[Laeral]

Wow Maraix! I'm quite impressed by the depth of your established roleplay information, and I'd be happy to participate in your nation's history. Playing as a microstate (the IDU's equivalent of the Pitcairn Islands, no less) is definitely a unique approach, and I look forward to seeing more of you in the IDU!

Laeral could serve as either Country A or Country B, although it seems that Country A would be more appropriate since Laeral is located in Central Hespia. Laeral is a Chinese-inspired nation that was colonized by the French during the 1700s, with a rich mercantile tradition. Laeral was a French vassal state in 1788, with a thriving merchant class that could have been sailing in the Tenebric Ocean. The left-wing government that ruled from 1922 to 1954 would have been willing to invest resources in development in Maraix. When it comes to the reason for independence, there could be many reasons- Laeral's current government isn't all that attached to tiny far-flung territories, particularly as the backlash against the vestiges of imperialism in Laeral has only grown stronger with time. I'd be glad to collaborate on RP about this with you in future! Feel free to check out my pages on the IDUwiki to see what my RP looks like, and I'd also be open to chatting further either here or on Discord!

Thank you! I'm looking forward to this and think writing from a Pitcairn-perspective will be very interesting (though there will, of course, be differences).

It would be great to have you participate – I started looking through the IDUwiki and like what you have up. Laeral has a very interesting history, and I agree that having it serve as Country A should work nicely.

I'm going to finish going through your pages on the wiki to get more concrete ideas, but I like where you are going with the reasons for independence. I'd also throw in that it is currently costing Laeral the equivalent of $3 million USD in Laeralian marks to support the island, which might make it extra unappealing to continue funding a remote vestige of imperialism. I would like to think of a precipitating event, loophole, or clause that the HOA of Maraix could use to justify declaring for independence, which they will do at the same time as they file the CCC&Rs with a Laeralian court.

A couple of thoughts that came to mind were:

• Laeral was unaware that the band of fugitives had landed on the island until 42 years after the fact, and Tom Morrison, the surviving fugitive on the island when Laeral finally bumped into it, was only 13/14 when he arrived. Would it make sense that the Duc d'Tesse's claim on the territory was invalid because the only living proof, at the time, that it had been settled by a Laeralian was a minor when it was settled? Though, 13/14 wasn't as young in 1788 as it is today...
  
• Another option: I envisioned that Tom Morrisson would not actually be Rén, Arrivée, or even a convict – while he was in the prison and ran off with the band fugitives, he was not there because of a crime of his own, but because he had a father in the prison (I'm thinking something along the lines of children living in Dickensian debtor's prisons, and/or who managed to scrounge work at the prison as errand boys for the jailers). Would it make sense that the Duc d'Tesse's claim on the territory was invalid because the living settler on the island was a foreigner, who was once in a Laeralian prison, but not because he was actually locked up there?
  

Hey Maraix! So sorry that I didn't respond to this earlier-- I thought that I'd already written and posted my response to it, but it must not have actually posted. Glad to hear that I can play a part in Maraix's backstory.

Of the ideas you've mentioned, I prefer the second one. Perhaps new documents surfaced showing that while people had assumed that Tom Morrisson was a Laeralian citizen (or rather, a French citizen at the time, as Laeral was part of the French colony of High Fells) he in fact was not-- he had been born elsewhere, and simply worked or lived at the prison in the Dickensian sense you mentioned.