History of Gordon Bay City

Up until the disaster of 1968, and later the invasion generally attributed to the early twenty-first century (though significant confusion and debate exists due to the effects of time manipulation by Candelariasian authorities), the history of Gordon Bay City and the preceding Town was largely one of blameless anonymity. In the context of the today’s state however, it cannot be discussed in ignorance of the history of the Kolan, both before and after their entry into the realm of Svartalheim. As such, this article must also serve to examine the origins of the Democratic Republic through the intertwined stories of the Candelariasian and Kolani people, as well as ‘GBC’ itself.

Much of our modern understanding of the Kolani side of this history comes from accounts provided by the former Queen Leohi herself during the Monument Place incident, as well as her aide Puao both at the time and in the ensuing months, with limited additions provided by other members of the Kolani people. The reliability of their versions of events cannot be taken automatically as representing the gospel truth, though significant elements have since been corroborated to a greater or lesser degree by known events in the Candelarias throughout the past three centuries.

Pre-Candelarian history
Records regarding the history of the Gordon Bay region, and the Candelarias in general, prior to the arrival of European settlers remain scant – to the point that the very existence of indigenous Candelarians of aboriginal Rushmori stock on the islands was completely unknown in C&M prior to the invasion of GBC under Leohi. Archaeological evidence discovered on Sloane Island and Fallon Island during the early twentieth century pointed to the establishment of settlements by the Bkyka people of Ransome-Bkyki Island, in the form of fishing communities that had died out well before the sixteenth century, but theories suggesting that aborigines from the continent or elsewhere had colonised the larger islands of the Candelarias to any great decree remained consistently dismissed as baseless. Undeniably, even those experts who suggested such a thing admitted that their theories were based principally on the incredulity that a sea-faring people would not have even attempted to settle the verdant islands, rather than any extant physical evidence, and few had ever claimed that any hypothetical non-white inhabitants and Westerners could have been contemporaries.

However, the arrival of the Kolan in Gordon Bay City and their subsequent, if partial, integration into the state’s Candelariasian society allowed elements of their people’s traditional history, both oral and written, to become known to a wider audience for the first time. The Kolan’s few remaining educators and genealogists within the hi’i caste claim that their pre-European settlement of the Candelarias stretched across much of the islands but were principally centred along the eastern and south-eastern coast of Candelaria itself.

The lack of cultural memories regarding communities further inland would indicate a more recent settlement than the Kolan claim for themselves, however it is possible that – with their population split among often inter-warring, tribal lines – the coastal-dwelling peoples simply had little to no contact with their cousins amongst the forests or on the plains to the west and north. Notably, the Kolan do not claim a direct blood relationship with the Bkyka or other local Rushmori aboriginal peoples, though some cultural exchange is acknowledged, and DNA studies of the population in GBC have produced conflicting and often confounding results.

According to the Kolan’s accounts, the area around Gordon Bay itself, then a mixture of swamps and marshland, was relatively sparsely populated compared to those now home to the modern towns of Dyce and Etienne to the south-east, primarily due to the perceived malign influence of the daemon-beings – positively identified in the modern era as the Svartálfar – who were said to enter the human realm via gateways within the Gordon Bay area. Documents provided by the Kolani historian Puao, compiled a generation earlier, do suggest the one-time existence of a significant settlement named Hoala, upon which the modern Gordon Bay City is supposedly built, though tentative archaeological study has yet to definitively corroborate this claim.

Evidence of the past existence of communities much further down the coast, in the area now home to Allemali is however now almost absolute, despite the period of well over two centuries in which this knowledge was lost to the Candelariasian people. Since the invasion of GBC and the granting of semi-statehood, exploratory investigations by the governments both in Albrecht – notably conducted in public, following the revelations regarding both the Kolan’s existence and true nature on terrestrial television in C&M – and GBC itself would uncover archaeological findings long dismissed or clearly deliberately concealed generations earlier that showed genetic kinship between the modern Kolan and a small number of bones recovered across a great many decades in the Allemali area. Due in part to the nation’s attentions being focused on the financial and emotional recovery from the Beatrice Event there has yet to be a widespread study of the Candelariasian gene pool – particularly that around Allemali – to ascertain claims of significant interbreeding between aborigines and Britons during the first decade of the latter’s colonisation, however.

Gordon Bay Town
The name Gordon Bay was first given by British sailors in 1784, and named for Captain Henry Gordon of the vessel Caroline. The town itself was established in early 1822, as part of a wider settlement of the east coast that gave rise to what would become Albrecht in the same year.

By this point, Spanish colonisation of the Candelarias had been taking place in fits and starts for more than half a century, while English speakers had been advancing into Candelaria itself for a little under a decade. It would seem that by the time Gordon Bay Town had been founded, the fate of the Kolan had been sealed – with disease carrying thousands to an early grave, and Europeans slaughtering at least an equal number.

