:left;"|2020 ||style="text-align:right;"|33.02
|}
In 2020, Charnea's population was an estimated 33,023,983. Historically, the overwhelming majority of Charneans have been rural, however this figure has decreased in recent decades to an estimated 61% of Charneans now living in cities while 39% remain largely rural. According to the 2019 census, these figures amount to 19,999343 urban Charneans and 13,011,229 rural Charneans, including both agrarian and pastoralist communities. Over 75% of the population live in the south of Charnea, while less than 10% of Charneans live in the vast expanse of the [[Zahra desert]] which conversely occupies the majority of Charnea's territorial extent.
 
The rate of population growth and the accompanying age distribution of the general population has fluctuated significantly in the the past few decades, due in large part to the severe effects of the [[East Scipian Wars]] which decimated the male population of many ethnic groups across Charnea. Nevertheless, in 2020 a somewhat stable demographic distribution has been recorded at 29.8% under 14 years of age, 66.5% between 15 and 64 years of age, and a remaining 3.7% of Charneans being 65 and over. The Confederation as a whole has an estimated total sex ratio of 0.94 males to females.
 
===Largest cities in Charnea===
 
===Ethnic groups===
Charnea's general population includes a wide variety of ethnic groups, the largest and most significant of which are counted among the Eight Nations. The historically significant {{wp|Amazigh}} decended nomadic populations which inhabit the Zahra desert region account for 9.4% of the population, 3,102,993 people, in the 2019 census. Closely related to these nomads are {{wp|Tamashek}} speaking ''Inadan/Izeggaren'' and ''Ikelan'' ethnic groups comprising a further 39.1% of the population, or some 12,907,133 people. According to the 2019 census, 21.7% (7,163,294 people) self identify as {{wp|Zarma people|Djerma}}, 15.4% (5,083,628 people) identify as {{wp|Kanuri people|Yerwa}}, 11.8% (3,895,247 people) identify as {{wp|Zaghawa people|Beri}} and a remaining 2.6% (858,277 people) are reported as being of a non Eight Nations ethnicity, such as {{wp|Arab people|Gharib}} or {{wb|Akan people|Urushar}}. Some sources have criticized the accuracy of the 2019 census, stating that many ethnic groups outside the Eight Nations were either counted as an Eight Nations ethnic group or not counted at all due to the census taking practices employed.
 
=== Languages ===
{{bar box
|title=Mother Tongues in Charnea (2019 census)
|titlebar=#ddd
|left1=Mother Tongues
|right1=percent
|float=right
|bars=
{{bar percent|{{wp|Tamashek}}|red|41.6}}
{{bar percent|{{wp|Zarma language|Djerma}}|purple|16.5}}
{{bar percent|{{wp|Kanuri language|Yerwa}}|darkgreen|13.3}}
{{bar percent|{{wp|Zaghawa language|Beriaa}}|yellow|11.8}}
{{bar percent|{{wp|Air Tamajeq language|Tamajeq}}|darkred|6.9}}
{{bar percent|{{wp|Siwi language|Siwi}}|orange|3.1}}
{{bar percent|{{wp|Akan language|Urushar}}|darkblue|2.5}}
{{bar percent|{{wp|Awjila language|Tawilant}}|green|2.3}}
{{bar percent|Other Foreign|red|1.2}}
{{bar percent|Not Stated|pink|0.8}}
}}
 
{{wp|Tamashek}} is the lingua franca and by far the most spoken language in Charnea with an estimated 97% of all residents across the Confederation being able to communicate with the language. More than half of all Charneans speak Tamashek or the mutually intelligible regional variant {{wp|Air Tamajeq language|Tamajeq}} as their mother tongue, as the language corresponds to three of the eight principal ethnic groups of Charnea. While over 21% of Charneans identify as ethnic Djerma, only 16.5% speak the Djerma language as their mother tongue. The same phenomenon is present although less pronounced among the Yerwa who make up 15.4% of the population while the Yerwa language is the mother tongue of 13.3% of Charneans. Experts believe this discrepancy to be the result of close relations and physical proximity between communities of these ethnities and those of native Tamashek speakers, which combined with universal Tamashek language education in all schools results in some Charneans learning Tamashek before the language of their own native communities. This phenomenon is not manifested among the Beri, almost all of whom speak the native tongue of Beriaa as their first language, appearing to confirm the theories about Djerma and Yerwa language speakers as Beriaa speaking communities are generally less intertwined with native Tamashek speakers, although Tamashek is still spoken as a second language in most cases.
 
