Palmyrion (Levanora)
 | This article is incomplete because it is pending further input from participants, or it is a work-in-progress by one author. Please comment on this article's talk page to share your input, comments and questions. Note: To contribute to this article, you may need to seek help from the author(s) of this page. |
Royal Palmyrian Commonwealth Makahang Mankomunidad ng Palmyria | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
| Motto: Kalayaan, Katarungan, Kaunlaran (Liberty, Justice, Progress) | |
| Anthem: Mahal kong Palmyria (My Beloved Palmyria) | |
| Capital | Aragon |
| Largest | Quezon City |
| Official languages | Palmyrian and English |
| Recognised national languages | Palmyrian |
| Recognised regional languages | Various other language in the Palmyrian language family |
| Ethnic groups (2018) |
|
| Religion (2018) |
|
| Demonym(s) | Palmyrian |
| Government | Federal semi-constitutional parliamentary monarchy |
• Head of State | Lakambini Elizabeth the Commoner (2019~) |
• Head of Government | Katerina Defensor-Guzman (2015~) |
• Head of Assembly | Manuel Vito-Gonzales II (2015~) |
• Chief Justice | Enrique Kalaw-Pangilinan (2010~) |
| Legislature | Commonwealth Assembly |
| Senate | |
| House of Representatives | |
| Formation | |
• Founders' Arrival | 400 CE |
• Thalassocratic Confederation | 1200-1600 |
• Spanish colonial regime | 1600-1764 |
• British colonial regime | 1764-1820 |
• Declaration of Independence | 1 July 1800 |
• Royal Confederation | 1820-1935 |
• Fascist Tripartition | 1935-1952 |
• People's Commonwealth | 1952-1984 |
• Commonwealth Junta | 1984-2000 |
• Royal Commonwealth | 1 July 2000 - present |
| Area | |
• Total | 6,975,750 km2 (2,693,350 sq mi) |
• Water (%) | 16 |
| Population | |
• 2019 estimate | 2,012,145,699 |
• 2018 census | 2,008,329,872 |
• Density | 289/km2 (748.5/sq mi) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2018 estimate |
• Total | $41,160,720,726,640 |
• Per capita | $20,495 |
| GDP (nominal) | 2018 estimate |
• Total | $37,612,073,052,968 |
• Per capita | $18,728 |
| Gini (2018) | 0.375 low |
| HDI (2018) | 0.795 high |
| Currency | Royal Rupia (PRR) |
| Time zone | UTC-8:00 (Palmyrian Standard Time) |
| Date format | DD MMM YYYY |
| Driving side | right |
| Calling code | +77 |
| ISO 3166 code | RPC |
Palmyrion (Palmyrian: Palmyria), officially the Royal Palmyrian Commonwealth (Palmyrian: Makahang Mankomunidad ng Palmyria), is a sovereign country in the southern tip of the Greater Dienstadi continent of [CONTINENT NAME]. The Royal Commonwealth is composed of its 40 constituent provinces and its overseas territories, primarily the Protectorate of Palawan, the Protectorate of Northern Frojo, and the Protectorate of Eastern Vekta. It shares land borders to the north and east by its long-time allies Holy Marsh and Romandeos, respectively; to its west is the [NAME] sea, which serves as a maritime border between the Royal Palmyrian Commonwealth and the Solisian Union; to its south lies the Palmyro-Aquileian Strait, a maritime border between Palmyrion and the nation of Aquileie; to the east of its southern archipelago is the Imbrinian dependency of Philotas Islands. The Royal Commonwealth occupies a vast swath of land, covering nearly 6,975,750 square kilometers of land (exempting insular bodies of water), 16% of which is freshwater bodies such as rivers and lakes. It had an estimated 2,008,329,872 on 2018, which makes it rank as one of the least populated countries in Greater Dienstad.
The Royal Commonwealth is a federation ruled by a semi-parliamentary monarchy. The monarch is Lakambini Elizabeth the Commoner, who has reigned since 2019. Its capital is Aragon, with Quezon being the largest; both cities are global cities and major financial centers. Other major urban centers in the Royal Commonwealth are the cities of Naga, Iloilo, Sultan Kudarat, Cebu, Davao, Makati, Batangas, and the vassal city-state of Port Elizabeth on Palawan. It has 40 provinces, each with their own unique ethnic and sociocultural identities; these ethnicities and sociocultural identities have undergone a vast extent of cultural and genetic intermingling, and this intermingling has resulted into a high degree of ethnic, social, cultural, and political homogeneity and unity among the native Palmyrian populace. Palmyrion in its most recent reincarnation is relatively young, having existed only since 2000 - for nearly the past 1,600 years of its existence as a distinct ethnic identity from their Marshite origins, Palmyrion has existed as 8 states before its most recent incarnation as the Royal Commonwealth. While Palmyrion has a staunch opposition to unlawful occupation of sovereign states by foreign powers, Palmyrion had, ironically, obtained some dependencies, namely the Protectorate of Palawan, the Protectorate of Eastern Vekta, and the Protectorate of Northern Frojo, in order to help these territories stabilize and develop in preparation for future independence.