Though the claims of Puao and other historians must currently be taken with extreme caution, it would appear likely that the indigenous peoples of the islands were all but wiped out with a ferocity almost unsurpassed in the history of European colonialism, and matched only by the degree of completeness with which those same early settlers were able to eradicate any remaining signs of the Kolan’s prior existence – aside from the children of rare unions, and possibly marriages, between members of the two groups of people, whose own existence was supposedly hushed-up or explained away by other means. Though a significant number of Candelariasian historians have attempted to downplay, or challenge outright, the Kolan’s account of these events during the years following the Monument Place incident; historical reports of incongruous ‘brown babies’ – made principally by Candelarians living around Albrecht and further to the north observing their more southerly cousins – have been well-known and mulled over in such circles for quite some decades.

Certainly however, the earliest settlers of Gordon Bay Town itself were blameless in the persecution of the Kolan, to the point of being entirely unaware of their having ever existed, or at least being disinclined to further investigate rumours of the time. Hoala itself would have been destroyed or vacated by this period, while a date of 1815 or ‘16 has been tentatively suggested as the year in which a significant portion of the surviving Kolan made the fateful decision to escape not only their European enemies but the human realm entirely, entering the gateways of their religion’s daemons to the extra-dimensional land inhabited by the Svartálfar. With the creatures all within the earthly realm, making the most of the arrival of many thousands of new humans, the gateways were shut and the Kolan left trapped while the Svartálfar, regressed to an infantile mental state in absence from their own homeland, began a two centuries-long existence within the area’s swamps and, later, the sewers of Gordon Bay City.

Left entirely unaware of any of this, Gordon Bay Town grew into a small but prosperous port once the town’s harbour had been established, with fishing and other maritime activities providing for the overwhelming majority of the workforce throughout the nineteenth century.

The city, and the fae
With the land around Gordon Bay Town itself typically perceived as unfit for further expansion, the port initially lacked the satellite developments and early suburbs of other, similar settlements and was not connected to the rest of Candelaria via significant land transport links until the early twentieth century. Looking at this state of affairs in light of modern understanding, it would seem entirely plausible that this relative isolation – with the town effectively left as an island – represented a deliberate effort by central government, with heavy influence from the Kolan.

For by the early twentieth century, the nature of Kolani society within their new realm had begun to undergo a profound change – initially in regards to their relationship with the Candelariasians, and later in their attitude towards their own identity. Rumours of the Kolan’s existence – often taking the form of ghost stories describing elusive, dark-skinned humanoid lifeforms seen stealing food, manufactured goods and even humans – began to surface on Candelaria from the 1890s onward, corroborating modern Kolani claims that by this point in time a number of their people were occasionally moving back and forth between the ‘waterways’ that divided Svartalfheim from the Earth, succumbing to temptation to see their former lands for themselves or avoiding justice among their own people for certain misdemeanours. Such reports were particularly strong around Gordon Bay Town itself during the 1910s, though there were other examples from isolated communities in west Candelaria or even on Marquez, suggesting the use of alternative gateways. Indeed, talk of such visitors became something of a nationwide obsession with any number of crimes, particularly spates of missing children on Marquez, put down to these ‘faeries’ in the popular press – albeit typically with tongue lodged firmly in cheek.

The coming of the First World War drew the nation’s attention away from the concept, which would come to remain a popular notion only on Marquez – and even there, with the growing understanding in later decades of the earlier actions of the National Eugenics Council, the idea of malign faerie visitors fell out of popularity. Clearly however, elements within the Kolan’s hierarchy were unwilling to allow this potentially highly useful concept to slip from their grasp. Though the passage of time within their realm of exile was seemingly notably slower than within the Candelarias, enough time had still passed for a younger generation of Elders, albeit themselves relatively old in years, to gain a position of influence – a generation unwilling to hide away in their pocket dimension and wait, as they saw it, for the Candelariasians or Svartálfar to stumble upon the waterways and hunt their people down.

As a result, a decision was taken among the Kolan to make themselves formally known to an entirely unsuspecting Candelariasian government in the aftermath of the war. It seems probable that the Liberal Unionist prime minister Oxford Birch was the first leader in Albrecht to be contacted by the Kolan in their new guise as the fae of modern myth – demanding of their ‘human’ neighbours that they make every effort to keep their people ignorant of the faeries’ existence, and equally that of the Svartálfar, and endeavour to keep the latter safe and cosseted within the sewers of Gordon Bay Town.

