History of the NLC
History of the Northern Lights Confederacy
Until the rise of the Revisionist faith which binds the huge nation together, the various city-states of the NLC were linked only by economic trade or cycles of conflict. In the colonial era, many corporations indulged in the exploitation of the plains and mountains of the northern hemisphere. The Human Concordat began infrastructural development with the creation of the maglev lines between burgeoning settlements as early as TN 499. The Beta Maglev in particular, running south from the Port Aurora spaceport to the ChemCol oil-drilling facilities on the Irrian Plain and into the Badlands, played a central role in the creation of the NLC. This vital trade link lead to the growth of city-states such as Petropolis, Valeria and others. When Earth announced that it was cutting all ties with Terra Nova, the city-states of the northern hemisphere entered a pattern of violence and bloodshed that lasted fifty cycles. The largest of the settlements became city-states and began the construction of make-shift military forces to defend themselves. These citadels of power claimed swaths of rural landscape and resources as their own and fought to defend them from foreigners and marauding raiders, while extracting tributes from smaller communities.
Regional warfare was continuous in this period. In TN 1472, well-armed Keneman forces sacked the cities of Aberdeen and Kartoom in the Auroran Basin, and thus subjugated a whole region. Only Yaramir in the Eastridge Range foothills was able to resist extended Keneman attacks. The situation was just as bad along the Beta Maglev, where the twin cities of Valeria and Port Aurora fought throughout Reconstruction. Petropolis, Skadi and Livingstone also battled at the cost of thousands of lives.
Further south, in the hamlet of Sorrento, the beginnings of a renaissance occurred in TN 1485 when two local youngsters
The Birth of the NLC (TN 1507-1525)
Nathani returned to his birth-place to find a land soaked in blood and crying out for freedom from violence. While his local missionaries had established islands of peace nearby, whole cities lay sacrificed to the altar of greed and fear. Nathani knew that unity could stand in the way of violence and began sending missionaries out to spread the Gentle Word . Nathani himself met with the local agricultural homesteads and proposed a tight cooperation and sharing of resources. The community of greater Sorrento was born from these meetings and included dozens of homesteads and hamlets which cooperated on every level and formed a militia to ensure their defense.
Missionaries and Warlords
The people of the north were ripe for conversion and thriving Revisionist communities were established by missionaries in city-states as far away as Valeria and Sesshu by TN 1515. A new religion which seemed to attract followers by the hundreds and traced its loyalty to Sorrento, Revisionism was branded as an insurgent movement by many local potentates. Kenema expelled Mamoud's followers from the city limits in TN 1512 and Yaramir did the same in TN 1513. Located near Sorrento, Petropolis witnessed an invasion of the faithful and responded with violence in TN 1516. On 29 Spring of that cycle (now remembered as Red Friday), Northern Petrochem attempted to expel the members of a Revisionist commune, who refused to be moved. Violence exploded and three dozen of the faithful were killed before cooler heads prevailed. More blood was shed in the countryside, where the faithful were often attacked by raiders. I n response, a close aid to the Second Follower named Gay1 Daran converted the Sorrento militia into a more potent force designed to defend the faithful on their journeys. Dubbed the Army of Peace, it was sent to protect communities across the Irrian Plain. From TN 1516 to 1520, it constantly clashed with the Petropolitan Militia. I n TN 1518, it also defeated a Keneman expeditionary force sent into the Plain. With this force, Sorrento established its security and announced itself as a military as well as political power.
A League is Born
While the militarization of Sorrento and the spread of missionary activity laid the foundation for the creation of the NLC, it was Reiss himself who took the final step. By TN 1521, Sorrento and Petropolis had reached a rough peace and the major conflict along the maglev line was between Valeria and Port Aurora. Pushed by the appeals of his followers and rumors that Port Aurora wished to pull Petropolis and Srnolensk into its conflict with Valeria, the Second Follower himself decided to travel to the area of conflict. This travel is remembered as the Third Peregrination. Nathani entered the negotiations with a combination of wisdom and dynamism that helped resolve many of the impasses. Soon an armistice was signed, and lasting peace became a possibility for the first time since the departure of the gateships for Earth. This had an especially profound effect on Liana Breas, High Councilor of Valeria. Breas was taken by the aging Second Followefs deep wisdom and drive to spread his ways, and the two began a friendship that would last the rest of Nathani's life. Two seasons later, Breas traveled to Sorrento where she accepted conversion to Revisionism and pledged her citystate to the protection of the faith.