The Royal Commonwealth is a developed country and is a high-tier middle income nation, with relatively medium nominal and GDP figures for its population. It also has a high Human Development Index, the result of some ongoing social welfare, sanitation, and healthcare policies of the government, combined with a financially and academically literate populace, a free, robust, well-regulated, and highly-productive market, and a well-paid, highly skilled, and highly productive labor force. In its existence as the Royal Confederacy, it has been one of the latecomers to the regional wave of industrialization, but quickly caught up with the use of groundbreaking scientific and technological advances, discoveries, and inventions in its industrial pursuits despite having to begin from a small capital base during its early days as a sovereign state that had just broken free from Spanish colonial rule. The Royal Commonwealth is touted as an emerging great power with an increasingly-improving military and economic capability to pursue a stronger and more visible place in worldwide geopolitics. It is currently a member of a select number of influential diplomatic coalitions, ranging from the International Freedom Coalition, to the Romani-Mar'si Union.
Etymology
The name Palmyria is not a native invention; in fact, the very first name that referred to a formal nation-state encompassing the present-day Palmyrian territorial landmass and waters is Makiling, named after the mountain upon which the Makiling Confederation Accords were ratified, formalized, and set forth into power, leading to the birth of the Thalassocratic Confederation of Makiling. The name "Palmyria" is the corruption of a Spanish term that referred to the cultural significance of the coconut plant, now a national symbol of the Royal Commonwealth, among the natives when they first encountered the natives of what is now Palmyrion; the British have used the same name to refer to the present-day continental landmass. The earliest known mention of "Thalassocratic Confederation of Makiling", at least in the form of its native language cognates (the most well-known being in Buendian: Makakaragatang Kahugpongan ng Makiling), was found on the Los Baños Vellum Scrolls found on 1967 by an state-hired archaeological team of the now-extinct Stalinist regime, and from which the original text of the Makiling Confederation Accords were translated into modern Palmyrian (a modern, standardized form of Buendian) and English. Eyewitness accounts to the deliberation and signing of the Accords state that the decision on the name of this newborn nation-state entity was arbitrary to some extent, as the delegates to the deliberation decided out of jest to name the state after the mountain whereupon the accords were formalized into power.
Upon their successful conquest of present-day Palmyrion, the Spanish named the land "Tierra de las Palmeras" after the relative abundance of the coconut tree in its lands and in part to pay tribute to the plant's cultural and economic significance to the native Palmyrians; the British, upon their conquest of Palmyrion during 1764 by the capture of Aragon from the Spanish, also paid homage to the plant's cultural and economic significance, renaming the colony as "Colonial Palmeras". When the Palmyrians obtained their independence, they used this name to refer to their newborn unified ethnic, socio-cultural, and political identity, and thus their newborn nation-state: the Royal Confederation of the Palmyrian Dominion (Pal. "Makahang Kahugpongan ng Dominyong Palmyria"), marking the first official use of the name Palmyria to refer to a people and their subsequent nation-state. The term "Palmyrion" is a modern-day foreign invention, a portmanteau of the words "Palmyrian dominion"; Palmyrians still call the Palmyrian mainland as ""Palmyria", oftentimes referring to it in English as the "Royal Commonwealth of Palmyria" (which has also been accepted as another official name for the Royal Commonwealth). Both the terms "Palmyrion" and "Palmyria", both being English and the latter also being both a Palmyrian word and an endonym, are official shorthand names for the Royal Commonwealth.
History
Prehistory
Recent discoveries of stone tools and fossils of butchered animal remains in Kalinga, Iloilo, and Naga has pushed back evidence of early hominins in present-day Palmyrion to as early as 800,000 years. However, the metatarsal of the Macahambus Man, reliably dated by both carbon-14 dating and uranium-series dating to about 70,000 years ago remains the oldest human remnant found in the Royal Commonwealth to date. Aetas and Negritos were among the first inhabitants of modern-day Palmyrion, but reliably dated remnants of permanent settlements date back only to the arrival of the Founder Clans back in 400CE. Some of these settlements still exist today and have become parts of modern-day cities, towns, and villages, which have since then become heavily modernized by the pace of technology.
Precolonial Epoch
The earliest settlement of Palmyrion by modern-day Palmyrians dates back to 400CE by Proto-Palmyrians fleeing Lardite persecution in northern Holy Marsh and finding no land to call their own in the relatively densely-populated southern half of Holy Marsh. The demarcation line between Palmyrian prehistory and early history is on 14 July 400CE, the date of the earliest settlement of the Proto-Palmyrians fleeing Lardite persecution of their communities, based on artifacts such as, most notably, the Los Baños Copperplate Inscription as well as various stone tablets found across the northern provinces. 200 years later, on 600CE, the Emergent Phase of the Proto-Palmyrians began, which was marked by newly-emerging socio-cultural patterns that differentiated them from their northern Marshite origins, the initial development of coastal and riverine settlements, increasing social stratification and specialization, and the beginnings of an economy based on local and maritime trade. Meanwhile, socio-cultural integration of the Aetas, Negritos, and the Proto-Palmyrians effectively dissolved genetic, social, and cultural boundaries between them, with the former two shifting from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one based on agriculture and livestock rearing; in modern times, however, the indigenous peoples still largely live in villages and rural settlements situated on their ancestral lands like they have since time immemorial, while enjoying the same level of technological and, to a lesser extent, sociocultural modernity as their urban counterparts do.