Siwi and Tawilant language speakers, together making up a little over 5% of the Charnean population, generally nomadize the northwest and far east of Charnea respectively and are almost exclusively adherent to a pastoralist nomadic lifestyle which often isolates them from the other cultures of Charnea. Consequently, though they intermingle to some extent with Tamashek speaking nomads, they generally do not speak more than two languages unlike southern Charneans who typically speak between 2 and 5 languages and local dialects because of the high density of language distribution in the south. Urushar speakers are another significant outlier group among Charneans, as they belong to an ethnicity not recognized as one of the Eight Nations, and consequently their language does not figure into the recognized regional languages of Charnea. This status has placed the Urushar language outide of the normal local language protections the Confederation has in place affecting such things as education and public signage, which is exclusively in Tamashek in native Urushar speaking regions. It is noted that almost all of the respondants in the 2019 census who did not figure into one of the Eight Natinons were ethnic Urushars, corresponding closely with the recorded number of native Urushar language speakers in the same census. One of the statistically insignificant remainder groups of the Charnean language census are speakers of {{wp|Egyptian Arabic|Charnean Gharib}} who primarily inhabit the state of [[East Charnea]] in the Confederation's far east, bordering [[Fahran]].


===Religion===
===Wedding Traditions===
{{main|Kaharnism}}
[[File:Fantasia_à_Ain_Larba.jpg|200px|thumb|left|A Charnean {{wp|Fantasia (performance)|''Fantazey''}} exhibition of horsemanship, common in traditional Imuhagh wedding celebraions]] 
{{bar box
===Festivals===
|title=Religion in Charnea
[[File:Sebiba_Touareg_Exhibition,_Djanet_(Algérie).jpg|250px|thumb|right|Traditional {{wp|New Year's Eve|new year}} celebration in Charnea includes a ritual reenactment of the [[Battle of Achra]]]]
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{{bar percent|[[Kaharnism]]|green|93}}
{{bar percent|[[Azdarin]]|blue|5}}
{{bar percent|Other/Irreligious|red|2}}
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[[File:Buitre_negro_(1).jpg|200px|thumb|left|A Charnean Sacred Vulture]]


Religion in Charnea is of major political and social importance as one of the principle unifying factors of the Confederation's many tribes of varying ethno-linguistic background. The native Charnean belief system, formed from the coalescence of many local beliefs and systems of worship, has been syncretized with numerous foreign religions but remains broadly recognizable despite these syncretic adaptations and local variations. This broad religious tradition known as [[Kaharnism]] is itself almost as internally varied as the Charnean people themselves, with innumerable unique local variations based on local ancestors, animal spirits and particular religious beliefs tied to the land and its local peculiarities, yet shares a common philosophy and worldview as well as reverence of [[Kaharna]] as the supreme ancestor deity in all cases. Unusually for a religious tradition that remains so prevalent, Kaharnism has no clerical institution or church and is deeply rooted with personal and family traditions which leave it deeply intertwined with and affected by tribal life and shared traditions between clans. Priests and officiants of the religion are usually retirees or are otherwise upholding their duties as a religious leader as a secondary activity besides their working lives or tasks around the village or town they inhabit. Very few authentic religious texts applicable only to Kaharnism exist, as the faith largely adopts and adapts the holy texts of the religious it syncretizes. In Charnea, the overwhelming majority of Kaharnists observe their traditional religious practices syncretically through the Charnean variation of the [[White Path]], a [[Mutul|Mutulese]] religion which became a fascination of the Charnean religious community in the 17th century and soon after was formally adopted by large swathes of the Charnean people. White Path or ''Sakbe'' is a polytheistic religion sharing many philosophical and theological similarities with medieval and ancient Kaharnism, making it relatively compatible with the native Charnean faith. The goddess Kaharna is today worshipped as an alternate version of the White Path god {{wp|Chaac}} and many White Path scriptures and centuries of Mutulese literary canon have been adopted by the tribes of Charnea in this manner.
The fundamental principles of the Kaharnist faith, besides being a unifying factor among Charnean peoples, have many effects on the secular Charnean worldview and common practices. Kaharnism equates the human soul or spirit with the spirits of the dead, which are believed to pass into a parallel spirit world where the most accomplished and glory-laden among them presides as a spirit ruler and holds sway over spirits of the same type. Notably, Kaharnism draws no distinction between human souls and the souls of animals, although the souls of non-human beings are governed in the spirit world by other rulers than that of humanity. Humanity's spirit ruler, the goddess Kaharna, judges moral actions and the glory a soul may have accrued after a human dies, and depending on events in the spirit world this soul may be cast out as a malevolent ghost, reincarnate as a different animal, or simply return as a human after a period of rest. Unlike in other reincarnation based belief systems, there is no moral heirarchy associated to the station of ones birth other than Kaharna judging a soul worthy or unworthy to remain human. In Kaharnism, reincarnation is an infinite loop wherin the purpose, and the meaning of mortal life, is simply to live, suffer, triumph and perish. Kaharnists believe higher purpose beyond the calling of the spirits was robbed from the world by the departure of the supreme divinity Sham-Mawu, the sun and moon, from creation. Kaharnist philosophy is described as being inordinately permissive and pseudo-nihilistic in nature, while asserting the existence of the supernatural and of life after death in the form of infinite reincarnation and periods of incorporeal existance.
=== Education ===
=== Health ===
=== Gender equality ===
==Culture==
===Cuisine===
===Cuisine===
[[File:Cooking_Taguella_in_Kel_Ahaggar.jpg|300px|thumb|right|A Charnean man cooking Taguella in hot ashes]]
[[File:Cooking_Taguella_in_Kel_Ahaggar.jpg|300px|thumb|right|A Charnean man cooking Taguella in hot ashes]]
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[[Category:Republics]]
[[Category:Monarchies (Ajax)]]
[[Category:Republics (Ajax)]]
[[Category:Confederacies]]
[[Category:Unitary states]]

