Tårnøerne

Tower Islands

Disputed island Native name: Tårnøerne (Tynic) Turneyjar (Northislander) Tower Ilands (Anglish)
View of the south from Neskaupstaður
Geography
Location	Sea of Njord (Nordania)
Total islands	476 (39 inhabited)
Major islands	Vágar, Norðeyja, Sørøya
Area	3855 km²
Highest point	Frederikstinna (982 m)
Administered by
Sjealand
Realm	Helheim
Claimed by
Ambrose
County	Towers Ilands
Demographics
Population	96,673 (as of 2017)
Density	25/km²/km²
Ethnic groups	Northislanders, Ambrosians

The Tårnøerne (Anglish: Tower Ilands, Northislander: Turneyjar) are a hypoborean archipelago in the Sea of the Njord, lying to the southwest of Ambrose and to the north of Swastria. The largest three groups of islands are the Stykkishólmur, Lagaurás, and Trumba islands, although several hundred smaller ones also make up the island chain. The Tårnøerne, lying on the edge of the Nordanian Shelf, are a constituent subdivision Helheim, a realm of the Archkingdom of Sjealand.

Continuously inhabited since the 8th century, the Tårnøerne have been central to many of Nordania's most important events. Dating as far back to the War of the Ambrosian Succession, the sovereignty of the islands has been heavily contested between Sjealand and Ambrose for over 300 years. A period of Ambrosian control and development following the Great War of the North was reversed by the Continental War, and with the exception of a brief occupation from 1970-71, the islands have since been under Sjealandic administration, though Ambrose still mantains a nominal territorial claim over the islands.

The population of the Tårnøerne is made up of mostly Northislander people, and as such, the lingua franca of the islands is Northislander, though Tynic also enjoys official status. Despite this, there remains a sizeable minority of Anglish-speaking Brunswicker Ambrosian settlers, mainly concentrated the city of Ambrösihöfn (Anglish: Port Ambrose) and across the northernmost islands.

The Tårnøerne are dominated by their rugged terrain and their subpolar oceanic climate, with the rocky, infertile soil precluding large-scale agriculture. Instead, the islands have historically been home to a thriving fishing and whaling industry. In the past few decades, undersea oil drilling has also increased substantially.

History

Tuthinan trade center

The Sjealandic sloop-of-war Kongeelven in Stykkishólmur harbor, 1828

Ambrosian rule

Bittert farvel, a work by Peder Severin Nielsen depicting the expulsion of ethnic Tynics from their homes

With the outbreak of the Great War of the North, Ambrosian President Godfred Crovan outlined the acquisition of the islands as one of his primary military goals. This had become possible with the Royal Sjealandian Navy's confinement port by late 1862, isolating the Royal Sjealandian Army's relatively few troops stationed on the islands. This allowed for a force under General George Amlodd to land on the central islands on February 3, 1863. With limited resources, Amlodd's forces avoided direct engagement with army strongholds and local militia, instead surrounding and besieging the capital of Stykkishólmur. Under the threat of naval bombardment, the city garrison surrendered the islands a week later, allowing the Ambrosians full control over the islands, who established martial law. The breakout of the Sjealandian fleet in late 1864 saw a renewed threat to the islands, however an 1865 landing attempting to recapture the southern islands was inconclusive and the Sjealandians withdrew.

The Congress of Dalganburgh formally saw sovereignty of the islands transferred to Ambrose. The Ambrosian military administration ended on February 10, 1868, and was replaced by the County of the Tower Islands, though it enjoyed less autonomy from Elsbridge than other counties of the Confederal Republic, and Amlodd remained provisional governor until elections were held in 1875. While the Northislanders were allowed the choice between emigrating to Sjealand or accepting Ambrosian citizenship, the vast majority of the Tynic-speaking population was deported to Sjealand. In all, about 32% of the pre-war population (mostly ethnic Tynics) left the islands between 1867 and 1877.

Fishing boats on the Gjógy (Jogey) waterfront, 1886. The fishing industry would expand dramatically under Ambrosian rule

Amlodd justified the population expulsion by the need to use to the Tynic residents' homes for Ambrosian settlers. With his backing, the confederal government offered land grants to Ambrosians who moved to populate the islands. This tactic was successful, and by 1877 the population had undergone a drastic demographic change, with Ambrosian settlers (mainly ethnic Brunswickers making up 40.2% of the population. The islands underwent a process of Anglicization, with towns, regions, and street names renamed to Anglish. Nevertheless, after the 1880s, restrictions were relaxed on the use of the Northislander language, which was permitted as an official language and taught alongside Anglish in specially-designated areas where it was still spoken by a majority.

The post-war economy of the Tower Islands was undermined by the fact that, even without the Sjealandic monopoly, Ambrose and its small merchant fleet could not hope to make any significant profit in overseas trade with the Orient; thus the role of the islands as a trade center further diminished, with Tuthinan trade shifting to Luzarra and, ironically, to the Sjealandic mainland. However, one resource Elsbridge saw in the island were the vast fisheries in its waters, with Crovan writing in 1862:

...focused on the East for the past century, the Tyns haven't even bothered to scratch the surface of their gold mine; a gold mine of cod, haddock, and whale.

With the arrival of experienced Ambrosian fishermen from the Scarfskerry Cape, fishing turned from a minor subsistence lifestyle into a massively-profitable industry. By 1890, analysts in Port Ambrose estimated in a report that the fisheries generated an amount of revenue exceeding the cost of local government. Packing houses and canneries became the dominant employers and the market towns of old became fishing harbors and whaling ports.

Ambrosian 1888 Northumbriad dunspar guns at Keep Baldwyn, Port Ambrose

Worried of Sjealandic retribution, and noting the ease with which the islands fell in 1863, Ambrose established a significant military presence on the islands even after the end of martial law. The natural harbor at Stykkishólmur made it a prime location for a naval coaling station, with half of the Ambrosian Njord Squadron based out of it in 1915. The Confederal Army began an extensive program of seaboard defense, constructing fortifications on the island. Between 1867 and 1917, 14 different coastal forts were built, eschewing the pre-war system of masonry forts with the first modern concrete ones. In terms of armament, they were armed with large breech-loading cannons mounted on "disappearing carriages" as well as with the new 305 mm heavy mortars. This military buildup, decried as aggression by Asgård, reached its peak in the 1910s, when the Ambrosian garrison rivaled the entire population of the Trumba Islands.

Geography

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