The first iron tools on Palmyrion, marking the entry to the Iron Age for Palmyrion, date back to 400CE, brought along by the Proto-Palmyrians with them as they resettled from northern Holy Marsh to the present-day Palmyrian landmass.
Ten Kingdoms Period (900CE - 1200CE)
The Proto-Palmyrians soon split into ten distinct socio-cultural ethnic identities, culminating into the beginning of the Ten Kingdoms Period. All the Ten Kingdoms traded with either Holy Marsh or Romandeos, whichever was nearer. The Ten Kingdoms period was marked by significant advances in agricultural and military technology, the result of an economic and military arms race to sustain a costly and bloody power struggle between the Ten Kingdoms.
These early polities were typically characterized by a three-tier social structure. Although different cultures had different terms for each of them, they invariably included a class of apex nobility, the middling freemen, and a class of dependent debtor-bondspeople called "alipin" or "uripon". Among the nobility class were leaders who held monarchist political leadership roles: the datu, which was responsible for leading autonomous socio-cultural settlements called "barangay" or "dulohan". These datu were vassals of a larger, much more powerful political office: the king, each of which ruled one of the ten kingdoms present during the era.
The Ten Kingdoms Conflict, a 300-year long series of wars and conflicts between the pre-colonial polities, is estimated to have killed an estimated 40 million people over the course of 300 years. Notable battles and wars include the Cagayan Valley conflict (912-1194), the Ilocos Plateau wars (913-1195), the Battle of Pasig Strait (wet season of 965), and the Palawan Struggle (1084-1105).
Thalassocratic Era (1200CE - 1600CE)
The Kingdoms of Cagayan and Ilocos fell into the hands of Lardite conspirators and rebellions on 1100CE, all of which were led by Datu Bagwis. Over half of the present-day Royal Commonwealth fell into Lardite hands, with the borders of the provinces mostly retained. Anti-Lardite revolts sprang up across the area during the 12th century CE, fueled by long-standing hatred of the Lardites and a "convert or die" policy enacted by the ruling Lardite elite.
The leaders of the remaining eight kingdoms, alongside the Cagayan and Ilocano loyalists sympathising with the overthrown monarchies, convened at Mt. Makiling in the Kingdom of Tondo, where they signed the Makiling Confederation Accords, effectively signaling the conception of the first native nation-state encompassing the whole of Palmyrion. It was not until 1200 CE, however, when the Lardite governments in Cagayan and Ilocos were overthrown, and the reborn kingdoms signing the Makiling Confederation Accords, that the Thalassocratic Confederation of Makiling was born, which culminated into the ratification and official promulgation of the Makiling Confederation Accords.
Many historians refer to this era of Palmyrion, with the middle 200 years termed as the Pax Palmyria, as an era of numerous thrusts and advances in the fields of science, technology, culture, and economy, specifically in the following subfields:
- Architecture and civil engineering
- Before the Confederate Era, stone quarries existed only as small-scale operations with the stone being used only for the houses of the elite. During the Confederate era, however, stone quarrying operations widened, which provided massive opportunities for civil engineering purposes. Confederate era Palmyrian architecture borrowed many styles from then contemporary Marshite and Romandean architecture, resulting into such monuments which stand until now in the present function:
- The Royal Citadel, the current seat of power of the Royal Commonwealth, was constructed in 1365 as a military fortress and the Confederate Council's seat of power. It has undergone construction shortly after the Fourth Civil War to serve as the seat of power of the Commonwealth Junta and, eventually, the monarchy of Palmyrion. At present, the Citadel refers to a fortified complex encompassing an 80-hectare domain containing, notably, the Royal Palace, which is the residence of the Royal Family and the Sovereign's seat of power, and the Dakila Hall, the administrative building of the Assembly, alongside smaller administrative offices and residential buildings housing the domain's employees.
- Idjang Kalinga, the oldest continually-occupied military installation of the Royal Commonwealth, located in Kalinga province, finished construction on 1353 and served as a military fortress (and the largest) of the Confederated Kingdom of Ifugao until 1600. Heavily damaged during the Fourth Civil War, Idjang Kalinga was reconstructed starting on 1985, with reconstruction efforts (which included retrofitting of modern electrical and plumbing systems) finished by 1990; it currently serves as the provincial headquarters of the Armed Forces of Palmyrion in the province of Kalinga.
- Tall and expansive apartments, which were relatively spacious compared to their contemporaries, were also built as part of multiple housing projects by both private and public entities. Extensive piping and sewage systems were constructed, and great numbers of hospitals were established, both of which went hand-in-hand in advances in public sanitation, medicine, and public health.