The findings of the post-Beatrice Truth & Reconciliation Commission have as yet been, controversially, published not without significant redactions on matters related to GBC, and it has also become abundantly clear that the M.O.R.T. has at various points been involved in the scrubbing of incriminating paper trails, but it seems likely that the Ministry of Rational Thought (or more likely a direct precursor thereof) was established at this point by an entirely fooled Birch and his government in order to achieve these goals of explaining away seemingly supernatural occurrences – not only those involving the ‘fae’ themselves, but any such incidents that could potentially arouse suspicion and awkward questions regarding the Candelariasians’ place in the wider world. The country’s total withdrawal from the British world, and relative detachment from Rushmore, in the following years may now be seen as being conducted under the influence of the Kolani leadership, while some authorities have even gone on to suggest that the Civil War itself may have likewise had its routes in the otherly realm.

As for Gordon Bay Town, and whether likewise under the influence of the fae or not, the port experienced its major boom time in the years following WWI. Formally re-identified as Gordon Bay City to reflect its exponentially increasing size, the city rapidly became one of the ten largest in the islands, and arguably its key port. Several large shipyards came to line the docks, along with one of the largest fish markets in Oygruppen, the Weston Distillery, and three vast factories producing some 75% of the nation’s confectionery. At the same time, the new GBC was far from the grim industrial dystopia as experienced in other Candelariasian cities, being thoroughly ahead of its time in regards to its environmental concerns, sanitation and social security.

Embracing foreign labour as well as counterculture principals all but unknown elsewhere in 1950s and ‘60s C&M, there remained in equal measure a firm commitment to the power of capitalism – with roles available to small, private business and vast companies alike. A growing trend towards skyscrapers – modest in size by international standards but almost unique in the Candelarias – reflected a growing self-confidence and belief in the future power of money markets alongside industrial might. With much of the country still in ruins, emotionally as well as physically, following the Civil War; citizens of GBC saw their city as representing the future of the new nation of Candelaria And Marquez.

1968 disaster
This brave new era in Gordon Bay City’s history came to an abrupt end following the ‘Gordon Bay City disaster’ of 1968. To this day, and again even following the official end of the Candelariasian Conspiracy and the findings of the T&R Commission, the true nature of the events surrounding this incident remain unclear. The Candelariasian government under President Fanny Tan has in recent years acknowledged that the official line since ’68 – a massive gas explosion enhanced by improperly stored chemical and physical products – should be considered ‘unsafe’, something that has come as little surprise to the archipelago’s populace. Belief in a cover-up of some kind has been well-established in popular culture in C&M since the days following the event itself, with the most popular theory blaming the deaths of nearly three thousand people on a series of terrorist bombings by Marquezian separatists, almost certainly with outside assistance. The David Clarke administration of the time, as well as each subsequent government regardless of party allegiance, is therefore widely believed to have kept alive the ‘big lie’ of an inadvertent tragedy in order to avoid relations between Marquezian Hispanics and their English-speaking neighbours from hitting rock-bottom.

More fringe theories have typically centred upon suggestions that the remnants of three craft were recovered from areas of the city bearing the worst damage; most likely being of experimental design and originating from another Rushmori nation, perhaps Sargossa, and that their downing has been kept out of public report to avoid tensions with one of C&M’s more significant foreign partners. Others have labelled these ‘ships’ as extra-terrestrial.

There can be almost no doubting that successive governments and the M.O.R.T. would come to use the rumours of Marquezian and/or Sargossan involvement to their own ends, helping to distract the ordinary citizenry from the true scale of the conspiracy of silence and misinformation being enacted against them by the state, and leaving many Candelariasians sufficiently convinced that they could see through government lies to leave other strange aspects of their daily lives unquestioned.

As for what truly occurred however, this must for now remain a mystery. Direct involvement by the Kolan seems unlikely, though the notion that the Svartálfar themselves may have been the true targets for the attacks from an unknown source has become increasingly popular following the revelation of their existence to the wider Candelariasian populace. What cannot be argued however is the profound change the deaths of thousands and vast structural damage to Gordon Bay City wrought on the city’s consciousness; with a great many locals opting to depart in the ensuing months and the city’s population eventually plummeting to barely more than a few thousand by the late 1970s. Whole districts were abandoned, many of them being later levelled entirely and – though a relatively cosy and communal, small-town mentality would return to a transformed and vastly downsized city centre – there remained, and still remains, outlying neighbourhoods of tower blocks or family homes left almost lawless and with barely one home in twenty inhabited.

Social change in the Kolani realm
The events within GBC itself cannot however compare in their scale, in least on a psychological level, to that occurring inside the realm of the Kolan from the 1940s onwards. There, another major change was being enacted as another new generation of their people emerged. In simple terms, and with the illusion of their ‘faerie’ status still entirely leaving a cowed Candelariasian government at their beck and call, a decision was taken among the Elders to expand the sphere of the lie to include their own young.

