E-Tarin

e-Tarin, officially the People's Administration of e-Tarin, is a country in western Artemia.

The area that is now e-Tarin has been continuously inhabited by the Tari people and their ancestors since the Paleolithic era. The first human settlement has been dated back to the mid-Neolithic, belonging to the Marir, Rana, Yasisna, and Iramnir cultures. The arrival of the Veikan people in the 9th century meant the end of Tari rule in their lands. The Veikans used the area as a base to expand their conquests further westward towards the coasts. With these conquests and in the subsequent centuries, e-Tarin would become little more a border region within the Veikan kingdom, ruled by various Tari and Veikan marcher lords.

The Veikan dominance was not unchallenged. Numerous ethnic revolts and separatist movements occurred but were crushed through brutal repression by the Veikan crown. These revolts would come a head as nationalism increased in prominence among the native Tarini elite who had previously supported Veikan rule. The Tarini Revolution began in 1897 and resulted in Tarini independence with the recognition of the Kingdom of e-Tarin by Veikaia on 4 September 1899. The Kingdom would rule e-Tarin until the 15 March Coup of 1941 saw the fall of the monarchy with the slaughter of the royal family by a cabal of ethnic Veikan military officers who established a junta to rule the nation. The new government renamed the state to the "State of East Veikaia" and received extensive financial, martial, and diplomatic support from the Veikan monarchy.

This minority rule would persist until 1994 when the 4-year long Blue Revolution came to an end with the fall of the junta and the rise of the Republic of e-Tarin. The Republican government was no less infamous. Its ruling party, the Tari Liberation Front, immediately continued the campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Veikan minority that they had conducted during the civil war. The one-party Republic is estimated to have killed nearly 200,000 ethnic Veikans with nearly 500,000 more fleeing the country over the course of its rule. The Republican government, in turn, fell following the devastating multi-sided civil war that ravaged the nation for nearly fifteen years from 2003 to 2018 when the Republican forces surrendered to the People's United Front for a Free Tari and the People's Administration was established.

Etymology
The country's name in Tari, Maqda i e-Ula i e-Tarin, literally translates to "Administration of the People of the Hills". The Veikan language holds co-official status and so another official form of the nation's name is Kejandi Admistraca di ale Keminua.

Prehistory
The area that is now e-Tarin has been continuously inhabited by the Tari people and their ancestors since the Paleolithic era. The first human settlement has been dated back to the mid-Neolithic, belonging to the Marir, Rana, Yasisna, and Iramnir cultures. Neolithic settlements developed into hilltop towns whose rule was largely restricted within the valleys and hilltops in which farmed what they could in the rocky soil and raised sheep and goats. The lack of a written language prior to the Veikan migrations has led to little being known about these ancient civilizations.

Classical antiquity
These hilltop settlements evolved into fortified city-states as the Iron Age entered the region. Wars and alliances between these city-states resulted in constantly changing and developing borders and cultures. It was in the 2nd century BC that the idea of a united Tari people arose. Ancient writers defined this common identity as those who spoke the Tari language, believed in the Tari pantheon, and lived in the Urari Mountains and along the banks of Lake Salzee. The name of this people, Tari, itself means "hill/mountain-people" and represented the Tarin's origins high in the Uraris and the extreme reverence they held for the peaks.

The genesis of this common identity resulted in greatly increased cooperation between these independent city-states to permit more fluid exchange of resources and to defend against encroachment by foreign powers. Curgov and Geudic tribal federations launched repeated raids and incursions into the hills. These raids led to great amounts of tension and conflict between the neighboring peoples for centuries which saw the Tari culture become increasingly militaristic and reliant upon their fortified hill settlements known as tartan (composed of the Tari word "tar" meaning "hill" and the suffix -tan meaning "fortified" or "covered"). Tartanin began to develop beyond the previous simple trade relationships and offensive alliances into more closely bound and mutually dependent confederations of tartanin. A tartan alone might hold within it the lands of dozens of clans while a confederation as a whole might be able to muster the warriors of hundreds.