Revision as of 11:15, 21 April 2021

State of the Central Scipian Accord
ⵞⴰⵔⵏⴻⴰ / Charnea (Tamashek)
تشارنيا / Tasharnia (Gharbaic)
טשאַרנעאַ / Tsharnea (Hebrew)
Flag of Charnea
Flag
Charnea location.png
Capital
and largest city
Agnannet
Official languagesTamashek
Recognised national languages
Zarma
Gharbaic
Ethnic groups
(2019)
Demonym(s)Charnean
GovernmentUnitary one-party presidential republic under a military junta
• President
Makhia Anaba Meslar (acting)
Makhia Anaba Meslar
LegislatureAgraw Imegharan
Area
• Total
2,621,088 km2 (1,012,008 sq mi)
Population
• 2020 estimate
33,023,983
• 2019 census
33,010,572
• Density
12.6/km2 (32.6/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)estimate
• Total
$101 billion
• Per capita
$5779.45
Gini35.9
medium
HDI0.701
high
CurrencyCharnean Dinar (CDR)
Date formatmm.dd.yyyy
Driving sideright

Charnea (Tamashek: ⵞⴰⵔⵏⴻⴰ; Gharbaic: تشارنيا; Hebrew: טשאַרנעאַ), formally the State of the Central Scipian Accord (SCSA), is a political union in Scipia bordered by the Messidor Union to the northwest, Alanahr to the northeast, Fahran and Kembesa to the east and M'biruna to the southeast. Originally established as a federation of constituent states, the SCSA is now a unitary state made up of seven administrative subdivisions and encompasses numerous ethnic and religious groups, with Imuhagh, Zarma, and Gharbaic peoples making up the largest ethnic contingents, while religious groups present include White Pilgrims, Yen, Jews and Asalists which practice their traditions exclusively or in conjunction with the highly syncretic native Charnean faith known as Kaharnism which deifies the ancient Charnean ruler Kaharna. The Kaharnic faith in its many variations is highly prevalent and serves as a unifying force in a highly diverse nation, causing Charnea to often be referred to as the Kel Kaharna (Tamashek: ⴽⴻⵍ ⴽⴰⵀⴰⵔⵏⴰ, lit. "Those of Kaharna"). The SCSA is currently ruled by the Supreme National Authority (SNA), a military junta which has been in power since the 2011 Charnean coup d'etat and is led by its Chairman, General Martuf Lamine who led the 2011 coup and now serves as de facto commander-in-chief of the Charnean military and chief executive of the national government.

Modern day Charnea was once part of three great Scipian empires, the Yoruba-Hausa led Sunset Empire, the Zarma led Hsewa Empire as well as the Imuhagh led Empire of Charnea for which the country is named. Various Deshretic domains as well as the Tamashek speaking Amazigh confederations of the northern and western deserts have also existed within what is now Charnea, eventually being subsumed into the Empire of Charnea. At its peak between 1350 and the 1420s, the Empire of Charnea controlled a majority of the Scipian continent and was one of the largest contemporary military powers in the world. Throughout the early modern period, the empire's frontiers receded to what was considered its core territories, a region roughly equivalent to the modern day borders of the SCSA. From 1906-1909, the empire underwent a period of escalating civil conflict known as the Charnean Revolutionary Period eventually leading up to the dissolution of the Charnean Empire into several newly independent states and the creation of the Central Scipian Accord in 1911, a treaty which created a supranational organization for resolving disputes between the former nations of Charnea. By 1925, cohesion between the signatory nations had returned with the resurgence of Charneanism, resulting in the federalization of the treaty signatories and the formation of the State of the Central Scipian Accord along the lines of the former empire with a new republican government. 27 years later in April of 1952 a new constitution was ratified, known today as the April Document, which abolished sub-divisional autonomy and transitioned the SCSA into a unitary state.

In the past century, Charnea has experienced two revolutions, four dictatorships, seventeen coup d'etat attempts both failed and successful, the ten year Ninvite War with neighboring Fahran, and the longest running civil conflict in the world. Many of its internal conflicts can be traced back to the dissolution of the Empire of Charnea and the aftermath of the ensuing events, particularly the unfulfilled promises of independence, self determination and autonomy which were made to many Charnea's myriad ethnic groups living under the often incompetent and heavy handed late Imperial rule. Another cause of political instability has been the outbursts of periodic infighting between factions of the county's upper class over control of Charnea's valuable natural recourses, which include petroleum and precious metals like gold and platinum. Petroleum industries nationalized under the state owned COPEC extraction and processing company account for roughly 45% of the national GDP and 70% of government income and accounts for a large portion of Charnean wealth, although the national reliance on oil exports to sustain its economy has made it especially vulnerable to disruptive fluctuations in the price of oil on the international market. Despite these frequent disruptions and the occasional imposition of economic sanctions by foreign powers, the Charnean economy based largely on the processing and export of its natural wealth has become moderately prosperous. Charnea is a member of the Forum of Nations and party to the Four Rising Nations Summit.


