History of Mir
The Early History of Mir
The very early history of Mir is still largely unknown and significant discussion exists regarding the earliest origins of the different peoples of Mir. One of the few things that are generally agreed upon is the fact that the original people of the land in Mir are the Oxori, Ha’pas, and Kotos (all members of the Taysha Confederacy in Ghanidash), the eastern Morokhar (in Pramatra and Hin-Klia), and the northern Ölafen who originated in the Saden and Ayalamih Mountains but have been pushed to the far northern shores of Belogal.
The original peoples of the land in Mir cooperated
with each other in many ways but the idea of centering
the communal wellbeing may be best visible in the
shared stewardship of the most fertile soils of Mir in
the Cornuchuan Plains in the center of our world. All
peoples established small settlements on the peninsula
and cooperated across communities to ensure sustenance
for all that is in balance with nature and was maintained
throughout the early history of Mir. The details of this
early history are largely overlooked in most of Mir and
only the original people of the land in Mir really maintain
this memory. In recent years some people have demanded
a return to this approach to ensure a balanced and sustain-
able future for Mir.
​
​The peoples of Mir who tend to dominate the international and domestic contexts of the states that have been created in the more recent past, have shorter histories that include widespread competition and some intense conflict in addition to cooperation. There is significant debate about the origins and first emergence of the newer ethnic groups in Mir, but eventually the Original People of Mir were joined by the Beli, Ghani, Hins, Klias, Mikhails, and Prama.
​
​
​Colonial History of Mir
Hadian Crossings is the original area of settlement of the Beli and contains some of the
culturally most important locations and structures of its history. With the establishment
of capitalism which first took root among the Beli in Hadian Crossings and the Mikhaili in
Mikhailistan, a new merchant class emerged thatengaged in larger scale international trade of manufactured goods and the raw materials needed for their production. Once these small groups of merchants started to accumulate significant wealth the slowly developing new industrial elites along with their allies in government turned these decentralized trading efforts into the government subsidized monopoly structure of the Beli International Trade (BIT) company that dominated the international political economy during the beginnings of Belogal’s colonial empire with a large army and significant trade and colonial extraction networks being established quickly.
Shifting from early asymmetric colonial trade to
full imperial domination and exploitation of land
and people, the Beli had their eyes firmly set on
the territory of the Ölafen first due to its vast
mineral holdings in the Saden and Ayalamih
Mountains. Using the brutal strategies and
actions commonly associated with colonialism
to their fullest, the Beli engaged in genocide and
ethnic cleansing against the Ölafen and their
way of life. Through broken treaties, military
action, widespread human rights violations,
human trafficking, the enslavement of the
Ölafen, the destructions of their economy, and
the displacement from their lands, the Beli took
over virtually the entire territory of what is now
Belogal. The small number of Ölafen who
survived this time of terror were ultimately forced into small coastal reservations in the least hospitable parts of the far north of Belogal. Since much of the Ölafen economy was built around mining and the cultural context is deeply imbedded in Alpine living, neither of which was present in the far north, the Ölafen were left in a position where they were not able to sustain themselves, let alone thrive as a people. While some of the worst aspects of this colonialism, such as enslavement, have been removed, widespread discrimination and marginalization remains the dominant experience of the Ölafen with the Beli.
​
After Belogal had pushed the Ölafen to the outer edges of their former lands, the Beli government started pursuing its goals of colonizing all of Mir and becoming the undisputed hegemon. In order to achieve this goal, Belogal first attacked the Cornuchuan Plains that had been a shared agricultural resource for all peoples of Mir up to that point. As such, the Cornuchuan Plains had no military forces stationed and Belogal was able to capture the territory in a surprise attack that shocked all of Mir and changed this world forever. The abundance of resources (mining in the mountains on the lands of the Ölafen and the agricultural goods of the Cornuchuan Plains) enabled Belogal to grow to become the
most powerful country in Mir quickly. With this preponderance of resulting power, Belogal colonized most peoples of Mir quickly and created the three countries of Pramatra, Ghanidash, and Hin-Klia to facilitate the administration of the empire.
​
The country borders that were drawn did not
represent the settlements of the different
peoples of Mir. The lands of the Morokhar were
divided into Pramatra and Hin-Klia, disrupting
centuries of cultural practice and economic and
political institutions and networks. The remain-
ing original people of the land in Mir, the Ha’pas,
Kotos, and Oxori became part of Ghanidash with
little to no power and influence over their future.
All three lost some of their traditional homelands
and gave land to some of the displaced Ölafen.
During their rule, the Beli extracted
exorbitant amounts of resources out of the lands
and peoples of Mir to benefit the Beli in a myriad
of ways. This led to a significant imbalance in
wealth distribution and standards of living.
​​
Belogal was unable to capture the territory of Mikhailistan due to its geographic location as an island and because the Mikhails advanced capitalist principles of industrialization and economy growth almost as quickly as the Beli and were therefore able to mount a significant defense that Belogal was not able to penetrate. Ultimately, Mikhailistan managed to integrate its economy into the Beli empire in ways that allowed Mikhailistan to benefit significantly from the asymmetric power structures the Beli had created without needing to devote resources to maintain them. Some argue that Mikhailistan has ultimately benefitted even more from colonialism than Belogal without ever having claimed any foreign territory.
Over the past century, we have seen the rise of anti-colonial movements among all colonized peoples that led to demands by the broader populations and elites of Hin-Klia, Ghanidash, and Pramatra to achieve independence. Belogal did not release any of its colonies voluntarily and multiple wars of independence and prolonged fighting between Beli forces and armed groups of independence fighters ensued. Ultimately, all three former colonies were able to achieve independence, but Belogal maintained control over the Cornuchuan Plains. While political independence was achieved, Belogal maintained control over the formerly colonized countries in other ways and with the help of Mikhailistan.