Medieval period
The beginning of the medieval period in e-Tarin is largely defined by the arrival of the Veikan migrations. The Veikans began leaving their homeland in modern-day Modrovia in the 9th century CE following displacement caused by various invading peoples. They began moving in a northwesterly direction and eventually entered the lands of the Tari confederations. Their reception by the local Tarin was mixed with some tartanin granting them passage or settlement and others actively resisting the newcomers. In the face of these migrants, many even outright swore fealty and submitted themselves to vassalage under new Veikan overlords. Various Veikan chiefdoms and small kingdoms were established by the Veikans.

By the 10th century BCE, the Veikans had come to conquer or otherwise subjugate the entirety of modern e-Tarin. They used the metals of the hills to fashion weapons and used the fierce hillsmen in their armies as warriors to supplement their own pike formations. Namely, the lightly armored axemen made perfect shock troops and light infantry and the renowned Tari slingers permitted them to launch lead pellets with force to pierce through even metal armor or crush skulls. Tari nobles and chiefs even became high ranking officers and merchants within the upper tiers of local Veikan society.

However, e-Tarin were not the end goal of the Veikans. They had their eyes set on reaching the Balearic Coast and e-Tarin simply acted as a springboard from which they could launch their further invasions. Besides the fact of their subjugation, aid towards the Veikan efforts also allowed the Tarin to finally achieve victory over their centuries old enemies, the Geudic peoples. Tari warriors fought for the Veikans as they fought to establish the Kingdom of Vipuski and further through the conquests over the centuries until the establishment of the Kingdom of Veikaia which encompassed the lands of e-Tarin.

The previous system of multiple Veikan-ruled kingdoms within e-Tarin was dissolved and, in its place, these previous rulers were converted into vassals of the Veikan king known as Kunajo di Gorna, or "frontier lord". They each held sway over several tartanin which were in turn ruled by subservient Tari lords. Inter-clan warfare was often encouraged by the Veikans who ruled them as a method of a "divide and rule" policy of governance. The combination of internal division and permission of nominal rule by Tari vassals meant that Tari resistance to Veikan rule was relatively infrequent and small in scale for centuries.

Kingdom of e-Tarin
With the beginning of the Century of Revolution, levels of unrest grew greatly within e-Tarin as it did in the rest of Veikaia. The Tari nationalist movement grew greatly in power and influence as the populace began pushing against their Veikan overlords. Public protests were often forcibly put down, minor rebellions crushed, and the use of the Tari language suppressed. In one incident known as the Tasht Massacre on 14 October 1896, Veikan troops opened fire on a crowd of Tarin throwing debris at them. 11 Tarin were killed and the Tari protestors responded by charging the Veikan soldiers. They responded with bayonets lowered and ready. By the end of the day, 23 Tarin lay dead with another 130 wounded. 1 Veikan soldier died of his wounds caused by a rock thrown at his head. 18 more were recorded as being injured by the protestors.

Unrest and ethnic tensions would lead to the formation of various secret societies and groups dedicated to the cause of Tari independence. The public protests continued and were responded to with increasing levels of violence and the Tari met this repression with violence in turn. This violent rebellion came in the form of open combat. Instead, Tari insurgents generally resorted to arson, sabotage, theft, and assassinations. Generally, these assassinations were conducted as publicly as possible and performed using the traditional Tari battle ax, the ran, or a hunting knife. One prominent example being Duke Gareo Sari, the Veikan minister of the interior at the time. He was killed by a Tari teenager while having lunch who struck him with a ran four times before he was killed by the Duke's guards. The Duke was dead before he fell from his chair.

The repeated acts of rebellion and insurrection eventually boiled over into open war as a network of nationalist secret societies, known simply as the Organization, declared open war upon the Veikan crown on 11 June 1897. Using a highly developed and specialized system of messengers, encrypted telegrams, and a system of heliographs hidden in the hills, the Organization launched a series of coordinated attacks against Veikan facilities and personnel within e-Tarin. Tari civilians who were forbidden from owning any firearms used the element of surprise, clubs, and axes to attack Veikan military armories and seize weaponry and equipment. These attacks were often aided by Tari soldiers within ethnically segregated Royal army units turning on their Veikan officers and joining the rebels.

By 1898, the organization controlled nearly 30% of e-Tarin and claimed to have nearly 200,000 men under arms. The launching of the Southern Offensive in mid-1898 resulted in significant Tari gains over the next 6 months and control over nearly the entirety of the southern half of the territory. The capture of the Veikan regional capital of Mashrir dealt an extremely significant blow the Veikan effort and resulted in the Organization declaring the new Kingdom of e-Tarin as a monarchy under King Vorham I and independent from the Veikan monarchy.

