Mery

The Mery (mehrileh: mehri [mɛri]) are a semi-nomadic religious peoples present within the Civ meta community. Originally developing as a culture within The Workers' Party in late 2021, the Mery have since formed various independent settlements and plan to continue their lineage on CivMC. The Mery are anarchistic in their political nature, not dissimilar to the quasi-cossack militaristic Makhnovia anarchist society. They are united by their common religious beliefs they call rhayatshola, which defines their mutually beneficial relationship between them and their sun god Tshola. On CivMC, they plan to exist not only as their own sovereign entity but also as semi-autonomous sub-entities within other sovereign states in what they've described as Kurdistan-esque.

Prehistory
The origins of the Mery culture date all the way back to Civcraft 3.0 in the Volans. There, the Dhingdom of Endeavour was in a state of utter political turmoil as, after ruling omnipotently during the first month of the city's development, the King Dhingus was pearled on August 19, 2016. His government was usurped and replaced with the democratic White Cross Council which was tasked with deciding on a new permanent government. Newly converted from a minarchist to a left-libertarian, council member and Dhingus pearler Pythius_ (at the time known as Darkflame) proposed the codification of Endeavour's de facto factionalism of the time, a government known as the Endeavor Sasparana. Under the Sapsparana, each faction would remain fully autonomous within their controlled area, but then they would also vote for delegates to the White Cross Council who would then legislate and execute Endeavour-wide policy. The proposal was the culmination of Pythius's dream of a fluid, RP-heavy, anarchistic way of life, and he hoped to make it a reality through the Sasparana. While a vote was held and the Sasparana eventually won out, discontent with the government remained among the factions and a civil war ensued, with the Baltic Bambinos (Pythius's faction) on the left, dhingus's royalists on the right, and many others in between with little cooperation between any of them. This division was taken advantage of by Aegis, a war-like neighbouring state, who took control of a secessionist faction in Endeavour's south. Any real focus was taken away from internal developments after this until the end of 3.0, which came to a sudden end on October 1, 2016.

After some months of casual discussions and playing games outside of civ, the Threepers regrouped and founded Provincia on CivClassic 2.0 on July 6, 2017. In the beginning, the same basic power struggle occurred between the leftist factions and the royalist factions (the latter this time headed by Ninjajackh12) over control of the city. Sadly, disputes over roads and factories caused deep divisions among the group and led to the departure of many, letting Pythius declare somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory and establish Provincia as a socialist community. While Pythius was able to establish a mostly anarchistic form of governance, the reality of Provincia's precarious place in the world post-exodus forced the Threepers to adopt a more traditional approach to international politics, with borders, de facto leaders, and the formation of the SESU alliance with neighbouring Pripyat, among others.

Meanwhile, the roots of leftism and anarchism were also being planted elsewhere across the server. The Workers' Party set up shop in south Mount Augusta in early 2018 and began establishing a number of communes in the city. When SandFalls (a former FSR citizen from Civcraft 2.0) and Renrits1 caught wind of this development, they set up their own communes in the same area and united them under one banner - the Union of Socialist Augusta, or USA. They carried on for a while, with SandFalls re-establishing the LSIF in the meantime, before eventually writing a charter which codified a united communal government ruled by TWP. After the MtA community voted to move to CivRealms in early 2020, the USA stayed on CivClassic and declared its independence from MtA on April 13, 2020. The USA went through periods of decline and activity before being permanently revived in March 2021 and reformed into the Confederation of Socialist Augusta. This new development excited and attracted many leftists across the server as well as those who had previously been involved with the USA or LSIF but since went inactive in the commune for one reason or another, including ChocChips, smal, and Raven.

Jumping back to Provincia a bit, the city was never the same after the Nazi Bombing of Threepton in July 2018. While SESU was formed in an attempt to keep safe, the small member nations progressively went inactive, and Provincia followed suit, though Pythius and Ninjajack would stick around to keep the lights on and play hockey from time to time. Following this relative inactivity, Pripyat annexed many of the former SESU nations, including Provincia, and formed the Communist Cities Caretaker-Protectorate, also known as the old CCCP, in late 2019. The CCCP would do well in protecting its members from the occasional griefer, but it otherwise did little to bring much activity back to its member states.