​
International organizations were created, such as the United
Mirians (UM) a collective security and cooperation
organization that set as its goals the elimination of war, the
protection of human rights, the establishment of just
international laws and institutions, and the prosperity of all
Mirians. Ultimately the UM along with most other newly
created organizations was dominated by Belogal and
Mikhailistan. Scholars have called this system neo-
colonialism, a form of colonialism that still allows for
asymmetric power relations and the one-sided distribution
of benefits of the interactions to this day without the formal
political structures of colonialism. Some say it is colonial
exploitation by other means.
The Great Hadian War
Over the past couple of decades, more and more opposition arose to Belogal’s continued control over the Cornuchuan Plains and Ghanidash, Pramatra, and Hin-Klia formally requested the return of the breadbasket of Mir to collective ownership as it had been prior to Belogal’s invasion. Mikhailistan was overall in favor of this formal request but remained neutral at first due to its longstanding cooperative relationship with Belogal. When Belogal dismissed the request and proclaimed that the Cornuchuan Plains would eternally be a part of Belogal, Ghanidash, Pramatra, and Hin-Klia started building up their militaries. In secret negotiations, all three agreed to engage in war with Belogal to achieve the goal of a collective food source for Mir, if necessary.
Due to its large population, Pramatra increased the size of its
military significantly while Hin-Klia increased its oil
production and refinery capacity to stockpile fuel. Ghanidash
engaged successfully with Mikhailistan and convinced them
to export and transfer significant stockpiles of weapons and
new military technology. Mikhailistan was hesitant and
wanted to ensure its weapons were not being transferred to
non-democratic countries, but due to Belogal’s transition to
an illiberal democracy, Mikhailistan decided to support the
only other remaining democracy, Ghanidash, in this conflict.
​
When Belogal saw large scale demonstrations supporting
liberal democracy in Belogal and opposing the current
government, the leadership was significantly weakened due
to its inability to control the protests and address the
concerns of the population over the course of years. With
large spending on police and domestic military units to maintain power, the Beli government decided to cut spending on its conventional military significantly, relying on its nuclear arsenal for deterrence.
​
When intelligence indicated an opportune moment, Hin-Klia, Pramatra, and Ghanidash gave Belogal an ultimatum to withdraw its forces from the Cornuchuan Plains or face military attack. Belogal rejected the ultimatum and filed an official complaint with the Security Council of the UM. When Mikhailistan announced that it would remain neutral in this conflict, Belogal abandoned the institutional frameworks for conflict resolution and scrambled to prepare itself for the war. Shortly after the ultimatum expired, Pramatra attacked the Cornuchuan Plains from the east, Ghanidash from the west, and Hin-Klia from the south.
​
While most analysts expected prolonged and
intense fighting, the Beli defense crumbled
quickly from this three-pronged attack due to a
lack of resources and significant strategic
miscalculations. Belogal was both surprised by
the size of the attacking Prama forces and the
sophistication of the weaponry Ghanidash
brought to the conflict. When the attacking
forces were able to advance quickly, the
attackers decided to not stop after they had
pushed all Beli forces out of the Cornuchuan
Plains and started to capture some initial
territory in Hadian Crossings. After the Beli
started to engage in settler colonialism on the
lands of the Ölafen in the north and moved their
capital to Laurograd, Hadian Crossings lost its
status as the center of power in Mir, but within the Beli empire, Hadian Crossings remained a strategically important location due to its centrality in Mir and the Cornuchuan Plains.
​
At this point, it was Mikhailistan that submitted an official complaint in front of the Security Council of the UM as it did not agree to or support this expansion of the mission. It asked for an immediate suspension of all hostilities and a negotiated peace. Since the Ghani, Prama, and Hin-Klian forces continued to capture significant territory quickly, they saw no reason to pause and continued to create facts on the ground. Since Belogal had its back against the wall and a loss of the Hadian Crossings would have been an unacceptable outcome for the Beli government, they decided to make the choice that many had called impossible – the usage of a limited tactical nuclear weapon to stop the attacking forces. Without coordination with Mikhailistan, Belogal used this weapon when it appeared it may lose all of Hadian Crossings in the conventional war. All of Mir was shocked.
​
Mikhailistan immediately changed strategy and joined Pramatra, Ghanidash, and Hin-Klia officially in opposition to Belogal. In retaliation for the nuclear attack, Mikhailistan launched the significant drone division of its Air Force and started attacking strategic locations in the capital Laurograd and throughout Belogal. At this point, the Beli government threatened to use more and larger nuclear weapons if aggression against its forces would not halt. This was the last miscalculation of the Beli government. At this point, the
masses that were already organized in opposition to the Beli
government staged large scale protest against the usage of
nuclear weapons in the traditional heartland of the Beli. This
uprising threatened the entire political elite. Instead of using
additional nuclear weapons, Belogal withdrew all of its forces
and evacuated large parts of its population from Hadian
Crossings north of the narrow-fortified passage between the
Saden and Ayalamih Mountains. This led to Mikhailistan
ceasing its hostilities in Belogal and Ghanidash, Pramatra,
and Hin-Klia ramping up their efforts to evacuate all of their
forces from the areas that were seeing elevated radiation in
the central part of Hadian Crossings. While the situation is
calm in Hadian Crossings today, the treaty that ended the war
only addressed the end of the fighting and left the future of
Hadian Crossings very uncertain. All parties agreed that talks
needed to commence to address this situation but at this point it is unclear when this conference will happen since it has been years since the war ended.