Faced with nearly unbearable levels of domestic unrest and the clear inability to continue the war effort in e-Tarin, the Veikan king sent a delegation to negotiate a peace settlement with the Tarin. In one final humiliation, the treaty which ended the war was signed in the city of Mashrir. Under the terms of the treaty, Veikaia recognized Tari independence and set the boundaries for the new state. In exchange, e-Tarin agreed to pay the Veikan crown a sum of 16 million Veikan Okiov ($1.43 billion USD 2022) as compensation for the Veikan loss of land and private property seized or destroyed by the Tarin. Additionally, Veikans who had remained in e-Tarin throughout the war were given 6 months to leave or remain. Those who remained were to become Tarini citizens with the same rights as the Tarin, at least on paper. Mashrir was declared the capital of the new kingdom.

The new Kingdom of e-Tarin was immediately faced by numerous problems that prevented it from prospering. This kingdom represented the first united Tari monarchy in history and so the numerous Tari clans were unused to the idea of a single Tari king. King Vorham I, also known as Vorham the Lame (so called due to his congenital inability to walk) was from Clan Harir who had their historical powerbase along the shores of Lake Tarimir. He generally faced opposition from the southern clans who had largely formed the powerbase of the revolution and had only supported Vorham for the throne due to his family's wealth and as a compromise with the northern clans. The southern clans wished to weaken the power of the king while Vorham sought to pass reforms to further centralize power.

Another major issue faced by the new king was repairing the damage done by the war. Veikan military strategy had largely held little regard for any distinction between civilian and military infrastructure. Numerous bridges, roads, and dams within the hills had been destroyed. Additionally, certain aspects of the Tari war strategy had centered around scorched earth tactics in order to deprive the Veikans of relief and supplies within the rough terrain. Herds of sheep and goats had been slaughtered, fields burned, and entire towns burned to the ground. This gave a significant advantage to the rebels who had their bases of resistance in the rural highlands rather than within more urban locales. These factors combined had resulted in significant reduction in production by the Tarini economy. Modern historians estimate that the economy of e-Tarin overall suffered a nearly 16% drop in GDP. It is further estimated that nearly 400,000 Tarin lost their lives in the revolution and the famines which followed.

The final major factor considered by historians to have severely hampered the kingdom was the indemnity owed to Veikaia. Even though e-Tarin had won the war, the massive compensation they had agreed to pay represented a significant portion of their economy. The inclusion of the compensation had been central to getting the Veikans to agree to end the massively destructive war. Numerous Tari figures within the king's council called for Vorham to default on the debt but that course of action was similarly argued against by others who believed e-Tarin wouldn't survive another war. So, e-Tarin was forced to take out significant loans from various sources, including from Veikan bankers, in order to pay the sum.

State of East Veikaia
One of the consequences of the Tari internal divisions was a significant distrust by the Tari king of his own people. As such, Veikans were increasingly frequently entrusted to occupy significant positions within the royal government and army. By 1938, ethnic Veikans occupied 41% of all officer's positions within the army and made up 23% of all soldiery, despite only making up 13% of the overall population. Contributing to this massively disproportionate presence in the army was the existence of numerous statutes which discriminated against Veikans by blocking them from occupying certain professional positions like teachers or engineers, blocking them from trading in money, and prohibited them from owning more than 2 acres of land.

In 1941, this situation reached a breaking point. Upset at their second-class status and with significant support from the Veikan monarchy, a group of Veikan military officers within the Royal Guard and the 2nd and 5th Infantry Divisions based near Mashrir launched a coup and seized control of the capital. They were supported by the Veikan monarchy who provided significant aid in the form of mercenaries and arms for the conspirators. King Horow II and his queen consort were subjected to a trial presided over by the three chief conspirators and declared guilty of numerous crimes before being executed by firing squad, all behind closed doors. Additionally, the king's other four wives and all of his children were executed, along with numerous other members of the royal household. All told, 89 members of the royal household were killed, 14 loyalist soldiers died defending the royal family, and 4 conspiracist soldiers died.