Breas' bold statement was applauded by the healthy Revisionist community in Valeria and decried by the leaders of Port Aurora and Petropolis. Their concerns grew even greater when the Valerian Guard and Army of Peace were integrated into a coordinated military force. Petropolis immediately drove its Militia south toward Sorrento but was repelled by Valerian forces. Petropolis ceased hostilities after a massive Revisionist-backed strike paralyzed the city-state in TN 1923, and Port Aurora was forced to surrender the following cycle. Envoys from Sorrento, Petropolis, Port Aurora and Smolensk (which welcomed conversion to Revisionism) soon traveled to Valeria to begin discussions of a permanent solution for the regional crisis. Liana Breas began to push for a political union based on the shared faith of the region and her views gained popular and political support. On 18 Summer TN 1525, the Articles of Peace were signed and the Northern Lights Confederation was born with Valeria as its capital.
Days of Conflict (TN 1525-1669)
The birth of the NLC may have ended the bloodshed along the Beta Maglev, but it ushered in a period of greater conflict. Revisionist citizens of other city-states began to agitate for their municipalities to join the new Confederation, but few potentates were anxious to submit themselves to the new league. I n Livingstone, local police regularly waded into the crowds with tear gas, clubs and rubber bullets, while in Kenema agitators defylng the Revisionist expulsion were tried for treason. Clearly, chaos was still the order of the day and the NLC needed to respond.
The Great Crusade
In TN 1530, the newly baptized Norlight Armed Forces were sent out on the "Great Crusade" to protect and, if necessary, liberate Revisionist communities that faced oppression. An Auroran force set out from Valeria toward Kenema, while an Irrian contingent left from Sorrento tower, Skadi and Livingstone. The Irrian Campaign was the most successful. In anticipation of the crusaders' arrival, a revolt spread through Skadi which ousted the city's regime and welcomed the Norlight Forces. From there, the Armed Forces started for Livingstone. Fighting was far more difficult against the industrial city-state, but it too eventually surrendered. The Auroran crusaders cut a swath through the Auroran Basin, but Kenema proved a harder nut to crack and a lengthy siege ensued. Finally in TN 1535, Kenema surrendered to superior forces and was brought into the fold. The Keneman government was tried in Valeria for the deaths of those it had executed for treason.
The Crusade ended in TN 1537 after it turned its attention to the city state of Yaramir. The Yaramite government of Primarch Nestor Kiriya, which had previously expelled and persecuted Revisionists, at first seemed ready to bow to Norlight demands in exchange for its continued independence. In TN 1536, Kiriya allowed for a small Revisionist commune to open within the city limits, but the faithful were kept under close watch. When the crusaders swept through several communities in Yaramir's sphere of influence i n response to demands from local Revisionists, the Yaramir commune's inhabitants became hostages. Primarch Kiriya demanded a Norlight withdrawal from the region and threatened to hold the local Revisionists responsible for any actions taken by the crusade. Refusing to let themselves be intimidated, the NLC expedition marched straight for Yaramir. On 12 Summer TN 1537, 55 members of the Revisionist commune were publicly executed in Yaramir Square; the crusaders saw red.
The defiant city-state was not prepared for the full assault that followed. Swollen by volunteers from newly annexed regions, the Norlight Forces burst through Yaramite defenses and put the city to the torch. In an orgy of violence harking back to pre-Revisionist times, soldiers and civilians alike fell under the gun. Before order was reestablished, 3500 Yaramites were dead and many more wounded. The city itself lay in ruins. Sobered and terrified by the bloodlust they had encouraged in the name of peace, the leaders of the NLC put an official halt to the Great Crusade.
The Mercantile Threat
For almost three decades, Norlight diplomats established embassies in most major city-states and, in the aftermath of the Yaramir Massacre, shied away from expansionist policies. President Gabryel Emsala (TN 1547-1561) encouraged other citystates to form leagues of their own in the interest of a balanced political situation. Norlight diplomats actually served as mediators in the negotiations which led to the creation of the Tershaw Cooperative Alliance in TN 1553, which brough together Zagazig, Innsbruck, Djakarta Point, Swanscombe and Kossuth. Unfortunately this policy would have dire consequences when one of the northern leagues embarked on a massive expansionist campaign.
