Annmys

Map of Annmŷs



Sôťa Annmŷs (approx. Sôťa Confederation, lit. Sôťa eye-one or ring-union), shortened Annmŷs, is an urbanized and horizontally organized state with highly developed and irrigated agriculture, which is inhabited by the Sôťa people, who speak Sôťa /sɒː̠θa/. The territory of Annmŷs is centered around the river Svenû, which is the only river draining from the entire freshwater ocean north of the river. As consequence, it is deep and extremely wide, 50 miles across at the mouth, with a very large water throughput. The river Svenû is the economic heart of Annmŷs, so much so that Sôťa culture/language and thus Annmŷs territorial control extends almost exactly as far as the influence of irrigation canals sourced from Svenû, which has lead to the territory spreading out across the very most low lying plains around the Svenû, but stopping immediately at regions with even 100 feet of elevation.

History

Sôťa Annmŷs traces its origin to the aftermath of the collapse of pre-impact ancestral Sôťa society. For thousands of years before the impact, a society developed out of the rule of a class of canal builders, who essentially functioned as a ruling class which incorporated populations and territory not by conquest but instead by organizing the construction of massive irrigation canal projects. They then maintained control over these areas by constructing the “nuraghe-like” forts which still cover the land. By the height of their power and wealth, they built at least one for each member of the canal-class, which was a very large number when population levels were in the hundreds of millions.

Their incredibly productive lands made them so successful that this burgeoning state eventually populated the entirety of modern Annmŷs with their great canals. By the eve of the great impact, the unparalleled level of agricultural output of the Sôťa ancestors had grown their population into the hundreds of millions. Almost immediately after the impact, it became clear that a great calamity had occurred and producing enough food for the next year would not be possible, so the ruling canal-class immediately started hoarding almost all of the food. This caused the first major phase of the famine, beginning before the first failed harvest from the impact had even occurred. Society began to break down already by this point, with tensions building between different parts of the ruling class but also between them and the masses as a whole.

The second phase of the famine came when the next harvest as predicted failed entirely. Different coalitions of canal-builders quickly started waging civil wars against each other, simply over access to other peoples remaining food stocks. During this period, the largest proportion of the population died, through war if not through famine.

Eventually, some regions started managing to just barely scrape by with any kind of decent harvest, making it seem like the famine might be over. However, with the total collapse of society, many of the remaining canal-class who resided on the river began using their last few remaining resources to fill the entrances of the canals with rocks and soil, at least those which hadn’t fallen into disrepair already, so as to deny any food production at all to their barely surviving opponents further from the river.

Finally, after almost all of the people who were alive before the impact had been killed, the remaining members of the subjugated class rose up and overthrew their oppressors, easily convincing the near zero manpower they still had to surrender. They formed a confederation based around the “nuraghe-type” forts, but with popularly elected residents held directly accountable to the population instead of the unelected totally dominant canal-builders. This confederation continues until today.

However, the civilization and population after the impact was so thoroughly destroyed that the modern population is still around 1% of its peak, far less than even that until recently. This is largely because the great irrigation canals have laid waste for millennia, with nothing close to the labor necessary to renovate them available until more recently. Now, finally, after a near eternity, the Great Canals have been restored, presenting the possibility that the Sôťa Annmŷs could one day rise to the greatness of its pre impact predecessor.