Etymology

The first people to be called Charneans were the ancient Amazigh tribes of the eastern Ninva which were called the Charkesh or simply Cha by the Deshritic peoples of the Saawa Oasis. The Charkesh amazigh tribe are first referenced in inscriptions dating to 1,300 BCE and is no longer recorded after 700 BCE, however it is believed that the Charkesh people may have been one of the founding tribes of the large Amazigh confederation of Queen Kaharna and remained in the Ninva desert after the dissolution of this kingdom. Historically, the desert abode of the Charkesh and their Tamashek speaking descendants the Imuhagh tribes has termed Charna, later corruption to Charnea. This latter term in was associated with the Empire of Charnea, a conquering polity native to what was originally called the Charnean desert, now known as the central and eastern Ninva. Through the Empire of Charnea, the name would come to associated not only with the cradle of its desert-faring civilization but with most of the areas it conquered, particularly those it retained until its late dissolution and reorganization into the SCSA in the 20th century.

History

Classical Period

Sarcophagus belonging to Omotanwa the Great, leader of the Sunset Empire

The Sunset Empire (Yoruba: Iwọoorun Ijoba, lit. "Western State") was the culmination of the ancient Obulite civilization which was established on the banks of the lower Obul river as one the early river valley civilizations around 2,630 BCE, making it the first recorded civilization in what is now modern day Charnea and one of the first in the world. Its final ieration as the Sunset Empire was originally established by a northern offshoot of the ancient Hausa along a portion of the river to the west of the Yoruba tribes who would give the polity its common name and would later become absorbed into the political realm. The Obulite people had long practiced agriculture, which grew to intensive levels under the Sunset Empire and fueled population growth and the emergence of the first major cities in Charnea. While the Obulites had been a settled polity, the Sunset Empire was the first and only state to unify them and achieved great success in doing so, establishing a powerful military caste and expanding the empire's borders aggressively. For much of its history, the empire faced no significant external threats and primarily devoted its military to protecting its borders from raids and incursions by small neighboring tribes. Tributary states were often employed by Sunset emperors as buffers to control territory outside the main Obulite stretch and protect the primary agricultural and urban centers of the empire from attack. Despite its expansionism, the empire never expanded beyond the south Charnean savannah where it remained embroiled with Amazigh tribes from the Ninva desert, and saw no success penetrating the desert itself. At its peak, the empire expanded across all regions of the upper Obul, but was limited to the thin strip of territory along the river as that region was and remains highly arid and devoid of vegetation away from the Obul's lifegiving waters. The Sunset Empire established a long lasting literary tradition, using precursors of the N'Ko writing system as well as Adlam script in some regions. Inscriptions in stone, clay tablets and writing on preserved reed paper make up much of the established record of the Sunset Empire, which was known to keep extensive writings on administrative processes, contact with neighboring cultures and important figures of the day making the few surviving examples of Sunset era writings which survive to this day of great archeological and scientific importance. Many of its larger structures were destroyed by the fall of the empire, and are most often discovered in the rubble buried underneath still surviving structures of the later Hsewa empire which supplanted it in the Obul region centuries after its fall.

Tamazgha

Main article: Tamazgha
Ruins of Ekelhoc, the capital of Tamazgha, located within the Azalay mountain range in the western Ninva.

The establishment of the Tamazgha confederation in Scipia marks the beginning of statehood for the northern Charnean tribes, which have retained and transmitted their ancestral Amazigh culture to neighboring peoples. Recorded mentions of Tamazgha and confederation of tribes is part of recovered military reports of the late Sunset Empire in what is now southern Charnea, detailing clashes and raids undertaken by the nomadic Amazigh of the conferation. Archeological finds suggest that the Sunset Empire undertook a massive fortification of its northern frontiers between 565 and 540 BCE, suggesting an increase in the frequency and strength of incursions into their territory or that of their buffer states.

The founder of the Tamazgha confederation was the legendary Queen Kaharna, who unified various Amazigh tribes native to much of northern and central Scipia, including the ancestors of the Aghmatians, as well as Charnean Imuhagh and their Talaki cousins. At its peak under Kaharna and her succesors, Tamazgha streached from the Periclean coast in the north to the north bank of the Obul river in the south, from the Saawa Oasis in the east to the borders of ancient Yisrael and parts of the Thassalian coast of west Scipia in the west. Although many of the tribes which were joined under the rule of Kaharna and her successors were traditionally semi-nomadic or fully nomadic pastoralists at that time, Tamazigha was an emerging urban civilization, the second one to arise in the barren expanse of the Ninva after the Deshritic civilization of the Saawa oasis. This was achieved through the digging of extensive tunnel networks which allowed Amazigh city builders to tap into fossil water of the central Scipian region, specifically in regions such as the Royal Valley and the Thumer basin where such excavation into the flanks and mountainsides around the low ground would reach the lowlying deep aquifer, where water could then be moved by aqueduct to sustain a permanent settlement in the desert.