The United Mercantile Federation, formed in TN 1551 in and around the Marathon Basin, was backed by a very welldeveloped military industrial complex with a rapacious business philosophy. In TN 1566, Mercantile forces pushed into the Tershaw region and faced down TCA defenders. The Mercantile expansion into the region rested on a two-fold strategy typical of corporate affairs. The military forces drove straight for the gold and silver mines of Djakarta Point, while the Mercantile diplomatic corps targeted the matriarchy of Swanscombe by offering the city the right to persevere its own social policies while benefitting from Mercantile power. I n TN 1567, Swanscombe announced it was joining the UMF; Djakarta Pint fell to military conquest soon thereafter. Left with little other option, the remaining Tershan city-states (and independent Sesshu) appealed for protection from the NLC and joined the league in the next few cycles. Exeter and Franklin Harbor, located along Lake Clearwater, also joined the NLC during this period - anticipating that the UMF would soon turn its attention to them.
The next hundred cycles were characterized by constant border wars between the NLC, UMF and the Western Frontier Protectorate. The Tershaw Range and Northern Plains were sights of vicious struggles, and troops moved across the region as often as their might would allow. No fixed borders were established until after the creation of the CNCS. This low-level warfare exploded to a fever pitch again in the TN 1660s, when Mercantile forces briefly occupied Kossuth and laid siege to Fort William. While these forays were ultimately repelled, the NLC and WFP became convinced that the UMF needed to be brought down. Signing a secret pact, the two leagues formed a combined expeditionary force which gathered in the Lake Clearwater region, posing a threat to the Mercantile capital of Lyonnesse. I n the Summer of TN 1669, the expeditionary force moved into the UMF and attacked what it believed to be a weak link in the Federation: the city-state of Pioneer.
Northern Consolidation (TN 1669-1723)
The Battle of Pioneer, although remembered as the first victory of UMF armored walker vehicles (see Northern Vehicles Compendium One: Gears and Striders, p. 14). nevertheless sent a message that Mercantile expansionism could only lead to total war. Border skirmishes continued, but large scale Mercantile campaigns were directed toward the Badlands instead of its neighbors. The creation of the Allied Southern Territories in TN 1681 sent shock waves through the North. The Southern Republic was clearly ascendant and aggressive, and Norlight-sponsored discussions on Arctic cooperation began in TN 1683. Mercantile resistance to the plan of unification would continue until the UMF's defeat against the AST in the Merchant War of TN 1686-1688. The Confederated Northern City-States were born on 1 Spring TN 1692.
The CNCS was conceived as a very loose alliance between independent leagues, and remained as such for the first fortycycles of its existence. The leagues were all represented by appointed councilors in Valeria, who made decisions about military and economic cooperation. Even in diplomatic and military circles, the CNCS only had strict authority when conflicts arose between member leagues. Under these provisions, the final borders of the North were drawn by TN 1700.
St. Vincent's War (TN 1723-1729)
St. Vincent's Plague and the subsequent war were the major turning points of the post-colonial period, and brought largescale suffering to the NLC and laid the ground-work for the current shape of the CNCS. The bioplague released during a battle in the Eastern Desert killed huge numbers of children in the Irrian Plain within a cycle. Such a devastating blow to the heart of their church sent Norlight citizens into an uproar. It was Norlight delegates who pressed for concerted military action against the South and it was the Norlight Armed Forces who launched the first assault of the war.
Seasons of disease and cycles of warfare exhausted and destroyed much of the NLC. Several city-states were almost destroyed by Southern forces, a whole generation was killed or maimed and the economy collapsed. Second Follower Lara Domion rose from this chaos to begin the process of healing at the end of the war. She is largely credited with drafting the armistice agreement. Domion's message of reconciliation and reconstruction kept the NLC together in the dark post-war days and led to the strengthening of the CNCS as a superstructure to support the whole hemisphere in its time of need. Most notably, the Northern Guard was established as an independent armed force and the CNCS Supreme Court was created at this time.
