Meronnia

The Federal Republic of Meronnia République Fédérale de Mèronie
Flag
Motto: Liberté, Solidarité, Prospérité Liberty, Solidarity, Prosperity
Anthem: Le Chant Du Depart "Song of the Departure"
Official Map of the Federal Republic and Territories
Capital	Senone
Official languages	Mèronais
Recognised regional languages	Vaalse, Cabecan, Tavitan
Demonym(s)	Mèron
Government	Federal semi-presidential republic
• Premier	Pierre-Antoine Tremblay
• First Deputy	Maximilien Sardou
Legislature	Chambre des Députés
Establishment
• Crowning of Lothair II	757
• The Philippine Proclamation	1281
• Signing of the Commune Constitution	1771
Area
• Total	646,571.4 km2 (249,642.6 sq mi)
Population
• Estimate	66,762,700
• Density	103.26/km2 (267.4/sq mi)
GDP (nominal)	2020 estimate
• Total	L551 Billion
• Per capita	L8,253.10
Gini (2020)	29.2 low
HDI (2020)	0.889 very high
Currency	Livre ((L))
Date format	ddmmyyyy
Driving side	right
Calling code	+122
ISO 3166 code	MR
Internet TLD	.mr

Meronnia (Mèronais: Mèronie), officially the Federal Republic of Meronnia (Mèronais: République Fédérale de Mèronie), is a nation in Western Lira with several overseas territories. Metropolitan Meronnia is bordered by the Bay of Bicscay and the Inoran Ocean to the West, Lunderfrau to the North, Winst to the East, Arideo to the Southeast, Cisparrania to the South, and Produzland to the Southwest. The capital and largest city is Senone, with 2,812,000 living in the Senone Commune. The country's 47 Communes and 5 other Territories span a total of 646,571.4 km2 (249,642.6 sq mi), with a total population of 66.8 million people.

The country has a primarily mild Oceanic climate, though the metropolitan region varies from warm Mediterranean to Humid Continental. Overseas territories have an even broader climatic range. The nation is a federal semi-presidential republic, with executive authority shared between a directly elected Premier, the First Deputy of the Chamber of Deputies, and the Directory, a limply empowered holdover of the early Republican government.

Meronnia is a center for arts, sciences, and philosophy. Meronnia is a developed country with a very high standard of living and fairly low income inequality, though there have been recent concerns about rising housing prices. Meronnia is heavily involved in international affairs and participates in a number of international bodies. It is the leading member of the OIM, an organization initially founded as a post-colonial community of Mèronais-speaking nations.

Etymology

The origin of Meronnia is as a geographic term, Merona, describing the area the majority of the modern nation exists on, though the origins of this terminology are unclear (it is believed to have originated somewhere in Western Lira). The tribes, and later, kingdoms that inhabited the area became known as the Mèrons, and a gradual linguistic shift over several hundred years was confirmed in 1281 when Philip Rusét in his proclamation claimed the title of King of Mèronie. The Lorian exonym settled on Meronnia around the same time.

Both the exonym and endonym roughly mean Land of the Mèrons. As the word Mèron originally means those living in Merona or Mèronie, the cyclical nature of the meanings of these terms has drawn some attention as a source of humor for linguists.

The modern demonym for the nation of Meronnia is "Mèron" (or Meron/Meronnian in Lorian).

History

Prehistory (before the 6th century BC)

The oldest traces of human life in what is now Meronnia date from approximately 1.5 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras.

Early inhabitants of the region led nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Meronnia has large numbers of preserved decorated caves of the Paleolithic era, such as the famous Bourdon Caves (approximately 16,000 BC). As the climate became milder at the end of the glacial period the inhabitants of the region entered the Neolithic era and became sedentary, establishing agricultural communities as early as 6,000 BC.

Improvements in agriculture and demographic changes led to societal development throughout the 3rd Millenia BC, including the appearance of metallurgy. The earliest metals to have been worked in Meronnia were gold, copper, and bronze. Examples of worked iron date back as far as 1,200 BC.

Antiquity (6th century BC–5th century AD)

There is little written information concerning the first civilizations that inhabited the regions of what is now Meronnia, save what can be gleaned from coins. Therefore, the early history of the region is predominantly a work in archaeology, and the relationships between material culture, genetic relationships (the study of which has been aided, in recent years, through the field of archaeogenetics) and linguistic divisions rarely coincide.

The first societies in what is now Meronnia of which much detail remains are the Collers culture who spoke similar dialects and were organized into a number of small kingdoms centered around a structure of tribes and clans. This people, and their displacement by Tabers and Lorians through the 5th and 4th centuries BC, is discussed in depth in the surviving works of Divicatus of Elusco.

The Kingdoms of Virisimi, Cacudia, Dusella, and Manduissa, all came into existence between 450 and 300 BC, and the linguistically and religiously diverse region saw regular changes in territory and prosperity through minor conflicts, and frequent changing of hands of the position of "Rix Maros" (roughly: "Great King"), the first among equals of the Kings, who was identified as the holder of the Nerto Stone. While etymologically unclear, the first use of the term Merona, to describe the region that abided by the power of the Nerto Stone, was in 285 BC by Brocchia the Taber.

In the First Century BC, Valatonius was the King of Dusella and holder of the Nerto Stone, and he gathered the armies of most or all of the Meron Kings to come to the aid of the Tabers in the campaign against encroaching armies of the Anconan Kingdom. Valatonius's army met King Salus of Ancona, who had declared himself the Orthurian Emperor, north of the Aniene River. In the Battle of Cenos the Meron army were victorious, but in the long term the growth of the Orthurian Empire proved impossible to halt.

In 62 AD, three Meron Kings threw down their swords and surrendered their lands to the Orthurian Empire as a result of the defeat of their armies. King Borso of Cacudia refused to surrender and stole the Nerto Stone. His army was met at a bridge across the Aniene and defeated, with Borso throwing himself into the river with the Stone, which was lost forever.

Merona as a province of the Orthurian Empire served as a frontier with the Kingdom of Taber and the Empire's rivals and a number of forts and walled towns were settled, including Belenora, Litu, Tallius, and Cricero. During this period the Province saw improvements in infrastructure like roads, and public works in the walled towns, leading to significant improvements in overall development. After Emperor Valerius Patisar converted to Verroist Beoin, Beoin churches and missions were established in a number of walled towns in Merona Province, leading to a partial conversion of the local population, most strongly in the south.

Throughout the 4th and 5th centuries, the migration of Gostic Tribes from East of the Kingdom of Taber destabilized the Province as well as the rest of the Empire. Merona bore the brunt of demographic shifts, with many Gostic groups settling land in the Province and intermarrying, very quickly outpopulating Orthurian settlers in the few towns they had established. Gostic groups were violently opposed to orders from Ancona, and a series of revolts saw the final withdrawal of the Orthurian garrison from forts in Merona Province in 387 AD.

Small parts of the former province, in the far south, sought direct aid of the Magi who had been installed in the Fluviatta less than a century before, but the majority of Merona swore fealty to Gostic leaders establishing a new set of tribally based minor Kingdoms.

In 470, Annamatus and Viriata, a co-leading King and Queen of the Kingdom of Licnos, took their armies Southwards after coming to the aid of Gostic forces of Almer the Great in Taber. They signed a treaty with the Magi to recognize the Fosperia territories (those lands of the Merona Province that had requested his aid) and did not loot any of the towns in that region, instead receiving payment and food as they traveled. They went as far as to attack Ancona, but their army dispersed to raid and pillage as they returned towards the North and they were unable to continue their momentum.