The scale of such an undertaking clearly had to be immense but, using methods copied directly from the Candelariasian state, it proved highly successful. As early as the 1960s, and certainly in the ensuing decades, almost the entirety of the Kolani people came to see themselves as representing an entirely different, and superior, species from the Candelariasians and other humans – in essence, the terms ‘Kolan’ and ‘fae’ were now synonymous.

The reasoning behind such an endeavour would appear to partly stem from a wish to avoid the establishment of a generation of angry young Kolan, born and raised within their extra-dimensional realm, who would seek to blame the Elders for retreating from their homeland rather than fighting to the death and condemning them to a meagre existence among the grim, dark halls and fiery caverns of their ruefully adopted country – and seek the overthrow of the gerontocracy in power since the late 1800s. An equal fear may have held that a significant number of youths would begin to choose to return to the Candelarias and live among its modern populace – a detestable notion to many Elders, and one they may have hoped would be crushed by the knowledge that Candelariasians, as humans, were innately lesser beings.

By the early 1980s – though, for reasons to be discussed shortly, describing dated events from this point forth becomes treacherous – it would appear that the Elders did indeed no longer hold a position of absolute power, and instead merely one of considerable influence over the true leaders of the ‘faerie’ state: the Nobility, or ‘eli’ila, of the highest caste. It seems probable that the majority of the nobility themselves, and certainly those in early adulthood and younger, were soon unaware of their human status. Their personal involvement with Candelariasians was clearly limited, with Elders – as well as those members, young and old, of the nobility and the lower castes alike who retained or who had earned knowledge as to their people’s true origins – still principally responsible for communication with the Albrecht government and the M.O.R.T.

And significant communication truly was an unavoidable necessity by now, as C&M began to slowly take on an increasing role among the wider worlds. Interaction with a globalized media, the World Assembly, and the like, would inevitably bring ordinary Candelariasians a brand new awareness of the multitude of species across the multitude of worlds – serving to draw not only attention towards the Kolan, but of the wider worlds towards C&M and their ‘faerie’ overlords.

At some point, however, a decision was taken to break with decades of tradition and enter the football World Cup. Most likely this choice was of Candelariasian origin, though there remains a distinct possibility that key elements within the Kolani nobility – perhaps led by Leohi herself – played their part in arranging C&M’s involvement at World Cup 36. Equally, and the speculative nature of the theory must again be stressed, the possibility is distinct that the country’s adoption of the use of the time dilation device was less a means to facilitate C&M’s involvement in global sport but rather the reverse – with sport providing an excuse for this Kolani faction to gradually alter both the passage of time and the course of history, to the point where considerable changes could be enacted to the nature of the Candelarias as a state. Certainly, an attempt at this was made following Leohi’s invasion of Gordon Bay City.

The Kolani invasion
Though the events that are perhaps best described in terms of their place in the established course of history as having occurred between the latter stages of World Cup 45 and World Cup 46 will have appeared to most observers as having been set into motion with little warning; there can be little no doubt that plans for the invasion had been fermenting for a considerable period of time – principally in the mind of the young Kolani woman named Leohi.

Though her specific background is not fully understood, it is known that she was born into a noble family of significant influence within their society – though not seemingly one in which the majority of its members were aware of any aspects of the truth behind the faerie conspiracy. Leohi herself appeared to have learnt the truth at the hand of her teacher and mentor Puao, following early displays of insight that left the older man sufficiently impressed to share with her his more refined understanding of the wider multiverse.

By her early adolescence, Leohi was clearly a sufficiently influential individual within Kolani society to be permitted visits to the human realm and contact with its denizens, as well as a seemingly free reign to engage in schemes of her own – culminating in her use of her people’s own time dilation device, and its human symbiont Debbie Baker.

It was most likely her unique control over the device that made her a figure of awe among the Elders and her fellow nobles, while the fearful respect she came to command over much of the rest of society, particularly the young, left her all but untouchable by those who would wish to see her removed and who knew that such an act could provoke open rebellion from the youngest generations. To the minds of the lower castes, and the most impressionable of the young nobility, Leohi’s power – that of a magical variety – was immense, moving her far beyond that wielded by the priests and the most spiritually gifted of the ‘eli’ila. In reality, her skills were either a by-product of her relationship with Baker and the Device, or relatively simple psychological trickery gleamed from her experiences watching Candelariasian and other ‘human’ experts. Perhaps no less important however was her immense personal magnetism, which served despite her high standing of birth to make her an eloquent voice for the impotent rage of the young of all the castes. Over an extended period, Leohi proved able to rally behind her Kolani numbering in their thousands, channeling their all-too human angst into a mood of open rebellion against those who refused to listen to their grievances and who, crucially, projected an air of fear towards the ‘inferior’ humans living in their sunlit land.