- The Aragon Marshite Temple in the capital city of Aragon, constructed on 1401 with assistance from the Marshite church in Holy Marsh, is one of the largest religious buildings in the Royal Commonwealth today, with the Aragon Cathedral and the Omar al-Dinar Mosque in the same city following close behind. Having been reconstructed from 1988 to 1995 in the wake of the Dark Era (1912-1984), the temple operates to this day, and is the centre of the Marshite faith in the Royal Commonwealth.
- Military strategy, tactics, and technology
- The Thalassocracy formed the Confederate Standing Levy from the militaries of its constituent Confederated Kingdoms as a standing military, and was kept manned by a levy enacted by every confederated kingdom. Military doctrine and numerical organisation were standardised in part through a system of military academies and training camps that followed a curriculum which was taught in the military academies' respective confederated kingdoms' languages and in part through (necessarily meticulously detailed) military decrees from central command in present-day Aragon; on a related vein, equipment was standardised through the creation of standard schematics for various weapon types which were subsequently translated into the confederated kingdoms' respective languages. The modern-day Palmyrian Army and the Palmyrian Navy - and the Armed Forces of Palmyrion as a whole - trace its lineage to the Confederate Standing Levy.
- Military science and technology in the Thalassocracy had a renaissance on the 1300s, starting with the development of various types of personal armour such as (and primarily) plate, lamellar, mail and plate, and laminar armour; the need for breathability and mobility of personal armour in a tropical country dominated by tropical rainforests, wetlands, rocky highlands, and riverine floodplains dominated the prevalent design philosophy of armourers and blacksmiths, with mail and plate armour and brigandines eventually becoming commonplace during the zenith of the Thalassocratic era on the late 1400s. Melee weaponry would also meet their renaissance, with several types of bladed weaponry and pole arms being created during this era; while portability (compactness and lightness) predominated design philosophy (a necessity due to Palmyrian geography), polearms were optimised for breaking shield walls and blunting cavalry charges, both evidenced by the prevalence of hooks and hammers on polearms (effectively making them Lucerne hammers), while bladed weapons were usually optimised for hacking and slashing attacks and increasingly incorporated handguard, handle, and pommel designs from Western longswords. Early firearms were also invented during the era, with the prevalence of muskets, arquebuses, and lantakas by the height of the Thalassocratic era in both the infantry and naval arms of the Thalassocratic military; the development of firearms also came with the renaissance of polearms in Thalassocratic military technology, and with it the rise of pike and shot tactics and formations which saw initial use in the Intercessor Crusade. The Thalassocratic navy's renaissance came in the form of advancements in shipbuilding and naval technology which allowed them to build ships of heavier armament and armour, followed by innovations in Thalassocratic tactical and strategic naval doctrine and disposition; at the height of the Thalassocracy, the navy consisted of almost 100 multi-deck carracks of various functions that served as capital ships alongside an escort of smaller, more numerous, single-deck karakoas.
- Public health, sanitation, and medicine
- Knowledge of traditional medicine in then contemporary Palmyrion soon became widely available with the publishing of the Compendium of Medicinal Plants and Practices during the late 1400s, coupled with the rise of the printing press and the establishment of hospitals. The Compendium, itself a pharmacopoeia, was in effect a go-to medicinal almanac during the day, as it was a comprehensive guide to contemporary medicinal practice, ranging from known illnesses, to plants with therapeutic and medicinal properties, to contemporary surgical procedures. The Compendium has, in recent times, been supplanted by the International Pharmacopoeia in Palmyrian medical usage, but is still regularly updated as a database of Palmyrian herbal plants in both print and online editions.
- In the fields of public health and sanitation, Dayang Dimasalanta (herself tutored from a young age by her noble family's physician), the wife of a local ruler, compiled onto a series of essays the observations made and lessons learned when she visited the settlements of neighboring Holy Marsh and Romandeos, specifically in how epidemics and pandemics came, stayed, and went in those settlements, and how those settlements are preventing such events from happening again. Her work was vital to the establishment of public sanitation facilities and measures in the growing cities, towns, and villages of the Thalassocratic Confederation.
- Agriculture, aquaculture, nutrition, and cuisine
- Agriculture, aquaculture, nutrition, and cuisine have a lot of strings with each other. Palmyrion started trade with the Marshites and Romandeans, and one of the trade goods included was food crops. The legacy of such trade is still evident until now, with both the cultivation and import of food crop species originally native to Holy Marsh and Romandeos, and the inclusion of such foods in present-day Palmyrian cuisine. Agriculture flourished in the volcanic soils of Bicol, the floodplains of Buendia and the Cagayan Valley region, and even on the harsh slopes and peaks of the Palmyrian Cordilleras and the Ilocos Plateau; this was a combined effort between advances in civil engineering, agricultural engineering, and agricultural biotechnology, all working together to create a system of agricultural practices and infrastructure adapted to the Palmyrian terrain and climate.
- Palmyrion also had a rich maritime culture, and with it came aquaculture and the fisheries. Various guides in aquaculture and the fisheries were published during this era, which compiled into several books major aquacultural and fishing techniques and methods, and a list of edible, non-edible, harmless, and hazardous aquatic creatures. Those works became the foundation of then contemporary aquacultural knowledge, which was then used to great benefit by fisherfolk and agriculturists in their work.