These two aforementioned groups would converge when, following long negotiations and yet another Provincian civil war culminating in the October Revolution, the CSA annexed the CCCP on October 16, 2021, forming the Confederation of Cities, Communes, and Protectorates, otherwise known as the new CCCP. As time went on, many other leftists would join them to take part in this grand server-wide socialist project, leading to the people of Lumiere as well as some from Carson (thanks to Lowtuff's personal connection to the Provincians and inspiring anarchist nature) to join their ranks. These groups, now united under the same banner, intermingled and formed lasting friendships, along the way reinforcing and evolving their political ideologies, typically toward a more libertarian-left direction. Still, even though its member states remained mostly autonomous, the CSA dominated the CCCP and ensured that the party line was the ultimate sovereign authority, a system they called Anarcho-Stalinism. Although not discontent with its leaders, many within the party yearned for something fresh, and the convergence of Pythius and the LSIF communists brought just that. When CivClassic 2.0 ended in December 2021 and the group migrated to CivRev, they threw off the yoke of TWP and founded a more organic, consensus-driven commune known as Merthyr. This would be the staging ground for the official foundation of the Mery people.

CivRev
Main Article: Mery Horde

Established by a convening council that consisted of Pythius_, Ninjajackh12, and ChocChips, the Mery culture came into existence on December 18, 2021 after the adoption of the First Law of the Mery Horde by the post-CCCP commune of Merthyr on CivRev. The law enshrined their religious rites into TWP political culture and law, specifically requiring a ceremony to take place upon one's ascension to citizenship. The ad hoc position of Ataman was established for conflict resolution, but mostly the law ensured that the Mery people would always work together through consensus and mutual aid. During their brief time on CivRev, the Mery claimed the plains around Merthyr to use for horse riding and taming and set up a number of outposts used to secure their place in the world. The Mery would not be long for this world, however, as on January 1, 2022, the majority of CivRev players abandoned the server, leaving the Mery to follow suit.

Hwillota(ti)
Main Article: Hwillotati

After the abandonment of CivRev, the Mery migrated to Vintage Civ on January 5th, mostly because it was the only active Civ server at the time but also because they thought Vintage Story's focus on primitive technology would be appropriate for a steppe people. In line with their culture, the Mery migrated often on Vintage Civ until settling down in their village they named ''Hwillota. Hwillota roughly translates to "in between two bodies of water" in the Mehrileh'' conlang, which they greatly developed during their time on Vintage Civ thanks in large part to AmandaCC. Mery Horde language became their second primary language alongside English and is used in all official documents, though not necessarily as the vernacular. Hwillotata lasted the entire week of the Vintage Civ beta before going mostly inactive after an incident in which racism was allgedly tolerated and perpetuated by the Vintage Civ owner on their discord. Some Mery would continue playing casually until yet another alleged racist incident occurred in mid March 2022.

Djanimehri
Main Article: Djanimehri (Vintage Civ)

Following the release of Vintage Civ 2.0 on May 27, 2022, a few Mery made a tentative return to the server and set up shop there once again, though mostly as a temporary measure until CivMC released the following week. Taking the name djanimehri, meaning simply "mery realm" or "realm of the mery", the group was raided on the 31st of May 2022 from Crimson Cliffs and retaliated by destroying a Crimson Cliffs village, and shortly after made a statement on the events that had transpired. Arguing that the raid was unprovoked and would have crippled the group had they not recovered the items, they nonetheless condemned the "harsh acts committed by Dythanos against the people of Crimson Cliffs" and pleaded for peace between the two nations.

Djani'hweh
Main Article: Djani'hweh

Following the abandonment of their initial Vintage Civ settlement, the Mery began to draw out their plans for their next iteration on CivMC. They planned the djani wirehtshig mehriteht, "Holy Realm of the Mery", also called djanimehri as a shorter name, or "Realm of the Mery". Although these terms would later be generalized to mean all the settlements of the Mery (in the plural form) and a name for any Mery settlement respectively, they anticipated for this to be the ultimate form of the Mery, now with their politics, language, and culture much more developed.

While at first wanting to settle in the +,+ to be near to such nations as Danzilona and Mount Augusta, most of the land in the quadrant was quickly claimed over by other nations, and the Mery moved northwards to the +,- where they settled near Pavia and Lambat, eventually taking the name "djani'hweh", meaning "northern territory", in reference to the fact that they were north of other areas on the map where they had a small presence, such as Cortesia Del Mar, Mount Augusta or most notably Danzilona.

Within Danzilona
The nation with the most Mery influence outside of djani'hweh itself is Danzilona. When discussing where to settle, Danzilona offered for the Mery to establish themselves within their country, receiving special exemptions and protections. While the Mery ultimately decided to settle in unclaimed northwards territory, many Mery decided to play in both Danzilona and djani'hweh. Having developed an archipelago to the east of Danzilonan claims, Val passed a vote within Danzilona to name them "Eastern Shining Isles" alongside its local mehrileh name "djotalar na rhayadeht". The islands are home to the iconic lighthouse as well as thi rha'yagul lorha (The Old Temple).