Thumer Necropolis, the burials of Queen Kaharna and many of her dynasty which ruled Tamazgha during its golden age.

Tamazgha was highly successful in its military engagements with its neighbors, making use of its vast manpower and advantages in cavalry to prevail in conflicts. Particularly, Amazigh forces were engaged in escalating hostilities against the Sunset Empire to the south, which was considered to be one of the principal rivals of the confederation. Although the Sunset Empire survived the conflict, records show they suffered many resounding defeats and their armies took irreparable losses. The collapse of the empire's military at the hands of Amazigh riders loyal to Tamazgha may have caused the empire's decline in the following decades as its military would never fully recover from the conflict. From then on, the Sunset Empire lost control of its northeastern portions accounting for more than half the land the empire ruled at its zenith. Evidence suggests Tamazgha was not interested in conquering the Sunset Empire or annexing the northeastern lands, as the Amazigh polity appears to have been fully capable of doing so if its rulers and tribal leaders desired it. Instead, the war with Tamazgha shifted the balance of power in what is now southern Charnea from a mostly Yoruba-Hausa dominated state to the Zarma dominated state of the later periods.

Tamazgha eventually dissolved in large part because of the depletion of the fossil water reserves which had sustained its most important urban centers in the central Ninva, near the shared border of modern Charnea and the Aghmatian portion of the Messidor Union. Without water to sustain its political centers, the sedentary portion of the Amazigh hegemony dominating Scipia abandoned its capital and resettled near the Periclean sea in modern day Aghmatia. The disruption of its powerbase and dissolution of much of Tamazgha's infrastructural connective tissue cause many of the Amazigh peoples under its rule to secede and effectively ended the confederation. The southern portion of Tamazgha which remained in the Ninva after the dereliction of the major Amazigh settlements there became the ancestors of the Imuhagh and reverted to their pre-unification pastoralist lifestyle and living a hard, nomadic existence in the harsh expanse of the deserts.

Early Medieval Period

Late Medieval Period

Consolidation

Ihemod ag Jeqan, Amghar within the Awakari tribes of the Imuhagh, was the adopted son to the Amenukal of the Awakar confederation, Jeqan ag Boru. He was named heir to his father's influential position on the latter's deathbed, a proclamation which is contested by modern historians and was largely discounted by contemporary sources. Jeqan's three surviving biological heirs contested Ihemod's status, igniting a war across the Kel Awakar. The significant military resources and portions of the nomadic population of the confederation were split between the claimants, Ihemod retaining only a small number of Jeqan's closest followers with whom he had worked as his father's lieutenant. Ihemod tracked down and confronted Tenge, the youngest of the three Jeqid brothers and the claimant with the second smallest force after Ihemod. While the forces were preparing to do battle, Ihemod challenged Tenge to a duel as a means of settling the dispute, which was not uncommon in that time. Tenge was pressured by his followers to accept, and was then defeated and killed in the duel with Ihemod to their dismay. With Tenge's forces joining his, Ihemod was cornered by the remaining brothers Agtab and Mechtegen who had agreed to temporarily join forces to defeat Ihemod after hearing of their brothers death. The brothers surrounded and attacked Ihemod's forces, but in doing so a portion of their army came under ambush and was destroyed, allowing Ihemod's riders to escape and regroup. After reinforcing with a group of Zarma mercenaries, Ihemod counterattacked at the Battle of the Red Way and defeated Agtab and Mechtegen, consolidating their remaining forces into his army and executing them. Unusually, he spared many of his former rival's top officers to integrate into his own army, which began to swell as he prepared to expand the domains of the Kel Awakar. Following the conquest of the Kel Atram and Kel Dinik confederations of the Lullemmeden Amazigh tribes, Ihemod further bolstered his numbers and began to absorb many smaller clans of Imuhagh peoples across the Ninva without conflict. Many voluntarily joined Ihemod's confederation upon request, as the leader had proven himself in combat and had already united a large portion of the Imuhagh, while others resisted and were coerced into joining the confederation by threat of war if they refused. In some cases, the threat was insufficient and further conquests were undertaken, resulting in minor Imuhagh clans being destroyed, their population enslaved as Akli and their herds and wealth distributed equally as loot among the confederation's tribes.

Formation of the Empire

Imuhagh warriors, a Takouba-wielding noble (right) and a zagaya spear-wielding common herder (left)

Having consolidated the Imuhagh tribes of the Ninva, Ihemod began a number of military reforms and began to reorganized the tribal forces into a more unified army under his command. The new army was established along the lines of Ten-Thousands or Meraou Igiman, massive army formations consisting of thousands (Igiman), hundreds (Temad) and finally squad level tens (Meraoued). Commanders for the top level units were to be appointed by Ihemod, while lower level commanders were elected by their men. Within these decimal units, Ihemod intentionally mixed multiple tribes and clans with the intention of erasing their tribal identity to form a homogenous Imuhagh army. He also adopted many technological reforms, adopting advanced bows made of multiple materials, new riding equipment and later transitioned the entirely mounted army of the Imuhagh from camelry to cavalry mounted on Barbs. Camels were still used in an auxiliary role, and led the initial conquests in the desert regions where they could outrun and outlast horses in the dry heat. Ihemod's immediate target was the Hsewa Empire to the south, which he perceived as having oppressed and divided the Imuhagh for their own gain, a sentiment which many of his followers shared. The war against the Hsewa empire began in April of 1351 with the sacking of several border towns.