The new regime declared the end of the Kingdom of e-Tarin and established itself as the State of East Veikaia. Its foundation and existence relied heavily upon the Kingdom of Veikaia to its west. In order to gain and keep the goodwill of the majority Tarin, Veikaia forgave the remainder of the Tarini debt and began providing immense amounts of aid to the beleaguered state. By 1945, approximately 48% of the foodstuffs consumed in East Veikaia were sourced from Veikaia. This was the first time since the nation's independence where there had been an abundance of food. East Veikaia also relied significantly upon Veikaia for military aid. Veikaia became the primary source of armament for the East Veikan military by far.

Another significant effect of the change in power was in the field of demographics. The removal of previous restrictions on ethnic Veikans and the opportunity to expand into the nation's burgeoning economy resulted in significant amounts of Veikans emigrating from Veikaia to East Veikaia. By 1990, Veikans made up nearly 18% of the population of East Veikaia. Immigrants purchased significant amounts of land and hired the Tarin who had previously owned it to work the land for them or in the factories which they built on it.

East Veikaia did not possess many of the same openly discriminatory practices of the Kingdom of e-Tarin. Instead, it operated under an ideal of "separate but equal". Veikans and Tarin used different bathrooms, attended different schools, ate in different restaurants, and lived in different homes. Nominally, these were all supposed to be equal in quality and treated equally by the government but, in reality, Tari facilities were often of a much more inferior quality. For instance, Veikan schools received nearly 8 times as much funding per student than Tari schools.

Additionally, when democratic elections were implemented in 1948 with the end of military rule, Tarin technically had the same voting rights as Veikans but faced significant obstacles to voting. Poll taxes were implemented which largely prohibited poorer Tarin from voting. Another hurdle implemented were the "political awareness examinations". These examinations, ostensibly designed to ensure a citizen was politically conscious enough to vote, were really designed to prevent the majority of ethnic Tarin from voting as it required literacy in both Veikan and Tari, the two co-official languages of East Veikaia. Tari schools did not teach Veikan while Veikan schools taught both languages. Rich Tarin could afford to hire private tutors to teach their children to speak Veikan and communities often pooled money to hire a private teacher to teach members of their community. Despite this, by the time of the abolition of the political awareness examinations in 1988, only 14% of Tarin could read, write, and speak fluent Veikan. In the 1972 parliamentary elections, 85 out of 101 members elected were Veikan.

Republic of e-Tarin
The beginning of the Veikan Civil War in 1972 represented the beginning of the end for East Veikaia. Without critical support from Veikaia, the East Veikan government could not as firmly maintain their minority rule. Rebellion among the ethnic Tarin began to increase in frequency and was often responded to with police brutality and increased suspension of rights. Pro-Tari political parties were outlawed and gathering of Tarin in groups greater than 4 was banned in 1978. Live ammunition, tear gas, and riot shields were commonly used against Tari protestors.

In 1988, secondary students in Tala took to the streets in the Tala uprising to protest against the political awareness examinations. On 16 June, police opened fire on students protesting peacefully. According to official reports, 43 people were killed, but the number of people who died is usually given as 176, with estimates of up to 700. In the following years several student organizations were formed to protest against segregation, and these organizations were central to urban school boycotts in 1990 and 1992 and rural boycotts in 1989 and 1990.

In parallel with student protests, labor unions started protest action in 1989 and 1991. After 1978, unions and workers are considered to have played an important role in the struggle against apartheid, filling the gap left by the banning of political parties. In 1989, Tari trade unions were legalized and could engage in collective bargaining, although strikes were still illegal. Economists write that basic supply and demand led to violations of segregation "on a massive scale" throughout the nation, simply because there were not enough Veikan business owners to meet the demand for various goods and services. Large portions of the garment industry and construction of new homes, for example, were effectively owned and operated by Tarin, who either worked surreptitiously or who circumvented the law with a Veikan as a nominal, figurehead manager.

These protest actions finally resulted in the government's inability to maintain power and a wish to avoid a disastrous civil war which the Veikans had little hope of winning. All restrictions on the Tari majority were repealed and the 1996 elections resulted in the first majority Tari parliament. 91 out of 106 members of the 1996 Parliament were ethnic Tarin. 84 of these MPs were members of the previously outlawed and militant Tari ultranationalist Ran Party.

