Travels

 

When the Hartsburg Empire crumbled, the various ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious groups that had lived there all asserted their right to national self-determination, as was the fashion at the time.  The problem was that these "nations" massively overlapped, geographically, economically, and sometimes in the very same person, who might have, say, Slovenkian, Kirkosian, and Dragestani anscestors.  The result was the brutal, 31 year long Pekmeniy Civil War, followed by another, 8 year long war whose name is itself a matter of much controversy.  But by the end of this second conflict, the young Yvgeny Przenk, a rising star in the diplomatic corps, came up with a remarkable and unique solution, which managed to restore what was then presumed to be a temporary, fragile peace, but which has since proved surprisingly durable, in a way.  

The Przenk Compromise was as follows: there would now be 108 sovereign nation-states, all of them with exactly the same borders - namely, the borders of the former Hartsburg Empire.  Slovenkia was now a sovereign country, but one that had exactly the same borders as Kirkosia, which had the same borders as Dragestan, Monteverdi, Herzk, and 103 others.  All of these nations were, so to speak, "superimposed" upon one another.  All people could now apply for citizenship to any of the countries they chose, and thenceforth, one's passport would determine which country one was "in" (DON'T LOSE YOUR PASSPORT!).  

Przenk's Compromise proceeded gradually.  At first it was merely a compromise between three of the smaller nations, Geml, Plonz, and Ikhavbuskalissima-Prodnovar.  But soon, through Przenk's deft diplomacy, 12 more nations had joined, and soon more and more.  Eventually, nearly every nation had joined the compromise, with the exception of the largest and most powerful nation, that is, Slovenkia, 6 of its close allies, and 10 others.  Slovenkia at that time was led by the brutal dictator, Parsham Riklov, who was of the view that Slovenkia should rule all of the former Hartsburg Empire - and many Slovenkians agreed.  Nonetheless, eventually most of these nations, too, entered into a separate diplomatic arrangement with the 87 Przenk nations, or at least began to - it is a matter of some historical contention whether this arrangement, known as the Treaty of Boxl, had been finalized and fully ratified - before these negotiations broke down and yet another conflict broke out, the four-year long Grover's War.  Early in the war, Riklov died of a brain hemorrhage, and was replaced by his somewhat ineffectual brother, Steve.  Steve Riklov's administration made tactical error after tactical error, gradually losing any advantage they had once had, resulting in a coup by their top generals, who managed to rule the country for 11 months, after which a mostly peaceful revolution led to a more democratic government, which sued for peace, which led military leaders to head for the hills of the Grzosic Mountains and stage mini-coups of their own, splitting off into 3 more governments (and one of these split yet again, raising the number to 4).  

At the end of the conflict, Slovenkia was fully and unconditionally defeated.  For a few years, the Slovenkian government refused to join Przenk's Compromise.  For that matter, many of the Przenk nations - now 102, for those keeping score - refused to accept Slovenkia into the compromise, or at least not without punitive reparations from the country that they saw as having bullied them for decades.  In fact, some went further - in regions such as Pakobia and Mrksk, locals took to savage attacks on Slovenkians - some of them former military who had previously brutally subjugated them, but many of them simply innocent Slovenkians who were minding their own business and were suddenly dragged from their homes, beaten, harangued, and murdered.  For a moment, it looked as if hostilities were to resume once more.  But that's not what happened.  In the next election, a new regime came to power in Slovenkia, led by the charismatic President Pirsub, one that wanted to put this cycle of ethnic violence forever into the past.  In the historic Asviya Accords, Pirsub pursued, and obtained, entry into the Przenk Compromise for Slovenkia.  And in the subsequent years, together, Slovenkia and the other 102 Przenk nations managed to subdue the other 5 - the four "mountain nations" that had broken off from Slovenkia, plus Vlokh, which had been staging its own separate resistance to the Przenk nations in the west.  Once these were coerced into joining (technically, they have their own separate system, the Dzylastvo Compromise, but over the decades, they have been been legally modified so that they are essentially indistinguishable from the Przenk system), the region had finally reached that previously mentioned number: 108 Przenk nations.

But that number would not last long. No sooner had peace been reached when 12 more religious/linguistic/ethnic groups began to complain that they should be sovereign nations as well.  And in a celebratory mood, sovereignty was almost instantly granted to them, bringing the total number of nations up to 120, which would remain its highpoint.  Indeed, after that, although it seesawed quite a bit, the general trend was for the number of nations in the geographical area to go down.

Only 6 years after the Asyiya Accords, it was discovered that there were several of what came to be known as "ghost nations" - that is, nations with no one in them.  Pratokviva had only 11 citizens, Klapystok had only 3, and six other "nations" had zero citizens.  Zilch.  None at all.  They were nations that only existed on paper, and in the minds of people in the region.  Several other "nations" had only a few hundred citizens each, with very little in the way of meaningful government.