Treaty of Cirta

Victory for the Revolution

TREATY SIGNED, FREE AT LAST!
Yesterday, on the Island of Cirta, the Chairman sat down with Emperor Avisong III, and when they stood up, the war had ended.

— Sayles Herald, 139th Zenith, 956 IA

Background

The Revolutionary War

The Revolutionary war was the most bloody conflict the Blue has ever seen. Newly-developed plasma engines allowed for huge behemoths of warships to fly, or, when weaponized into bombs, could just as quickly bring them down. Both sides of the conflict were completely unprepared for the brutality of the newly developed weapons, and the war quickly turned into one of attrition. After the first decade, the huge warships that both sides had started with were long-gone. The Sorcerous Academies that had developed the plasma engines refused to help either side build more. The war slowed drastically, with neither side able to gain a real advantage over the other.

Mutual Blockade

Both Ilysium and Sayles depend on shipments of food and other resources to survive. If one side could control the farming colonies, or even just the shipments they were making, the war could be ended. However, without many warships remaining, neither side had the ability to hold captured colonies for long. The blockades would swing from one direction to the other over the course of the last decade of the war, until the Trade Union captured Boreana, which provides water to a large majority of the farms of the Empire. With this victory, the Empire was forced to agree to a treaty.

Negotiations

Trade Union Aims

Initially, the Trade Union wanted the Empire to be punished for its mistreatment of the colonies. Some clans even wanted to completely overthrow the Empire. However, after a generation of fighting and decades of food shortages, they just wanted the war to end. They even agreed to give complete control of Boreana back to the Empire, despite the leverage that keeping it would have brought them.

Imperial Aims

The Empire initially wanted to crush the rebels completely, as they had done several times previously, to prove that rebellion was useless. They had failed in that regard, and so their next goal was to keep both as much land as possible and as cohesive as possible. One of the ways they did this was by proposing a hard border between the two powers, which would prevent citizens of the Empire from leaving.

Academic Aims

The Sorcerous Academies were not part of the fighting, but their role in the war was incredibly influential, and so they were given a seat at the negotiation table when they requested it. They proposed an equal balance between the two nations, sharing their findings equally, in return for not punishing them for refusing to help during the war.

Treaty Content

1. The Empire ceded the territory now known as the Free Worlds to the Trade Union.
2. Boreana was returned to Imperial control, but water harvested there would be shared without cost should the need arise.
3. The border region between the two nations was defined and mapped. Trade Union ships that crossed into Imperial territory would be fired upon and vise versa.
4. The Sorcerous Academies would share all past and future discoveries with both nations.

Border Skirmishes

Though the war ended with the signing of this treaty, fights still broke out across the border. Clans would often slip into Imperial sky, most commonly to sell goods or steal slaves, and try and get back to Trade Union territory without being caught. Imperial ships would sometimes raid trading ships that flew too close to the border, though the exact positions of ships is hard to tell. The Empire maintains that it has always respected the sovreignty of the Trade Union's sky, but this is patently untrue.

New Era

Though it did not catch on for a few years, people started refering to the years after the signing of the treaty as either the Rivarly Era in the Empire or the Freedom Era in the Trade Union. It was eventually adopted by the Sorcerous Academies in 14 RE/FE, by the Empire by 22 RE, and by the Trade Union by 26 FE.

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