Internal issues and the downfall of the Thalassocracy
The Thalassocracy had several internal issues, chief among them being how to integrate its various ethnicities with each other. While ethnic violence had died down, inter-ethnic communication and interaction was still a primary concern in spite of the positive ethnic relations that had marked the Thalassocracy's existence: attempts to create a lingua franca would be met by opposition from various ethnic groups that found issue with favouritism in the creation process; interfaith and interracial marriages, alongside commercial and land disputes (the latter often feeding into range wars), have become tribal casus belli for honor killings and clan wars which, in the lesser-developed parts of Palmyrion, last to this day, though largely mitigated by law enforcement and, in extreme cases, armed intervention by government forces.
The resurgence of the apocalyptic Lardite cult among the Thalassocracy would become perhaps its most threatening internal security issue, as inter-religious clashes between Lardites and non-Lardites soon evolved into large-scale riots and, ultimately, civil conflicts. From 1503 to 1509, disaster struck the Thalassocracy as the Great Plague engulfed the Thalassocracy, killing 50 million through a combination of plague (by an Palmyrion-endemic strain of Yersinia pestis), an early form of super gonorrhea, and an HIV-like virus, the former being the result of the Lardite cultists' use of plague-infected bodies as a form of biological warfare, and the latter two through widespread prostitution and sexual relations starting with, and stemming from, a sect of the Lardite cult that syncretised with the Temple of Balesh (whose followers also formed the Urban Community of Kesslerstaadt); the Great Plague marks the first and earliest AIDS-defining opportunistic infections in Palmyrion. The Thalassocracy, still reeling and recovering from the devastation caused by the Great Plague while being plagued itself by intensified civil conflict, soon waged the Intercessor Crusade (1530s-1540s) to quell the religious conflict and, ultimately, wipe out the Lardite cult; the Intercessor Crusade was largely successful in achieving its goals, but it was largely a Pyrrhic victory, for it resulted into heavy military losses and severe socioeconomic ruin for the Thalassocracy on top of the aftermath of the Great Death. The Intercessor Crusade itself killed another 50 million; the Great Plague and the Intercessor Crusade combined halved the population of the Thalassocracy, with the population of mainland Palmyrion recovering to pre-Great Plague levels only by the 1850s.
By 1590, the Thalassocracy was a mere shadow of its former glory: its population mired in disease, hunger, and poverty, its military decimated and overstretched, its economic apparatus utterly destroyed - the Confederation was in its dying throes. Long-suppressed tribal and familial disputes soon evolved into sporadic skirmishes and, ultimately, into civil conflicts, a situation which a decimated and poorly-supplied Thalassocratic military was not able to contain and quell, and one exacerbated by the socioeconomic ruin brought by the Intercessor Crusade. A poorly-supplied and overstretched military could not hope to resist the Spanish invaders, as the Confederacy's subordinate nations exchanged a dying Thalassocracy for Spanish rule. The Thalassocracy in its dying throes met its demise in the hands of the Spanish, and Palmyrion became a Spanish colony.
Colonial era (1600-1820)
Palmyrion was colonised, first by Spain, and second by the British, each of which have imparted major cultural influences into the native Palmyrian populations as a colonial legacy. Nowadays Palmyrion's society and culture bear heavy influences from its former British and Spanish colonisers on top of its original pre-colonial sociocultural traits.
Spanish rule (1600-1764)
Initial Palmyrio-Spanish contact dates back to 1521 with Spanish explorer Miguel Reyes de la Cruz's expedition arriving to Palmyrion. He initially claimed Palmyrion for Spain, but was killed during the Battle of Mactan Bay; to this day, it is still debated on which side - the Confederate Kingdom of Cebu or the Lardite resurgency - was responsible for killing Miguel Reyes de la Cruz, but what is known is that only a single vessel of his original fleet returned to Spain. Colonisation of the Palmyrian mainland began with Juan Ignacio Alvarez's arrival from Mokastana, followed by the formation of the first Hispanic settlements in present-day Mactan City, Province of Cebu. From here, Hispanic settlers spread westward to colonise the entirety of the Visayan Island, starting with the present-day province of Hinigaran, followed by colonisation of present-day Panay province. This would be followed by the invasion of the Kingdom of Tondo, still locked in a bitter internal conflict between landlords and the over-stretched Thalassocratic military; the other confederated kingdoms of the Thalassocracy would follow a similar fate (save for the island of Sultan Osmalik, to which the Thalassocratic government fled), wracked by internal strife brought about by the aftermath of the Intercessor Crusade. By 1600, the colonisation of the Palmyrian mainland was complete, with the formation of the Spanish colonial government and the establishment of Aragon as the capital of the Spanish Palmerian Indies. Palmyrion was then governed as a territory of the Viceroyalty of Mokastana, an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire.
