What was once our was taken from us long ago, by those forces who delude themselves with tales of granduer. Tales of foolish concepts, such as liberty and individualism. Those who dream these dangerous ideals risk the unity of the Motherland, of great Novmir and her people. The First Crisis in Edofasia was the first domino that sparked an explosive chain reaction that toppled what was once the proud and powerful Novmiran Empire. The autonomous oblast, Alayka, a region plagued by tension with the motherland for an eon prior to the Empire's collapse, had staged a swift and tactical revolt against the Tsardom and withdrew the oblast from Novmir's dominion. The Empire was crippled, her grip on the east weakened, she released her firm grasp of the east and spiralled into oblivion. A period of great unrest followed, stabilized only through brute force and submission, a strategy masterfully employed by the military government that seized the place of the Tsardom, now swept away by revolution. At the forefront of the new unified central state was the newly proclaimed Premier, shortly after which the office was renamed to Prime Minister, Sergei Yashula. A swift rise to power due to the power vacuum and a strong reputation amongst the military's officers and generals enabled Yashula to rise to the forefront of one of the nation's first political parties; Yedinaya Novmir (United Novmir).
The Tsardom of Alayka, the name the former autonomous oblast had adopted following independence (which was never formally recognized by the military government), had weathered the economic turmoil that plagued Novmir far better, due in fact to the region being a valuable strategic and economic oblast to the Motherland. Alayka was an economic powerhouse which fuelled the Eastern Conquest of the mid-17th century, the loss of which remains a stain on Novmir's rich history. The new Novmiran state reformed the country under a state of permanent martial law. Yedinaya Novmir, under Yashula, whipped the country back into shape through a series of policies that brought many of the country's key industries and corporations under the thumb of the state. The newly proclaimed Novmiran Federation, complete with a constitution and multiple branches of government, mobilized the oblasts under a single, all-powerful sham democracy that was the seat of government in Novigrad Square. The Tsardom and the Federation, which was a federation only in name, would debate over jurisdiction and patriotism and heritage for time immemorial. Meanwhile, the Federation licked its wounds, gathered power, and rose to a position of prominence on the world stage. Internationally, Novmir shook off its label as a global backwater and came to command respect as a nation of absolute order, rule of law, and iron-fisted government. The Confederation of Edofasia never took a solid stance on the conflict, largely due to being kept busy by their own political turmoil with the Kingdom of Candanadium, a colonial power situated overseas. The military government viewed this positively and took advantage of Alayka's isolation to engage on a campaign of fear and propaganda. The goal of this campaign would be to apply political pressure on the Alaykan Kingdom top reunite with the Novmiran Federation. A key point of the campaign was to phrase the Kingdom as responsible for the "isolation" of the Alaykan citizens, with the ultimate hopes of fomenting unrest in Alayka and a political coup that would be sympathetic to the Novmiran cause. Novmiran children would recite a venerated quote in school that Sergei Yashula had used to justify the campaign, "Posmotrite na prostory mira i ubedites', chto eto ne ray." (Face the expanse of the world, and see that it is no paradise.)
Statue of Sergei Yashula in Novigrad Square
Alas, the Kingdom proved durable. They endured the campaign, and the Motherland remains fractured. The Novmiran Federation, now under President Artyom Volkov, seeks to rekindle an old conflict and forge new alliances with sympathetic nations such as Sudardes to maintain Novmir's position on the international stage, and to provide security against threats to Novmir's goals of reuniting the Alaykans under a single unified Slavayan state. Namely, the Confederation of Edofasia stands as the most immediate threat to Novmir's goals, as the Confederation had recently carried out an annextion of a parcel of land that belonged to the Kingdom of Alayka. Novmir's ideology of manifest destiny, part of the school of thought known as Slavayan Unity, has been under threat by the growing intrusion of the Confederation of Edofasia, should it continue to establish dominion over Alaykan territory.