Newborn Nation (Roskanan Razgrina IA Thread)

[VoxApocrypha]

Spring, 1930 
Island of Razgraz, Razgrina Archipelago, Arema
Lost Strongholds of the Roskanan Tsarists

---

 Slowly, Argo would lower herself into her seat, still wearing the black and gold military style uniform that she had worn when she had attended the funeral. Her father, Tsar Rataz Utinal Apolla, of Roskana.. or formerly, of Roskana anyway, had died of a overdose and passed in his sleep. She stared at the far wall with a glazed over expression, as the ministers of whom she knew the names of all, and the crimes thereof, filtered inside and would take their own seats, a few of them however not taking their seats. It was disrespectful. She knew what they were doing. 

 It'd be put down soon. She had seen to that. 
And by the end of this meeting she'd be the strongest political authority in the Tsardom.. and could bring about real change for the better. 
But not with these baffoons running around. They'd made a mockery of Roskana before and the Tsar hadn't been any better, but he had been her father - these men and women were little more than political appointees from an era that'd ended thirty years ago, caused by their own stupidity. 

 With how they were trying to run their show now, they'd likely do the same thing again before too long if not dealt with.
Her solution to this problem was a permanent, and effective one. She'd just break it to them. 

 "..As you all know," Argo would say, her pupils narrowing in and intensely focusing on the eyes of the standing men towards the back, "My father died of an overdose two nights ago. I attended the funeral today and have read his will, and it is rather vague. It does not specify what the inheritance should be put towards, only that it go to the 'Highest of the Imperial Court'." She'd lean forwards, resting her muzzle atop of the knuckles of her hands, the Festria woman staring at the leader of this little political insurrection in the making, the oldest of the ministers, the man with a cane staring back at her. 

"That inheritance thusly, goes to the highest member of that court. Me. As well, his authority now falls upon me." 
She'd say. She raises a hand before the man can try to rebuke her, continuing. 

"And as highest officer of the Imperial court," She'd reach down with her other hand, pressing on a small red button beneath the table, "I am granted authority to remove from power any who threaten the safety of the nation and as well would seek to jeopardize its function, for personal gain." 

 The doors at either end would open, as a number of soldiers wearing black uniforms would enter the room, holding Gladius's in their fighting hands, while behind them a number of others holding sidearms would stand by the doors, blocking the exits. A moment later, wriggling bodies wrapped in rope and tape would be thrown in with them, and more and more would be added, as Argo continued to speak. 

 "I know one of you did such a thing. In fact, that all of you did. That my father's most trusted ministers would assassinate him was never something I would have considered but in truth I should have expected it. My father, bless him, was not the brightest of men.. but I am not my father. I am not interested in playing the game of politics with subsapients like yourselves, uninterested in the betterment of your society and only with the lining of your pockets and ascension of your power - to a throne you are undeserving of." 

"You cannot-" 

Princess Argo would take from inside of her uniform's top, a sidearm, pulling back the slide and loading a round into the chamber. 
"I can. I will." She'd then take aim at the oldest man's head, and fire once, a bullet scrambling their brains as they fell backwards, blood spraying from their collapsed cranium, the Festria-sized bullet relative to that of the human sized firearms being a fair bit more powerful than such. "I did." 

She'd stare at the corpse for a few seconds, deafening silence settling in the room before she'd clear her throat, with a gentle quiver to her hand that she suppressed as best as she could, she set her weapon in its holster in her uniform, and put her hands behind her back, clearing her throat. 
"Wipe the slate clean, gaurdsmen." She'd say. 

Then the killing started. Panicked men and tied women would be executed, slaughtered brutally by the Imperial Guard, the screaming lasting only a minute before the smell of blood and death settled on a now silent room. 
Argo stared straight ahead, and turned around, as the soldiers began to collect the bodies and carry them out into the hall, placing them on stretchers and covering them with tarps. 

Argo had already made funeral arrangements, but it'd take place on an island off the coast of Razgraz, where the wooden boats would be able to burn without attracting much attention. 
She'd leave the room, and then leave the building, placing the Laurel crown of the Tsar on her head as she would go, and seating it firmly as the shaking in her hands intensified, and she made her way back to the Imperial Palace, staring straight ahead and soon making her way inside, holding her hands together tightly. By the time she had made her way to the throne, her quivers were full-body, running down her form and back up again like they were racing to go from head to toe. She stared at the throne, as a few of the maids and a pair of the Imperial Guard's finest would step into the room behind her, with her younger brother among them, watching as she would slowly ascend the steps, and then take her seat on the throne, resting her arms on the arm rests and leaning back, relaxing into the seat. 

"And so it shall be.." The Imperial Guard captain would say, as the other Guardsman would crouch on one knee and bow his head in respect, the others doing the same. 