Meanwhile, the Thalassocratic government fled to Sultan Osmalik and formed a government-in-exile, and began executing shipping raids on Spanish merchant fleets. Both the government-in-exile and the Spanish colonial regime mustered their military forces in a siege of the island now known today as the Spanish-Thalassocratic War (1685-1764). Both sides used levies to bolster their militaries, but the Thalassocratic government was able to thwart one Spanish incursion after another despite having a smaller population and economic base to sustain their war efforts; fortifications built by the Thalassocratic government to defend the island stand to this day, with a few forts still operating as functional military installations of the Royal Commonwealth, and naval obstacles still posing hindrances to shipping and fishing around the area (especially at low tide).
The Spanish colonial regime soon established the Palmyro-Mokan Galleon Trade, bringing foodstuffs such as maize, tomatoes, potatoes, chili peppers, pineapples, and chocolate from Mokastana. The Palmyro-Mokan Galleon Trade brought goods, settlers, and military reinforcements destined for Palmyrion; the reverse voyage brought Palmyrian, Marshite, and Romandean commercial products and immigrants to Mokastana. The Palmyrian colonial economy was largely agricultural, with land distributed among the landed elite in the hacienda system; many of these haciendas incorporated non-agricultural activities as well, with some that sat on rich mineral deposits having significant mining operations, some that sat by the shore having aquaculture, and a few operating workshops that produced various goods from the raw materials it obtained from the land and any body of water.
British rule (1764-1820)
British forces occupied Aragon on 1760 in an extension of the Seven Years' War; within four years, the colony's provincial vassals soon capitulated and swore fealty to the British, and Palmyrion was ceded over to the British through the Treaty of Paris. British rule on mainland Palmyrion was administered directly from the British monarchy, and on 1776 was able to occupy the island of Sultan Osmalik, leading to the downfall of the Thalassocratic government-in-exile; the Thalassocratic royal family, meanwhile, fled to neighbouring Romandeos. It was during the British colonial regime in Palmyrion that Palmyrion had a second cultural renaissance, following the first one during the Thalassocratic era, largely initiated and catalysed by the introduction of Western literary and visual art styles through British colonial rule. During the British colonial regime, Palmyrion developed its national language and lingua franca as a predecessor to modern-day Palmyrian.
Britain introduced Palmyrion to the Industrial Age by the late 1760s, as new coal and iron mines opened up and existing ones expanded across Colonial Palmera, alongside adoption of industrial machines by the various workshops that dotted Palmyrion's haciendas (a vestige of Spanish colonial rule that the British, in spite of its Spanish origin, kept intact). Colonial industry at the time initially focused on the production of value added goods from raw agricultural produce, such as sugar from sugarcane, timber from Palmyrian trees, fabric from cotton, and hemp rope from locally-grown abaca (Musa textilis) - with export to Britain as its primary focus. The British colonial government started building transportation infrastructure such as roads and rail systems by the early 1770s, mainly focusing on the transport of goods and labour across the vast colony; this led to, and came alongside, the expansion of Palmyrion's agricultural and industrial bases, and with it the urbanisation of Palmyrion, as people flocked to cities to work in factories. By the dawn of the 1780s, the colony had a sizeable and growing industrial middle class as the farmer peasant class shrunk with the urbanisation of the colony.
Alongside the Industrial Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment was, perhaps, the most significant British colonial import into Palmyrion. Teachers and artists from mainland Britain went into and settled upon Palmyrion, and with them they brought Enlightenment literature and art styles. Academies rose as formal education institutions, and so did salons - gathering places where people conversed to engage in discourse - as the academies' informal counterparts; it was these salons that equalised poor and rich, merchant and labourer, and peasant and lord, at a time when economic inequality in Colonial Palmera was rife, and Palmyrion still maintains to this day the salon tradition.
Palmyrian Revolution (1790-1820)
The Palmyrian Revolutionary War is attributed by many modern-day historians to be a culmination of various long-suppressed rebellions starting from Spanish colonial rule of Palmyrion, alongside economic inequality during British colonial rule exacerbating the rebellions. The colonial government enacted an economic system focused on the extraction of resources from Palmyrion and producing value-added goods for export to, mainly, Britain, leaving no room for production of goods for domestic consumption; as a result, domestic prices of goods skyrocketed, exacerbating economic inequality even further. Exacerbating the situation further was the British government levying heavier taxes onto the colony, and regulating the colony's economic activities whilst denying the colony representation in the British Parliament.
Starting with the violently-repressed farmland strikes and urban riots of 1790, the Palmyrian populace rioted against both the colonial government and the British Empire for what they perceived as unfair and excessive taxation, on top of unethical and excessive exploitation of Palmyrion's resources and people. Riots and protests soon escalated, with the July 1791 Aragon Massacre and the 1792 Valentine's Day Affair, followed by the December 1792 Cavite Sugar Party. The Aragon Massacre was a confrontation between British colonial troops and rioters consisting of Palmyrian, British, and Hispanic citizens in modern-day Commonwealth Square, wherein British colonial troops responded to the riot with lethal force, resulting to heavy losses for both sides. The Valentine's Day Affair of 1792 was a takeover of the Colonial Citadel on Valentine's Day of 1792 by Palmyrian rebels, resulting into a siege lasting 14 days until the siege was broken by the British colonial military, albeit with heavy losses for the British.