Leohi abducted the young son of the contemporary Minister for Remedial Teaching (a rebranding of the older M.O.R.T.) – a long common practice among the Kolan as a means both of keeping up the faerie myth in both realms, as well helping to widen the gene pool with servile, often intentionally damaged ‘mankolan’ – as a ruse to lure one of the few Candelariasians with knowledge of certain entry points into the abode of the fae into breaking with convention and attempting to rescue her child. Duly captured by Leohi, Jenny Harris MP and two companions – including former C&M national football team manager Mark Baker – were paraded in front of a vast crowd of Kolani youths, and used as an example both of the growing impudence of the humans and failure of the Elders and nobles to stop ‘unchosen’ humans from ‘defiling’ the realm of the fae.

As Leohi had no doubt anticipated, the ruse was sufficient to encourage most of the crowd, and many hundreds more, to ignore all previous warnings and taboos over entering the Candelarias proper and follow her to the sewers of Gordon Bay City via the ancient gateways. The bulk of the Kolan appeared utterly unable to raise a hand against either her or her followers – most likely being as fearful as their young as to the true scale of the power at Leohi’s command.

Upon their entry onto the surface, Leohi and her minions were met by a small group of Candelariasian marines, dispatched by President Morton once it had become clear to her that Jenny Harris was no longer willing to tolerate inaction when it came to the matter of her missing son. Using her powers – of hypnotic and psychological suggestion rather than any high magic, but achieving much the same effect in the eyes both of her kin and the Candelariasians present – Leohi rendered several soldiers in a barely conscious or violently sick state before their colleagues fled. The near abandoned nature of Gordon Bay City soon became clear, with barely more than a thousand individuals left in their homes having not been evacuated in time, but Leohi soon overcame what may well have been seen by her a setback and proclaimed herself the new Queen of Gordon Bay City once her followers had ceremonially ‘taken’ the Town Hall.

The Queendom and the football team
The subsequent escape of Jenny Harris from the Kolan’s authority may or may not have been orchestrated by Leohi, but in either case the new Queen again used it to her advantage, allowing Harris to spread further fear of she and her species’ capabilities within the Candelariasian government. Ordering a chalk outline to be draw around the significant part of the city, with one of sticks and driftwood added soon after along the beach and harbour areas, new state borders were established – not in law, but more importantly in the minds of Candelariasians left on both sides. The force of the Queen’s self-conviction was enough that most humans attempting to cross the border from that point on found themselves physically unable to do so, as if stopped by an invisible force-field.

The Candelariasian government, for their part, were clearly split on how to proceed from this point forth, but the cautious policies of the President soon won out, with Morton unwilling to antagonise the Queen and her people any further than necessary. As it was, her government had more than enough to deal with already – in keeping the bulk of the Candelariasian populace still unaware of the invasion, as well as attempting to do the same with as many Candelariasians in Gordon Bay City itself as possible. Radio and television broadcasts from C&M insisting that they remain indoors to avoid the risk of being infected by or transmitting avian flu were positively welcomed by the Queendom meanwhile, unwittingly assisting the Queen’s efforts to keep the local population as corralled as possible.

Though entirely dictatorial, Leohi’s vision for the new state was inevitably tempered by her promises made in the young Kolan’s now former realm. Capital punishment was outlawed along with many of the harsher physical and mental penances routinely meted out by Elders and nobility alike in the former regime, while a more liberal attitude towards personal freedoms and equality between the castes was encouraged.

While it is impossible to know how much of this Leohi herself truly believed in, it certainly spoke for her need to keep her new countryfolk onside, despite the awe in which they held her, as well as reducing the influence of those high-ranking nobles who could yet seek to speak against her. As for the GBC locals, their presence was tolerated to a point – with Leohi permitting food and other essential goods being sent across the border from C&M, as well as a certain degree of free movement within the Queendom and reserving some of the harshest sanctions left available to her for those among the Kolan found guilty of mistreating humans, while still forcing the bulk of the Candelariasians aware of the invasion to leave their homes and live within a handful of secured streets.

No less uncertain is whether Leohi intended to see the Queendom become a long-lasting state in its own right, a platform for greater expansion into the Candelarias, or simply a means to an end; but the Queen certainly showed little interest in establishing a written constitution, flag, anthem or any of the other accoutrements of a modern nation, human or otherwise. An exception came in the creation of a national football team – a masterstroke, on the face of it, made after seeing first-hand the joy experienced by the Candelariasians in GBC following C&M’s shock victory at World Cup 45.

If nothing else, the team would be distraction for Kolan and – Leohi appeared to hope – GBC’s Candelariasians as well, but the principal figure in the team’s creation was the Queen’s brother, Aino. Though younger, Aino’s gender made him theoretically more influential than even his sibling and, though she and others clearly dismissed him as lacking the mental fortitude to do so, he represented the single greatest threat to her otherwise undisputed leadership. Having fallen in love with the sport – unknown within the Kolan’s realm – during the previous World Cup final, Aino was the logical choice to be given captaincy of the nascent side, and thereby keeping him out of civil affairs.