The initial Charnean cassus belli was to retaliate against the Zarma people of the Hsewa empire by showing their superiority in battle and extracting tribute as restitution for past wrongs. In the early stages of the war, Imuhagh forces commanded personally by Ihemod or by his closest advisors attacked Hsewa garrisons, raided the countryside and ambushed the forces sent to deal with their raids. Almost immediately, the Hsewa emperor was alerted that the Imuhagh were not merely raiding the borderlands as had been expected, and mobilized a major force to destroy it. This force was caught in a pincer movement by the far more mobile mounted Imuhagh who had begun to wage a guerilla style war while within enemy territory. The resulting battle, the Battle of Achra, was pivotal in the conflict and is seen as a key moment in history in large part due to the unexpected rout which led to the death of the near totality of the massive Hsewa force. The Imuhagh victory at Achra was of such an overwhelming nature that the Hsewa would be virtually defenseless to further attacks for a time. Ihemod decided in the aftermath of the battle to alter the course of his offensive, turning it from a war to extract tribute to a war of conquest and subjugation, deciding to eliminate the threat posed by the powerful Hsewa now that he saw the opportunity to do so. Historians label the Battle of Achra and its aftermath as the moment at which the Empire of Charnea truly came into being as an empire of the Imuhagh subjugating the neighboring nations, rather than a simple confederation of tribes like the ancient Tamazgha.

War elephants and war-hornless rhinos were adopted by the Charnean armies after the conquest of the Hsewa empire

Following the capture and burning of the Hsewa capital, the lands of the large empire were partitioned into vassal states. The invasion had displaced and killed predominantly Zarma farmers and citizens numbering in the hundreds of thousands, even millions by some estimates, depopulating large swaths of the Obul river particularly in the north. As a result, many Imuhagh people began to settle the land and establish sedentary communities in the derelict villages and farms left behind by those who had fled or been killed by Ihemod's forces. Ihemod encouraged this as a means of strengthening the core of his empire, and authorized the Iklan, the slave caste of Imuhagh society, to be settled in the captured regions under a system similar to serfdom. Additionally, many engineers and public servants of the former Hsewa empire were taken into Ihemod's service as administrators and military auxiliaries following his victory. In 1357, Ihemod attacked the Mawlen Sultanate to the east, capturing the ancient city of Azut and driving off many of the Gharbaic Mawlen rulers. Azut became Ihemod's capital and seat of power as the staging area for further invasions to the east and west. With the fall of Mawla, Ihemod annexed Hatheria with the help of the Saawa Deshritics who became vassals of the empire, and then prosecuted a short war to vassalize the Saadian Emirate, conquering all of what is now eastern Charnea by 1360, a mere nine years since the beginning of his war with the now defunct Hsewa.

During the war with Saadia, the Imuhagh forces made ample use of Zarma engineers from the west to overtake the many fortifications the defenders had prepared. With their help, the Charnean armies where quickly becoming highly proficient in siege warfare on top of their increasingly refined cavalry tactics and supremacy in field battles. On the heel of this conflict, Ihemod advanced further into what was the Azdarin Caliphate. It was in these offensives that the Empire of Charnea suffered its first defeat, in 1366 at the Battle of Al-Hira by the Charnean General Ahag ag Salla at the hands of an Azdarin Gharbaic prince. Nevertheless, since the decline of the Almurid Caliphate years earlier, the region was divided and Ihemod met success in his invasions despite setbacks. In 1372, Ihemod invaded the Periclean coast of Scipia, launching incursions beginning with the conquest of Alanahr in a two pronged invasion from 1372-1373, to the incursion on modern day Aghmatia in 1380 which ended the Periclean campaign and extended Charnean rule from the Periclean to the Thessalian. The period of 1380 to 1395, known as the Crushing in many histories, was marked by massive waves of rebellion across conquered areas, including a mutiny of some of Ihemod's Generals and other officers objecting to his absolute rule and what they saw as reckless expansion. The delay caused by these rebellions undoubtedly postponed many further invasions and significantly impacted the final size of the Empire of Charnea on Ihemod's death. Ihemod would go on to spend his remaining years conquering the south and west before his death ended the so called "Age of Terror", the period of unchecked Charnean expansion and seemingly unstoppable military supremacy.

Pax Charnica

The Pyramid of Ihemod, tomb of the Empire's founder.