In the wake of the 1792 Valentine's Day Affair, the KKK - Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Kalayaan (Supreme and Venerable Association of the Sons of Freedom; simply known as the Katipunan) - was formed on July 7 of the same year, and from then on became a significant force in colonial politics as a separatist faction; from its inception to its dissolution, the Katipunan received significant support from the exiled Thalassocratic royal family. The Colonial Parliament soon declared a vote of no confidence against the colonial governor on 1800, and alongside the Colonial Cabinet declared Palmyrian independence on July 1, 1800; when the colonial governor refused to step down, what resulted was the Siege of Aragon lasting from August 4 to December 1 of that year, as the colonial military fought with separatist forces; likewise, the Revolutionary Forces at Arms, the predecessor to the modern-day Armed Forces of Palmyrion, was formed as the armed wing of the Katipunan on August 24 at an event known as the Balintawak Declaration in modern-day Balintawak District, Caloocan City. Subsequent uprisings followed in the outlying provinces of Palmyrion, with provincial governors either being overthrown and replaced by those sympathetic to the independence cause, or outright declaring allegiance to the newborn Palmyrian Confederacy. The Colonial Parliament, having been replaced by a roster of legislators sympathetic to the independence movement, soon replaced the ousted colonial governor with Palmyrion's first prime minister, with Emilio Ylagan ascending to the position as Prime Minister of the Confederation; subsequently, the Colonial Parliament was changed to the Confederate Parliament.
Palmyrion fought the Wars of Independence from 1800 to 1820, as the newborn state sought to eliminate remaining loyalist military formations while repelling British (and, occasionally, Lardite) invasions and incursions into Palmyrian sovereign territory. On 1801, British forces occupied the city of Vigan, Northern Ilocos, for the duration of the Wars. Another British landing occurred at modern-day Pampanga, holding it from 1800 to 1810 it also allowed the British to block off the northern provinces from the south, while its natural harbor provided a major supply point for the British. Sensing the imminent danger this posed, the Revolutionaries focused on Pampanga during the first half of the war, and Pampanga soon saw the largest and bloodiest of the battles during the first half of the Wars; the northern provinces, having found it easy to flush colonial loyalist forces inland in various battles at the Cagayan Valley, the Ilocos Plateau, and the Cordilleras, were soon able to not only repel minor British incursions across the western coast, but were also able to concentrate fighting the British at Vigan and the province of Pampanga. The last of British forces were expelled from Pampanga at December 1810, while Vigan was secured by Revolutionary forces on 1820. Palmyrion signed a peace treaty (on the proviso that the British recognise Palmyrion as a sovereign, independent nation) with the British shortly thereafter, affirming the existence of Palmyrion.
After the war, the Thalassocracy-era monarchy was soon restored, with Hernando I crowned as monarch of the Royal Confederation of the Palmyrian Dominion. The Revolutionary Forces at Arms would soon be reorganised into the Confederate Royal Forces at Arms, having been descended from the RFA; at the time it consisted of the Army, the Navy, and the Constabulary, manned by conscript levies and volunteers from the Confederation's various provinces.
The Royal Confederate Era (1820-1935)
The nascent Confederation soon begun industrialising its economy, and started to expand public assets - facilities and services - as it grew; both were instrumental in alleviating much of the post-war poverty that was rampant in the former colony as a result of colonial economic policies and the results of the Wars of Independence. It established trade routes with various nations in its immediate vicinity - first, with time immemorial allies Romandeos and Holy Marsh, then with outlying nations such as the Solisian Union and the Houdounese. Transportation infrastructure was expanded, allowing easier flow of goods and labour between settlements both rural and urban; many of these transportation routes still exist today, having undergone extensive modernisation since then.
Palmyrion's nascent military expanded its ranks and modernised its strategic and tactical doctrines and dispositions, which correlated strongly with the advent of modern military equipment. One of Palmyrion's firsts in military technological research and development came with De Leon Armoury's design for the 1830s tender for the new rifle of the Forces at Arms, the Fusil m.1834, replacing the Forces at Arms' aging stockpile of Brown Bess muskets; the m.1834 would serve as Palmyrion's service rifle until the introduction of the bolt-action Fusil m.1899 rifle on 1899, contending with contemporaries as the British Lee-Enfield, the German Mauser 98, and the American M1903 Springfield. Palmyrian artillery would also face milestones in this regard, with the development of the Cañon m.1836 mountain howitzer, a more mobile and powerful replacement for the FA's aging stock of older, less mobile 12-pounder guns. The Navy of Palmyrion would also see a similar expansion, starting with the launching of the 50-gun frigate Julian Vallejo from the shipyards of Galleno Shipwrights on 1831; later, larger ships-of-the-line followed, as the Navy expanded numerically, and adopted new technologies in navigation, armament, armour, and sustenance.