In retrospect, it was Leohi’s biggest mistake. For a team made up of complete amateurs, even ones led from the side-lines by a reluctant Mark Baker, the Gordon Bay City team performed astonishingly well, picking up victories at home against far more experienced sides as well as a goalless draw in Jeruselem. For much of the crowd however, particularly those members of the noble caste, even this was insufficient for a species supposedly far superior to their human opponents in every way and who should – at worst – consider themselves second in the world only to the elves of Valanora and Starblaydia. Booing, a trait learnt from human supporters at home and abroad, marred a comfortable victory over the Islands of Qutar and increased the massive personal pressure on Aino to improve results.

The nobleman reacted by taking his manager’s advice – that he should consider permitting humans into the squad on a general principal of ‘Strength in Diversity’ (not to mention, on a more practical level, the experience of former Gordon Bay City FC stars) – to heart. Putting out, via means that remain uncertain, an open message for new players representing a diverse range of species to settle in the city-state and represent the national team; Aino and the squad were soon inundated by over a dozen individuals, from a gnome to an alan, and a singing bean to a corrandonnet.

Diversity
The almost entirely new-look GBC team – with Aino himself the only ‘faerie’ remaining in Baker’s thoughts – immediately achieved back-to-back victories, including a home beating of Jeruselem, but this merely served to encourage Aino further. Distraught by a perceived lack of support given to his team by his kin, the captain resolved to give his side – in his own words – the supporters they deserved. A second call was put out, pleading for beings searching for a new home to descend on the city, fill out Richmond Park for the next home game, and play a part in the long-term future of his sister’s much-vaunted utopian ideal.

With both Morton and Leohi’s forces powerless to stop them, Gordon Bay City’s population swelled almost overnight to something approaching its modern-day levels. Individuals, families and vast societies from several dozen distinct species from every corner of the multiverse turned up within hours, filled the stadium to bursting point as they raucously cheered on their team, and set about finding permanent new homes among the deserted streets, beaches, woods and country lanes alike.

Despite appeals from Leohi herself, whose relationship with her brother was fundamentally severed by the incident, to the newcomers; the bulk of GBC’s new citizenry refused to budge. This show of impotence from the Queen irreparably damaged her standing among all the castes, with key figures among the nobility beginning to openly question her true power in the face of the interlopers.

Even more damage was done when it came to the lower castes, many of whom had already begun sniping against the reality of their promised utopia; one of food shortages, grey skies and wet afternoons, and of a seemingly directionless future. What is more, as the Kolan began to clash with their thoroughly unwelcome new neighbours, many started to find common ground with the Candelariasians they were theoretically forced to avoid entirely and hate utterly. Though still treating the other with suspicion, and certainly seeing each other as entirely separate species, a handful of tentative friendships among the youngest members of both groups served as an example to their elders.

As talk of rebellion grew among even her own staff, and the Queen witnessed Aino – a figure with little obvious support among any sections of the new society, bar the new non-humans – and her trusted aide Puao seemingly colluding with a Candelariasian-Kolani alliance, it would have become clear to Leohi that her Queendom was falling apart. Shortly after the end of GBC’s successful World Cup qualifying campaign, she departed her virtual prison of the Town Hall and made for the sewers.

The Monument Place incident
Whether planned years in advance or as a desperate last resort, Leohi at this point travelled back to the realm of the Elders and enacted her final bid for revenge against the Candelariasian people. Details of what occurred there cannot be known in full, save that Debbie Baker and the time dilation device were put into use in very nearly the most dramatic way imaginable – altering time sufficiently to send the events of the contemporary World Cup backwards through time more than two hundred years, to a point where European settlement of the Candelarias had yet to take place.

Instants of vast countries literally ‘ceasing’ to exist overnight are of course far from uncommon, but what occurred at this point appears to have been a dramatic variation on a theme, with Candelaria And Marquez not only ceasing to exist but ceasing to have ever done so. Written records from the period show a brief era in which foreign journalists observed with bemusement the involvement at the World Cup of both C&M and GBC, while the handful of travelling supporters from both states reacted with increasing horror to the knowledge that their friends and families back home were no more, and seemingly never had been.

Mercifully, a handful of Candelariasians – including, it is now believed, President Morton herself, as well as Leohi – were protected from the effects of the TDD and left in what can only be thought of as a Candelarias of the future. Its particulars – whether the Kolan were able to establish a modern nation without western interference, or whether the islands were settled by another people or ignored altogether by those aware of the semi-existence of its former national football team – are unknowable, and in any case arguably represent only one possible outcome of the two and a half centuries of history that followed, but if nothing else it is absolutely certain that those remaining Candelariasians were successful in entering the Svartálfar’s all but timeless realm once more and reversing the effects – perhaps wholly, perhaps not, for no-one can truly say for sure.