Argo would take a deep breath.
"..As of today, I crown myself Tsar, of the Tsarist Imperium of Razgrina." She would say. "And no one shall challenge that authority. Inform the couriers and spread the word." She'd order. The Guard captain, and her younger brother would both nod their heads, one from habit and the other out of respect, before both would turn to make their way to the barracks and courier stations with haste.

 By the next day, the entirety of Razgrina had been told of the news. 
And anticipation mixed with fear, curiosity, and myriad other emotions felt across the archipelago, as they awaited the proper proclamation of a new Tsar. 

[VoxApocrypha]

Summer, 1930
Tsardom of Razgrina - Office of the Tsar 

 Sitting in the seat, Attila, brother of Argo, would be seated behind a wooden desk that sat without decor. Only a pen, a mountain of papers, and a small flag on a stand. The room was bare of decoration after Argo had striped it so, and this had been a intentional decision made by her to get rid of the minister's personal wealth. She sought to it that more often than not, these pieces of wealth and power were being removed from the possession of now shell-estates, the people who would have otherwise stopped her and him from doing so now dead. They'd been burned to ash weeks ago off the coast of the main island, on old Triemes built for the occassion by specialist ship-workers. It was an old tradition, but adhered to. 

 Argo herself was in her office, making plans. She had told them they had a plan for how to generate revenue for the nation, and as well to potentially make a fall-back point for them to evacuate to should Roskana proper decide to retake the island in light of their proclamation of existence, whenever that'd be. He wasn't sure entirely what the plan entailed, and he was mostly focusing now on recording the government's assets, in particular now he was going through those of the Tsar's spy agency, the Razgrina Special Branch.  

 Of which was missing a curious number of agents that had been there not that long ago. 
Well, missing for most wasn't true. They were all probably dead, except a couple of whom had been sent to Roskana proper. This worried him, because these two agents were among the more highly trained, and as well, likely the ones who were supposed to be used to destabilize Arema. The Tsar, before he died anyway, had been plotting to try to take back the surrounding region, but it had been a plan conceived mostly out of idiocy, and the new Tsar had scrapped the idea of starting fights with Roskana to begin with. 

 He was in particular, more worried about what might happen if a spy did manage to make it to a place they could do damage. 
If the plan was in motion already they'd likely learn about when Roskana sent an envoy.. or the corpses of the two spies back in a raft. 
He would have to try to get someone to track them down later, but that would be difficult, given how ravaged the command structure of the agency they worked for had been by Argo's purge. 

 He turned his attention to more papers, going over them one by one at a lightning pace as the day wore on.

---

Argo's Office

 Attila slowly walked into his sister's office, holding a bag of paperwork and wearing his tired expression on his face. Argo had cleared her desk off, and most of the papers were neatly stacked. 

"What's our situation look like?" Argo asked as she spoke up, sipping from a cup of tea.

"Economic destitution." Atilla replied. "Numerous vehicles aren't registered officially as they belong to the RSB. A lot of wealth was lost when the ministers were killed and what we didn't get fled with its capital." They'd sit down next to her in another seat, sighing. "Our spending is still significant compared to the debt we're racking up." He'd tell them. 

 "I have a plan in mind that might work for getting us out of hot water." Argo'd say. "Into.. lukewarm, water." Argo would set her cup down on her desk. "..Do you know of the concept of the Mercenary Army?" 

"..I'm familiar with it. Why?"

"I intend to offer our military as a mercenary force to fight on the behalf of other states for large sums of money. I also intend to start trying to reopen proper trade.. and as well, I want to try to reach out to Roskana and Kumosenkan to get Roskana to recognize us as independent. And Kumosenkan to recognize our sovereignty. Part of why I want to use that mercenary army. We will have a policy of not operating against Roskana and Marrlan - but we will be willing to work with Kumosenkan and generally be more so officially neutral." 

 She would cross her legs. 
"As well, I have sent an envoy to the Kithium League." She would say. "To see about properly re-establishing relations and seeing if they still recognize the Tsar and their authority in some capacity, even if its just as royalty. Means we have somewhere to go potentially if we have to leave Razgrina." 

Attila tilted his head, the Festria staring at the wall.
His silence lasts for a few moments, before then he would ask, "They're not usually accessible because of the ice half the year.." He'd say. 

"That's why to get through them, I'm going to use what we've got, to get one of those port cities that the Mil'Nor are offering to buyers. The Kithium will help foot the bill, reap benefits from being able to interact with us, and as well it means we get access to some additional resources in the long-term. Perhaps even re-establish the old Dominion system between Razgrina and the League like before the Uprising."

"Are you sure this'll work?" Attila'd ask her. 

"No, but we need to do something, and this is the best i've got for ideas. Either that, or we let Roskana re-absorb us. It'd probably be a better solution to our problems than going it alone, but we'd both probably end up in prison for life." 

"..When do the envoys arrive in Mil'Nor and the League?" Attila'd ask her. 