Times of Conflict (TN 1729-1913)
Lara Domion is remembered as the last of the truly great Second Followers. All her successors (save the current follower, Thor Hutchison) seemed to guide the faithful into conflict and confusion. The NLC was well on its way to full recovery by the time of Domion’s death in TN 1762, but then the Church became locked in a series of theological and political debates that unraveled some of Domion’s work. Several Second Followers of the period have been judged unfavorably by history, such as the mystic Ali Murayr - who is said to have spent four cycles in silent contemplation before stepping down from the post in TN 1799 - and Lena Morales - who repeatedly called for the annexation of Massada by the NCC in the TN 1840s. The church decentralized during the nineteenth century because Sorrento seemed unable to exert consistent authority. Some regions (including Valeria) saw very liberal interpretations of church doctrine, while others such as Livingstone were home to staunch traditionalists.
Despite the terrifying legacy of the war, North-South conflict continued. The nineteenth century saw a relentless series of skirmishes in the Badlands, diplomatic cold wars and covert operations. The flow of trade along the Beta and Gamma maglevs was suspended on several occasions, with resulting economic recessions. The so-called “Judas Syndrome” which gripped the planet in the early twentieth century, was an expression of the cynicism of the previous 100 cycles. With tensions building toward a global war, many Norlight citizens grew willing to sell out their league for a quick reward. I n TN 1909, the government of President Elias Garbel was forced to resign when it was revealed that defense minister Jakob Spek had been passing secrets to agents of the Humanist Alliance Alliance. Even the church was gripped by internal dissent, and Second Follower Maximilyan Bengali was forced to step down after two cycles service to be replaced by Thor Hutchison Hutchison.
War of the Alliance (TN 1913-1917)
The attempted invasion of Terra Nova by the Colonial Expeditionary Force was a time of both suffering and triumph for the NLC. CEF orbital bombing damaged many of the league’s major city-states, especially Kossuth, Livingstone and Kenama. The major ground warfare occurred on the borders of the UMF and WFP, but Norlight soil saw its share of bloodshed as well. In the Spring of TN 1915, a CEF task force crossed the Serpentine Range and outflanked Terranovan defenders in the WFP. They drove for the industrial center at Livingstone, slaughtered the defenders and occupied the metropolis 21 Spring. The CEF then sent forces to try and secure the northern extension of the Serpentine Range. They were met by 28th Heavy Gear regiment, who fought them back. The CEF was forced to withdraw from Livingstone before they were completely cut off from their lines of supply.
As far as most Norlight citizens are concerned, the war was won thanks to two men: Field Marshal Anders Von Breslau and Second Follower Thor Hutchison. Von Breslau led Terranovan military forces to victory on the battlefield; Hutchison kept the nation together in the face of hardship, using radio and trideo broadcasts to bring a voice of hope to those fighting to save their homes. The CEF repeatedly tried to assassinate these two men, even bombing Sorrento i n TN 1914 to silence Hutchison.
Post-War Period (TN 1917-1933)
After the Treaty of Westphalia symbolized the end of the war, its two heroes had unparalleled prestige. Retiring from military command, Anders Von Breslau became Norlight president in TN 1918. Meanwhile, Hutchison was finally able to reign in the internal divisions of the church and spark a true renaissance in Sorrento Revisionism. The faithful were at the heart of the reconstruction movement, funneling huge amounts of charity money from relatively prosperous areas to those hit hardest by the war. Added to the efforts of the Von Breslau government, this charitable work helped ignite a period of optimism. Von Breslau remained a strong advocate of inter-league cooperation and built much of his foreign policy of strengthening the links forged during the war.
Unfortunately, conflicts that were so prevalent before the war could not be silenced forever. The fiscal policy of the Von Breslau government became unstable in the TN 1920s when the UMF began to reassert their financial independence. Social critics also criticized the President for building too many monuments to the heroes of the war and not enough homes and highways for those who survived it. Criminal activity along the Badlands fringe also increased in the post-war period when guerrillas from the war became desert bandits. In the TN 1924 elections, Von Breslau’s Liberal Democratic Party was soundly defeated and People’s Party leader Kathe Adjanni became president.
Adjanni sees that conflict with the South is not over. She has maintained the strength of the Norlight Armed Forces and increased contributions to the Northern Guard. Her most critical electoral partner has been the Twin Pillars, a religiously based party that ensures that her government remains true to the traditions of the church. Second Follower Hutchison continues to remain in power, and is sometimes directly consulted by President Adjanni on key issues. This cooperation led to the CNCS protectorate over Massada (see Into the Badlands, p. 42 and 64) in TN 1929. Adjanni was reelected in TN 1930 and currently heads a strong coalition government, although she continues to face challenges from both religious and secular circles.
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