Foiled though her final bid may have been, the deposed Queen sought to exact one final act of defiance once reality had changed back around her. Making her way to Albrecht, Leohi summoned her final loyal follower – a member of the kalua species – to send for members of the nobility as well as her brother to come to the C&M capital. Both parties were able to do so, with her crumbling Queendom now nominally back under the control of Candelariasian armed forces and the GBC squad returning from Kelssek, though in Aino’s case he came carrying severe injuries from a stabbing incident during the World Cup – one ordered, as it would become clear, by Leohi herself, most likely to protect him (albeit fatally) from the soul-destroying revelations that would follow.

The final piece in her jigsaw saw Leohi order her follower to capture the child of the GBC squad’s Alan, and lure him to Albrecht in Aino’s company. There, with the babe in her arms, the Queen ascended the Monument of Monument Place – one of the largest, and most famous, public squares in the islands – and address transfixed television crews.

Though the watching public, both those crowding around the Monument and those safely at home, might well have dismissed her rambling of faeriehood as the cries of a madwoman, the presence of the infant were her last masterstroke. The alan, seeing his child held aloft, launched into the sky in front of an audience of hundreds of thousands. As Leohi explained to her brother minutes later, she had in her own mind brought about the ultimate revenge on the Candelariasian people, by showing them the truth in a way that Morton’s government couldn’t hope to counter.

To many onlookers, it seemed that the Queen was ready for her death at this point, but Morton – now present at the scene and barely metres from her opposite number for the first time – stood her soldiers down. With Puao standing over his former pupil; Morton, Candelaria And Marquez and the ‘fae’ present at the scene watched transfixed as the older Kolani coaxed out of her the truth of their people’s human origins and decades-long influence over the Candelarias.

As the latter became clear to even those Candelariasians with far greater knowledge of the worlds than the rest, and the other Kolan began to digest the truth for themselves, the mood in Monument Place threatened to turn murderous. More romantic historians may record that the sudden arrival of two young boys, one Candelariasian and one Kolani and one accidentally booting his football into Morton’s face, may well have done more than any other single moment to avoid a potential bloodbath, but whatever the reasons the mood lightened considerably. Leohi was taken into custody, the alan allowed to make his excuses and depart the scene, and the remaining Kolan present following the President into the nearby National Council building, from which neither party emerged for almost twenty-four hours.

The Democratic Republic
The extended period of talks between Morton and a Kolani party led by the nobleman Makua eventually resulted in the June 9th Agreement.

Initially, it seems likely that the intention was always to allow the Kolan to return to their former realm amongst their older kin and continue contact between the two peoples from there, most likely leading up to the creation of an earthly ‘homeland’ state for the former fae within a rural area of C&M, rather than integrating them directly into Candelariasian society. However extensive effort over the following hours and weeks made it clear that, even if the their former home and its occupants remained intact despite the potentially horrific effects of a TDD twice pushed way beyond its limits, the gateways themselves had collapsed. The now leaderless young Kolan were suddenly left without any home to call their own at all – leaving Gordon Bay City itself the only logical location for a continuous settlement, permanent or otherwise.

The terms of the agreement were put under further duress by the continued non-human presence in the city, with community leaders from across the species again reiterating their refusal to depart their own new home to both Morton and Makua. Though the Candelariasian public were now aware of the Kolan’s existence, origins and even – up to a point – the faerie conspiracy – encouraging the knowledge of several dozen new species was plainly considered a significant step too far, too soon; despite the President’s public commitment to a full declassification of data regarding the true nature of the multiverse in which the Candelarias inhabits over the ensuing months and years, and the lack of a direct necessity to maintain the culture of ignorance.

The solution eventually reached at saw the bold creation of the Democratic Republic of Gordon Bay City, with most areas of administrative policy devolved to a new Central Council with representation from the Candelariasian, Kolani and non-human communities and a power-sharing government. The independent nature of the new state was subsequently revealed to the Candelariasian public beyond its borders, though with the involvement of non-humans a key omission and the city closed to tourists and other visitors from across the border – notionally as a precaution against spreading disease among a Kolani population unused to dealing with foreign infections. Following elections, a first government headed by Makua was put into place, with the formalisation of a new flag and anthem among its earliest acts.

A further early decision saw the state permit ‘immigration’ from C&M – primarily consisting of former residents of GBC who had been evacuated prior to the invasion, alongside a small number of individuals with long-standing knowledge of the true picture of the world beyond Candelariasian shores – but place a moratorium on further non-human arrivals. With the agreement of Albrecht, the state’s borders were also enlarged from those of the Queendom era, to take in the entirety of the city and several nearby villages, as well as handing the Republic its own territorial waters.