One of the first major acts of this new parliament was the suspension of the 1948 Constitution and the calling of a new constitutional convention where Ran representatives made up the vast majority of delegates. The new constitution declared the Ran party as the sole legal party within the new Republic of e-Tarin and the delegates from other parties found themselves compelled to ratify the new constitution at the barrel of a Ran militiaman's gun.

With power now firmly in their hands, events within the Republic progressed at a rate which no contemporary observers had expected. The Veikan minority had agreed to transition to multiracial elections as a method of hopefully assuaging the Tari anger at their previous oppression and to avoid a violent civil conflict. Instead, the Ran Party immediately began what largely amounted to and is internationally considered to be a genocide of the nation's Veikan population. Supported by laws which drove Veikans from virtually every sector of society, ethnic Veikans were at first simply forced into labor camps scattered throughout e-Tarin where they were forced to work the mines which they had previously presided over. Conditions were abysmal and hours long. Many thousands died in these early years from overwork and workplace accidents alone.

It wasn't until 1998 that the the treatment of Veikans turned into outright genocide. Those who had not yet been forced into the camps began to be slaughtered in their homes as Ran militiamen kicked in doors and declared that the inhabitants of the home had been found guilty of treason by virtue of being Veikan and executed in their homes. Within the camps, Ran overseers began punishing Veikan laborers much more harshly. Failure to meet quotas or collapsing at your workplace began to be responded to with simply a bullet through the offender's skull. Veikans were often denied proper burials and it was not an uncommon sight to instead see bodies pushed into immense holes as mass graves or burned in giant pyres. Sexual violence was rife, with an estimated 300,000 ethnic Veikan women raped during the genocide. Many Veikans additionally fled as refugees to neighboring nations, particular Veikaia. The border was strictly patrolled by Ran militiamen in an attempt to prevent their escape but many still succeeded in fleeing. An estimated 200,000 Veikan refugees are estimated to have fled to Veikaia proper with an unknown number fleeing to other nations. Accurate estimates are difficult to ascertain as the haphazard nature of the killings meant that few records were kept.

People's Administration of e-Tarin
The atrocities and abuse of the Republican forces were first significantly challenged in

Demographics
According to the 2020 census, e-Tarin had a population of 68,548,283. It is estimated this has increased to as much as 72,300,000 as of 2023 as part of the post-war baby boom and as refugees return from the camps in Veikaia and Ostboland. e-Tarin has yet to recover to its pre-war population of an estimated 78,485,290 as refugees remain in their place of asylum and due to fatalities sustained in the war.

Ethnic Groups
e-Tarin's population is made up of two main ethnic groups: the native Tarin and the local Veikans. As of the 2020 census, the Tarin made up 89% of the population while the Veikans make up a further 9%. Numerous other ethnic groups make up the remaining ~2%. Relations between these two main ethnic groups is the main guiding factor in Tarini domestic and foreign policy. A history of strife between the two groups has been partially overshadowed by the positive interactions and cooperation between the Veikan resistance groups and Tari socialist factions in the civil war against the Republican government.

Economy
The economy of e-Tarin is classified as a transitioning economy and has been left severely damaged by the civil war. The nation's GDP has yet to reach its pre-civil war level of $584 billion. As of 2022, the nation's GDP was estimated at $332 billion. Mining is by far the economy's largest sector, accounting for nearly 29% of the national GDP. Mineral refining and automotive manufacturing additionally make up large sectors of the economy. Factories which had been used to produce, repair, and modified armored vehicles during the civil war have been retooled to produce civilian vehicles and machinery today. Additionally, the cottage firearm industry which blossomed during the war has grown into a moderately sized and widespread industry with factories producing firearms, explosives, and crew-served weapons which have begun to see use around the world.

The Tarini economy is based around a worker-managed system which has resulted in average wage being higher than it would be otherwise in the devastated economy. Factories and mines are ran as cooperatives by their workers and communes who distribute profits according to votes held semi-annually among its workers and citizens. Natural resources are mined by corporations owned by the commune which administers that region and treated as being commonly owned by the citizenry of that commune. This follows the ancient Tari custom of villages and towns being based around the mines which dominate the hills and mountains that make up the center of their nation.