Amenukal Ihemod died in 1409 at the age of 66, from what historians suspect was a brain tumor based on reports of headaches and seizures in the old conqueror's later years. His death soon halted the campaigns of expansion, granting a reprieve to the Periclean world and the lands of eastern Scipia, modern day Fahran, Vardana and Kembesa, as the invading Charnean armies retreated and their generals returned to Ihemod's temporary capital at Azut. There, the imperial assembly of elders known as the Agraw Imgharan met to elect as new ruler in the traditions of the Imuhagh confederations. The new Amenukal, Magdan ag Barka, was slow to send the armies back to the front lines of expansion and prioritized internal matters of the empire. Magdan had been one of Ihemod's generals, assigned to put down rebellions in the region of the Obul river bend, and had in that time developed a concern that the mighty Imuhagh empire would soon face major internal threats to its integrity greater than any outside foe. Magdan and his successors are largely credited with the administrative reform of the empire, which codified the Agraw Imgharan as a permanent deliberative assembly with important powers and responsibilities, set up the provisions for the government of captured cities and internal relations with the empire's many new tributary states and vassals. While new territories were added into the empire when the Generals and their armies returned to the frontiers, this was only a fraction of the meteoric expansion that had been seen under Ihemod's reign. In 1435, Magdan ordered the construction of a pyramid in the ancient style of some Tamazgha era tombs to house Ihemod's body, which had been mummified and kept in the Azut crypts after his death. Ihemod's reburial was an elaborate ceremony, one which drew clear parallels between the Empire of Charnea and her rulers, and the ancient Tamazgha confederation which Magdan wished to evoke as Charnea's predecessor state. Soon thereafter, Magdan established the new imperial capital at the Fish-Blood Bastion, a citadel in the desert near Ihemod's new pyramid monument. The resulting settlement would soon develop into the city of Agnannet, which has been the seat of every Charnean state since.

The period of internal peace and stability which followed Magdan's reign, historiographically known as the Pax Charnica, saw very little further military expansion and largely defensive wars or reconquests of insubordinate vassal states. In some areas, the empire indeed lost territory as tributaries broke away, although Amenukal Madgan reportedly viewed some of the losses as beneficial, seeing some of his predecessor's annexations as either undue overextensions or as vestigial first steps into campaigns which never occurred due to the conqueror's death. Many of Magdan's contemporaries criticized him for not following up of Ihemod's great conquests, while the Amenukal himself routinely cast himself as upholding Ihemod by securing his legacy rather than persuing his own. Amenukal Magdan focused the veteran Charnean armies, which had never numbered more than 95,000 soldiers during Ihemod's reign, on occupying and pacifying the empire's aquisitions, knowing that mustering the forces into a concentrated army to invade more territory would only jeopardize the existing conquests by draining their garrisons and reserve forces. Thanks largely to his effors, Charnea prospered without a major rebellion for nearly 300 years. Tamashek language literature as well as patronage of the arts and sciences was at an all time high under this new reign of the Imuhagh tribes, and many monuments, tombs and elaborate palaces were built in this period which stand in the modern day.

It is also during this period that much of the assimilation into Imuhagh culture took place, especially among those taken as captives during the initial conquests. These populations had diverse ethnic backgrounds and hailed from all over Scipia, and even had representatives originating in Malaio, Ochran and Belisaria. Under the Charnean form of slavery, the slave caste was not held as chattel but instead lived in settled villages, especially in along the Obul and in the south Charnean grasslands, where they established agriculture and practiced pastoralism. The fruits of these labors would be collected by the Imuhagh tribes which remained nomadic, and served as a more direct and reliable source of food, material and wealth than the vassal states and occupied foreign peoples such as the Zarma or Gharbaic nations under Charnean rule. Over time the slave population adopted the Tamashek language and many aspects of the Imuhagh culture which had enslaved them, while retaining some mixed vestiges of their mother cultures, often confused and fragmentary due to the heterogenous cultural backgrounds introduced into the slave caste communities. As they began to homogenize into a new culture and partially assimilate into the Imuhagh world, these Iklan would be recognized as a unique ethnicity. Where previously the Iklan had only been a caste label denoting people in bondage living in heavily exploited sedentary communities, the Iklan were now considered a new subject nation of the Imuhagh led empire, and despite their state of subordination they would serve as one of the central components of imperial power and a counterbalance to the Zarma and Gharbaic subject peoples which remained under Charnean rule.  

Okha Dynasty

Ziwa Soumer N'Okha led the Azut rebellion and successfully raised the Okha dynasty to the throne of Charnea

Modern Period

Transitional Decade

Central Scipian Accord

Government

Economy

Recycling

Charnea is well known for its recycling industry, which is locally referred to as the reclamation industry. This sector of the Charnean economy, widely practiced in southern regions of the country, is based on the importation of foreign industrial and consumer waste products typically by rail or by sea to be processed by comparatively cheap Charnean labor. Reclamation firms in Charnea draw their profits from selling salvaged materials back onto the market as cheaper alternatives to what are called first generation materials, such as plastic pellets made from recycled plastic waste as opposed to being produced directly from petroleum products. Ship breaking is also a hallmark activity of the Charnean reclamation industry, making the Charnean coast and particularly the port of Koros international hotspots for the disposal of commercial ships, where the vessels are cheaply demolished and taken apart for the purposes of extracting raw materials and metal scrap.

