In the early years of the Empire the region was largely occupied with herders and semi-nomadic groups. The plant life here was unusually conducive to grazing by Terran livestock, and the people developed an attachment to the land transcendent of class, unlike in other parts of the Empire. Kostela continues to have an economic export surplus due to the lower population density and relative resource richness. Prior to contact with the outside universe, there was an above-average military presence in the smaller towns around it, due to evidence that the continent was the primary home of the free Sarthians.
Kostela was the last of Wanisin's elder cities to be founded. It began as a small outpost during the reign of Gegloko I, tasked first with geological surveys of the Western continent's central region, then with monitoring dissident activity in the northeast under Alestea I's policy of provocation. Few established nobles were interested in buying land or developing such a remote place, as it meant isolation from the livelier courts in Chekroba, Yevesha, Sur'daro, Al-Regwa, Dumal-Keta, or Zavela, and, importantly, great delays in receiving news from the Senate.
The first communications satellite was launched in 2180 by Sampo II, not long before her successor, Alestea I, fanned the flames of rebellion in Kelonra and turned the building tension into a full civil war. This satellite was used to keep in real-time contact with the Imperial forces in Yevesha and played a crucial role in the evacuation of loyalist nobles there. Once they arrived in Sur'daro, they made their case before the Senate, and expressed that they were aggrieved that the Empress had instigated this largely-unnecessary confrontation. The loyalists from Kelonra demanded compensation or resignation, and before the exchange came to blows, the Minister of Power proposed relocation to Kostela and its promotion to an Elder City, with the Hakri supplicants given high rank and twelve times the acreage they had lost in Fígestrimaní Roventría. They unanimously accepted this generous offer, having also been informed that the Empress would not step down unless bested in a duel to the death.
Thus the story of Blossoming Reach begins not in its twilight pioneer years, but with the arrival of massive, sophisticated convoys of desert-habituated merchants and landholders, striking into the frontier and thinking of themselves as refugees. In one way or another, almost all of them had made their first fortunes through the mineral exploitation of the desert, a finite and hazardous resource that had ultimately proved ruinous by attracting envy. They were each determined not to repeat this mistake—Kostela's new noble class would be defined by well-diversified portfolios and, despite the abundance of natural resources in Kelmefta, focus on things that couldn't be so easily commandeered: manufacturing, technological innovation, and intangible processes.
Where other Wanisinese cities were Iron-age carcases speckled with bastions of sophistication, the Hakri planned to build Kostela from the ground up to be fully electrified and networked like the state-of-the-art military camps at Kelonra had been. A spirit of futurism—and arguably even optimism—became the norm.
History
Kostela was the last of Wanisin's elder cities to be founded. It began as a small outpost during the reign of Gegloko I, tasked first with geological surveys of the Western continent's central region, then with monitoring dissident activity in the northeast under Alestea I's policy of provocation. Few established nobles were interested in buying land or developing such a remote place, as it meant isolation from the livelier courts in Chekroba, Yevesha, Sur'daro, Al-Regwa, Dumal-Keta, or Zavela, and, importantly, great delays in receiving news from the Senate.
The first communications satellite was launched in 2180 by Sampo II, not long before her successor, Alestea I, fanned the flames of rebellion in Kelonra and turned the building tension into a full civil war. This satellite was used to keep in real-time contact with the Imperial forces in Yevesha and played a crucial role in the evacuation of loyalist nobles there. Once they arrived in Sur'daro, they made their case before the Senate, and expressed that they were aggrieved that the Empress had instigated this largely-unnecessary confrontation. The loyalists from Kelonra demanded compensation or resignation, and before the exchange came to blows, the Minister of Power proposed relocation to Kostela and its promotion to an Elder City, with the Hakri supplicants given high rank and twelve times the acreage they had lost in Fígestrimaní Roventría. They unanimously accepted this generous offer, having also been informed that the Empress would not step down unless bested in a duel to the death.
Thus the story of Blossoming Reach begins not in its twilight pioneer years, but with the arrival of massive, sophisticated convoys of desert-habituated merchants and landholders, striking into the frontier and thinking of themselves as refugees. In one way or another, almost all of them had made their first fortunes through the mineral exploitation of the desert, a finite and hazardous resource that had ultimately proved ruinous by attracting envy. They were each determined not to repeat this mistake—Kostela's new noble class would be defined by well-diversified portfolios and, despite the abundance of natural resources in Kelmefta, focus on things that couldn't be so easily commandeered: manufacturing, technological innovation, and intangible processes.
Where other Wanisinese cities were Iron-age carcases speckled with bastions of sophistication, the Hakri planned to build Kostela from the ground up to be fully electrified and networked like the state-of-the-art military camps at Kelonra had been. A spirit of futurism—and arguably even optimism—became the norm.