A new nation
The new government of Gordon Bay City faced a lengthy list of early challenges – not least financial, though their counterparts in Albrecht did their best to keep the microstate afloat despite the extremely limited cross-border travel. The skills of much of the non-human populace quickly allowed the country to develop a number of lucrative industries – or at least, theoretically so, for many of those species were profoundly disquieted by the prospect of becoming cogs in the mechanics of capitalist economics. While some non-humans were happy to throw themselves wholeheartedly into ‘Candelariasian’ life, the majority were less than keen to be ‘integrated’ as C&M authorities might have envisioned – and that applied every bit as much to the Kolan as well.

Community tensions dominated the state’s nascent politics. Continued resentment simmered between Candelariasians and Kolan, the former not entirely willing to forgive and forget the crimes of Leohi and her followers and the general turmoil wrought upon their unsuspecting home town; the latter still coming to terms with the knowledge of their own humanity and the injustices meted out to their ancestors by Candelariasians of generations past. Despite the country’s leadership by their own Lord Makua, a growing sense that their people were soon to become second-class citizens in their supposed promised land could not be entirely allayed by well-meaning Candelariasians, for the Kolan were only too aware that the skill set that had seen them subsist within the maggoty halls of Svartalfheim presented few opportunities for prosperity in this sovereign corner of C&M. The population was young, containing a great may orphans and others separated, likely permanently, from their families and caregivers.

Early encounters with alcohol and other new substances and experienced proved often disastrous. This was not limited to the Kolan however, for Candelariasians in GBC too were inevitably exploring what this astonishingly diverse new country had to offer, and not always coming out of it the better. New drinks and foodstuffs brought or cooked by non-humans, intoxicating dances and sexual experiences, magic – all drove innocent minds to madness. GBC’s courts soon had to deal with a number of murder trials, principally with non-humans accused of reacting with anger to transgressions of their intractable, inscrutable, codes by naïve humans – or else non-humans of other species.

The third and now largest community of GBC’s blocs was riven by its own divides, as rivalries were soon established between the corrandonnets and mannegishi, coblynau and panotti. Still though, it was humanity who developed a long list of reasons to be bitter towards their strange new neighbours – cobylnau undermining their streets and causing severe subsidence, unsubstantiated rumours of newborns stolen by yarthkins or trows, churches vandalised by non-human youths. Where daily interactions between species occurred – and this remained far from the norm, with many species hunkered down in their own streets or villages – those who required either more or less sustenance or other goods than humans were resented for monopolizing resources or demanding a greater wage than their need, or else being all too willing to work for free.

In most estimations however, Lord Makua and his government rose to these challenges. The First Minister himself, once seen as the Queen’s naïve lackey, emerged as a statesmanlike figure, and went on to be nominated to retain his position for several successive terms, by Kolan, Candelariasians and non-humans alike. Small-scale agriculture thrived in farms, gardens and window boxes, aided by the weather forecasting of the erdluitle – and the weather was seldom less than ideal. Neighbours began to adjust to, and even learn to appreciate, each other’s ways and foibles.

The greatest threat to the microstate’s stability would come from without – the Beatrice Event, so traumatising for all Candelariasians across C&M, presented GBC with its own new set of difficulties, not least an echo of those facing that wider archipelago in microcosm. Even before the day itself, a number of species and individuals had begun to flee the country, their particular abilities and senses alerting them to a fate they wished to avoid.

Others departed in the months that followed, as the fact of their existence was revealed to the Candelariasian populace across the islands. Fears of retribution were largely unfounded however – and indeed, though some Candelariasians in GBC took advantage of newly looser borders to leave the state and settle back amongst wholly human communities, their absence was more than compensated by an influx of their countryfolk from outside GBC, fascinated by the prospect of living alongside beings once formally dismissed as mythology and fairy stories. Tourism, for all its continued dangers, soon became the microstate’s most lucrative industry, even if not all non-humans, never mind the Kolan, were less than enthused by becoming the subjects of Candelariasian – and indeed Rushmori – gawps.

While taking a similarly taciturn line in international relations as its encompassing neighbour, Gordon Bay City has likewise made a stuttering recovery from the Beatrice Event and remained a viable, indeed thriving, state. While not actively soliciting for further immigration, members of a number of new species have made the country their home, and the nation has survived the transfer of power from the retiring Lord Makua – first to the Candelariasian Tony Lukaszczyk, the Dwarvish Logazor Drakkiborgo, and the incumbent as of 2022, the Mannegishi She-Who-Tickles-The-Trout, as Lady Trout.