"Sometime soon, the League. I was honestly planning to kidnap you and go there if this all failed anyway, so they were already on the way when I killed the ministers. Mil'nor, I'm going to send them telegrams and arrange for the meeting first, and then dispatch the ship. We're as well, going to start trying to combat piracy in our local volume again. It'll be better for our image if they see us do something other than antagonize our cultural homeland."

Attila nodded. "Sounds like a plan." 

[VoxApocrypha]

Razgrina, Tsardom of Razgrina
1930, Fall, 28th of Vaylien



Office of the Tsar

"They went to Roskana." 

"Are you sure?" Argo asked. 

"There is nowhere else that they would have gone." Atilla replied to his sister, holding his hands together in his lap. 

Argo would put her hands together and rest her muzzle between them, taking a deep breath. "..Do you know what their mission was?" 

"From what I recall they were supposed to be a phase four actor, but also a last resort one. An assassin. They were sent there because the Tsar died, and without the tsar to keep them leashed they went and acted on a contingency." 
Atilla would swallow. "..We won't know if they do or don't succeed until after they try, but either way, it will have radical and negative consequences for the Tsardom." 

"Oh no kidding.." She murmured. "Do we have any options?" 

"Hope and pray, beg for forgiveness from Razgraz and Roskana directly. Atop of all that, we announce to the world what's happened since the tsar died. If nothing else, we'll have tried." Atilla would say, shrugging his shoulders as he slumped into his chair, the exhausted Festria laying back and staring at the wall. Argo's hands drifted to her temples, rubbing them as her headache began to return full force once more, a long sigh escaping her lips. 

 "Have the proofreaders finish a new draft.." 

[VoxApocrypha]

Winter, 1931.
Razgrina. 

---

 Over a year had passed since the Tsar's appointment. 
And things had simply deteriorated too fast to remain viable. 
Despite their use of what assets they had to increase trade and to keep their population fed, the reality was that this was failing and it was failing rapidly. 
In large part, it was because so much of the infrastructure necessary for it was controlled by a power they'd spent 30 years apart from, and a currency that was controlled by the rebel government of whom had become the legitimate government of their nation in the eyes of the world itself. 

 And so, things eventually came to a head. 
In the northern summer of 1931, the first shortages of materials and grain were reported. 
Things only got worse after that. Steadily, the population began to grow roudy and aggressive, and despite efforts to police them, the lower class eventually overpowered the military itself - which wasn't too shocking. 
Because the military itself had started siding with the people over the Tsar and her government, and the police, what few there were, were not interested in trying to uphold rule of law when their own families were barely getting by. 

Steadily, smuggling increased, and with no effective means of establishing a lasting regime available to them with the overall collapse of the barely functional prior system thanks to her murder of its strongest figures, it was clear that Argo's options were down to only a handful, and each led to another dilemma. And so she made a decision herself. 

 She gave up, and gave in. 
Officially dissolving several agencies of the old Tsardom, the Tsardom itself was abolished.. and Argo overnight, after such a proclamation, disappeared from the Island to which her rule was centered from. As did her brother.

 In its place however, the guard stepped in to try to seize back control, with what loyalists they still had. But 25,000 men isn't enough to police even small nations, and as the population of soldiers and others began to leave using the aging ferries, escaping the island itself to the others in a growing exodus to try to be closer to the smugglers and increasingly more legitimate entities delivering food to the islands at a incredible cost to the population's own finances, the guard was barely able to muster roughly 40,000 people to close the ports.. leaving only 100,000 people too poor to leave on that rock with them. It had only had 400,000 to begin with, and many of them had been rebels, of whom were fighting with an insurgency called 'Wolf's Head', or 'Wolf's Militia', of which was made up of the rest of the former Tsarist military and what little naval assets they had had. 

 The collapse of the regime was swift and simple after, as Wolf's Militia overwhelmed the island itself in short order, and the rebel leader in the popular takeover steadily began to arrest, kill or otherwise deal with the loyalists, while sending emissaries to Roskanan Arema to.. well, not ask.
To Beg, for help. To return to the world proper under the protection of their parent country and to get the food and medicine they needed from the only entity they really cared to connect with again. Many of the people there had families back in the mainland or Arema, many more simply wanted out of this little prison state they'd existed in for in many cases, decades. Some had no choice if they wanted their kids to live. Some, still yet saught means to escape, knowing that if Roskana took control of the islands again, and their identities were found, they'd be likely executed as war criminals. 

 The exodus from Razgrina and its collapse into a warlord held chain of islands, eventually became wider knowledge, as ships sailed to other Areman islands or in a few cases, out into the open sea. 
Roskana, for its part, barely took notice at first. But when it did it began to move warships into the region, and soon, a Sapiant Emergency had been declared. Within about a week, at the start of Sablien, the Roskanan Marines were landing on all the islands, and starting to deliver medical aid and food to the island - the start of a sudden, and unwanted commitment on the part of Roskana itself.