Culture

Wedding Traditions

A Charnean Fantazey exhibition of horsemanship, common in traditional Imuhagh wedding celebraions

Festivals

Traditional new year celebration in Charnea includes a ritual reenactment of the Battle of Achra

Cuisine

A Charnean man cooking Taguella in hot ashes

Reflecting the multicultural nature of the confederation, Charnean cuisine is a mixture of many different influences both internal and external. While in general many different local cuisines are found across Charnea, Tamashek cuisine is endemic to most regions of the confederation. Additionally, foreign influences primarily originating with other Amazigh peoples scuh as Aghmatia can be felt as well, having been introduced through the connecting trans-scipian trade routes which have historically served as the mediums of cultural exchange for central Scipia and Charnea. Taguella bread, an unleavened flatbread normally cooked over charcoal, is a ubiquitous staple food across most of Charnea, while Eba is more popular in the south as a local staple. Tajine, Couscous and Besṭila are examples of foreign Amazigh dishes introduced to Charnea through cultural exchange that have since become popular with many local peoples, while Jollof rice can be taken as an example of a popular dish having an origin within the local cultures of southern and central Charnea.

Many of the dishes common to differing regions of Charnea are highly specific to the local environment and agricultural or pastoral traditions, and are general the products of the most available sources of nutrition and the best fitted crops that can be cultivated in any particular region, such as goat and sheep products along with wheat flatbreads in the Zahra desert region contrasted with rice and cassava based foods in the far less arid southerly regions. The steady introduction of modern agricultural techniques and industrialized food production and especially the advent of refrigeration have resulted in a rising degree of homogeneity, as foods from one region of Charnea can much more easily be transported and consumed in other regions where the climate would never allow those products to be prepared locally, leading to a general spread in popular south Charnea rice dishes, although a few northern foods such as taguella and cink or liwa millet porridge still retain their wide reaching popularity as cultural staples.

Ashahi tea ceremony

Tea is highly popular across all differing Charnean cultures. Ashahi tea, green tea steeped with sugar and mint, is not only popular but culturally significant as the focal point of many social gatherings. Preparation is often semi-ritual and ceremonial in nature, being prepared for household guests as a key element of traditional Charnean hospitality, as well as part of daily social meetings within and without the family group. Generally, each person takin part will consume more than one (typically 2-4) glasses of tea in any particular occasion or tea ceremony. Ashahi tea is not limited to any particular activity, meal or time of day, and is generally consumed at all times of day, often multiple times a day, with food or on its own. The common variety of Ashahi tea consumed today is a type of gunpowder green tea introduced to Charnea in the 18th century, although the tradition of the tea ceremony is though to predate this introduction and may have originated with unknown varieties of tea that came into Charnea in medieval times, at some point prior to the 11th century.

Coffee, beer and other alcoholic beverages which are generally common across most of the world are comparatively far less popular in Charnea. In some instances, varieties of coffee which are typically imported are consumed in a similar manner to Ashahi tea especially in recent years, however the popularity of this practice is not wide reaching. Imported alcoholic beverages, such as Balche and Tequila introduced to Charnea through contact with the Mutul, have a niche market, with some contributions from locally produced distillations which generally consist of Moonshine. Other Mutulese imports such as chocolate have a similar middling level of popularity, and are mainly imbibed as part of White Path ritualistic consumption.

Clothing and Fashion

A wide variety of textile and clothing styles can be found in Charnea, having origins both in many diverse native cultures within the Confederation as well as foreign origins which may have been introduced through cross-cultural contact over ancient trade routes historically or be relatively recent additions to Charnean fashion brought about in the industrial age through modern means of international trade. Although common foreign styles, often those mass produced and in ubiquitous use globally, are indeed found all over Charnea, it is also common to find local styles being worn both in ceremonial capacities and in day to day life. The most iconic piece of native fashion is the tagelmust, a head wrap originating with the Tamashek people of the Zahra desert which is typically dyed with indigo but may also be dyed in other colors, especially as it has been introduced as a common piece of headwear outside of the nomadic cultures of northern Charnea. A tagelmust is specifically intended to be worn by men, as the Tamashek traditionally veil themselves at all times except in the presence of close friends or within a family. Women do not traditionally cover their faces except at specific times during ceremonies and events using the tusuwart, a woman's head covering. Men generally wear cloth pants known as akarbey while women will traditionally wear dresses as well as afer coverings. The Tamashek, as well as many other ethnic groups within Charnea, commonly wear various types of Djellaba robe or kaftan, such as the mbaub found in the south. Charneans who do not wear the tagelmust will sometimes use Kufi style hats instead. In Charnean culture, the tagelmust is considered a symbol of adulthood and wearing one for the first time marks a rite of passage into manhood. Many similar practices exist across Charnea, where traditional headgear and hats are intended to be worn only by adult men or women. Footwear may vary greatly depending on the climate, however leather sandals (iragazan) and shoes (ibuzagan) are relatively common and widespread across Charnea's arid regions.

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