.png)
As Palmyrion grew, so did its cultural and ethnographic outlook. Immigrants came to Palmyrion mainly looking for economic opportunities brought about by the coming of the Industrial Age in Palmyrion, and these immigrants brought with them various influences to Palmyrion; in particular, immigrants from Romandeos and Holy Marsh brought with them, in addition to military-industrial expertise and tactical prowess, the revival of the Marshite faith at a time when Palmyrion was largely divided between English Anglicanism (brought by the British) and Roman Catholicism (brought by the Spanish), while Solisian and Houdounese immigrants imparted their industrial and commercial expertise into the nascent nation-state's commercial goods market; other, albeit minor, immigrant populations included German, Italian, Dutch, and Chinese immigrants. Immigrant communities would soon integrate and form their own ethnic enclaves within cities, whilst remaining warm, intimate relations with the larger populace that they were a part of. Palmyrion's population went from 120 million by the end of the Wars of Independence, to 200 million by 1850; immigration alongside lowered infant deaths due to improved healthcare and nutrition (thus helping increase native growth rates) were major contributors to the large 66% increase in population over the span of 30 years.
The nascent Palmyrian Confederation engaged in wars as early as two decades into its existence, starting with assisting Mokan revolutionaries in the Mokan War of Independence (1839-1842), alongside its engagement alongside Marshite forces in the millennia-long Long War (100 BCE - 2000 CE) against Lardite cultists, notably with the Battle for the Mushroom Islands. It was in these wars that the nascent military's mettle would be tested and refined in a series of victories and losses in various battles and campaigns, such as the Battle of Point Aurora (pictured) during its participation in the Long War, and the Battle of TBA in the Mokan War of Independence. At the homefront, various Palmyrian companies stepped up to the fore to supply the Royal Confederation with armaments, munitions, and other supplies in its war efforts, leading to the rise of modern-day armaments conglomerates De Leon Armoury, Arsenal Tiglao, and Galleno Shipyards; likewise, the wartime efforts of Palmyrion have contributed to the rise of militarism in Palmyrian culture and society, a feature of Palmyrian ethnic, social, and cultural life - ethos, identity, and expression - that has remained to this day.
Palmyrian culture soon flourished and boomed twenty years into the life of the nascent nation. In addition to indigenously-developed styles of art, music, dance, cuisine, and fashion, immigrant populations also brought with them their own styles; cultural integration and interaction resulted into visible influences of foreign cuisine in modern-day Palmyrian culture, both intangible and tangible. While Palmyrion maintained the tradition of the salon, this came alongside the rise of the art of debate as an evolution of and a more-regimented counterpart to Palmyrion's salon tradition. The implementation and rise of the public education system (on top of private schools) on 1852, and with it the flourishing of higher education, in Palmyrion helped amplify and cement the fruit of these cultural interactions in Palmyrion's children, in addition to schools also facilitating salon-type intellectual discourse among its student populations. The exaltation of wartime heroes and the homefront production of firearms and supplies for the military also inculcated a sense of militarism among the populace, a feature that persists to this day.
.png){kind=link}
In the latter half of the 1800s, Palmyrion laid the foundations of its public healthcare and education systems, starting with the Public Education Act 1852 mandating the construction of state schools and the implementation of a standardised curriculum and educational framework, and the Public Healthcare Act 1885, mandating the implementation of a Bismarck-type national healthcare insurance system and the implementation of a standardised healthcare framework; both acts have since then received a myriad of amendments, with the latest being a set of 2017 anti-discrimination amendments to both bills in light of a 2017 Supreme Court ruling on discrimination. The University of Palmyrion can trace its origin to 1860, making it the second-oldest university behind the Academy of St. Aquinas; it has since then grown into 40 campuses across the modern-day Royal Commonwealth from its flagship campus in present-day Aragon, and is Palmyrion's premier higher education institute. Likewise, healthcare in the Royal Confederation before the 1885 act included mostly private hospitals providing healthcare in the absence of a national healthcare framework, the oldest one being the Aragon Sanitarium built on 1752; since the implementation of Public Healthcare Act 1885, the Confederation has guided the provision of healthcare by both public and private entities across the Royal Commonwealth, leading to the expansion of healthcare outside the capital and the nearby cities, and into the previously-neglected regions of the Royal Confederation.
Meanwhile, the Palmyrian industrial revolution was reaching its waning phase, after its zenith from the late 1850s to the early 1870s. After the urban areas came with rural indigenous peoples adopting, thought to a lesser extent, the innovations of the industrial era in their lifestyle; with the mechanisation of their agriculture, they evolved from subsistence farming to producing surplus that they would trade with other cities and indigenous tribes, eventually becoming a vital part of Palmyrion's food security in the 21st Century; the mechanisation of their crafts also allowed them to make a decent livelihood with selling their indigenous crafts, and today the rural indigenous communities maintain mechanised and computerised light industries centred around their traditional craftsmanship practices. The Palmyrian military underwent a modernisation of its equipment and doctrines, with lessons learned from the Second Intercessor Crusade (1870-1875). In 1908, Palmyrion launched its first dreadnought, the Soberanya (English: Sovereign), constructed by Galleno Shipyards in Navotas City. She was commissioned two years after the British HMS Dreadnought, with a main battery of eight 12-inch guns alongside twenty-eight 3-inch guns as a secondary battery.