First officially proposed on July 6th 2022, the Lighthouse Accord sought to grant special rights to Mery Danzilonans residing in the Eastern Shining Isles, including the right for Mery citizens to settle on the isles without first becoming a citizen of Danzilona and the stipulation that all new zoning to isles be made with "consent agreement between the Danzilonan Office of the Surveyor and an elected representative of the Mery residents of the islands." Facing opposition from the Church of Ranubis, the proposal was withdrawn by its original submitter, Des23.

However, a very similar bill with the same name was re-introduced by Surveyor Gant and voted on from July 12th to the 14th, passing 9 to 1.

rha'yatshola became the largest religion in Danzilona, surpassing Ranubism, around July 10th, after a wave of resident declarations from Mery players, securing a plurality of 15% of the population, eventually increasing to the current 19%.

Politics
The framework of Mery society is defined by their concept of rhayara, which is mehrileh for "mutual aid." According to the yet-to-be-released Covenant, all of the land and industry of the Mery is held in common, and all decisions relating to the Mery are made through democratic discussions and consensus.

Religion
The religion of the Mery is called rhayatshola, which translates to Sun-Help. It revolves around the mutually beneficial relationship between them and their sun god Tshola, who is constantly fighting the forces of evil, originating from both the center of the Earth and the sky, to protect Humanity.

In the canon, Tshola was originally an unwitting servant of the Lords in the Sky, or Lords in the Void, themself before realizing their three successive masters' duplicity and stealing the Seed of Life from their last one, who planned to use it to grow an army and become the master of the Lords. Tshola grew the seed in the sky with their spit, tears and blood, having no water, and created Humans and Horses, but took pity upon the creatures and spared them, pulling land from under the Primordial Sea to create a home for them.

The Sun then fashioned land animals from earth and their spit, tears and blood, and aquatic animals in the same manner but replacing earth with mud.

Tshola is continuously able to hold the forces of evil off with ritual sacrifices from the people of the world, which gives the Sun strength, defining the mutual aid relationship between themself and Humanity. The Mery actively have sacrificial rituals, praise the sun, and fight the monsters of the night.

Language
mehrileh is the language unique to the Mery people. Though not used in everyday conversing in favor of English, official positions, titles, Mery mythical heroes, and discord roles are all in the conlang.

The language makes ample use of inflected grammatical cases to mark, among other things, the subject, direct or indirect object, general location, movement from or to something, and duration of time.

Phonology
mehrileh contains 27 consonant phonemes, most of which are relatively easy to naturally pronounce for anglophones, except for [χ], [ʁ] and [ŋ]. To type the conlang more easily, phonemes represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) by a character not in the English alphabet are written by a letter or group of letters that are in it, corresponding to the letter(s) in the parentheses besides the IPA symbol in the above chart. For example, the sound [ʍ] is usually written, in mehrileh, as "hw". mehrileh contains 7 vowel phonemes, most if not all of which are relatively easy to naturally pronounce for anglophones. To type the conlang more easily, phonemes represented in the IPA by a character not in the English alphabet are written by a letter or group of letters that are in it, corresponding to the letter(s) in the parentheses besides the IPA symbol in the above chart. For example, the sound [ə] is usually written, in mehrileh, as "eu".

mehrileh contains 3 diphthongs which have evolved from a combination of vowels and the semi-vowel [j] in instances where such sounds were not followed by a vowel. The change was officially recognized and the language sheet updated by FermentedAmanda on July 4th 2022. In consequence to this small shift, the spelling of certain mehrileh words changed.

In theory, syllables in mehrileh allow for a maximum of three consonants in the onset and four in the coda, with the onset being optional and the coda being mandatory; thus, words can never start with a vowel, nor can a vowel follow another, leading to the official absence of diphthongs in the language, although existing combinations of vowels and semi-vowels (such as [j] or [w]) may form diphthongs when spoken.

As a rule, the sound [ʍ] may not appear in the coda of a syllable and may not cluster with other consonants. The nucleus of a syllable is always a vowel, and is mandatory. Additionally, when the sounds [ʁ] and [r] are present within one syllable of each other, [ʁ] becomes [r].

Script
While mehrileh is commonly written in what is known as "romanized mehrileh", that is, with letters from the english alphabet, there exists scripts made specifically for writing in mehrileh. Such scripts are read first top to bottom, then left to right.

"Blocky" script
The first script to have been made, the "blocky" script is characterized by sharp angles and inconsistent letter height and width. All the letters except those representing [t] and [d] have a horizontal bar on the top of them so that they may connect in the easiest way with the letter above them. It is notably used in the flag of djani'hweh.

In-game adaptation
An a pixelated version of the blocky script was introduced by nisawwa in January of 2021, who were originally at inconsistent heights and lengths but were eventually all updated to be 8x9. Originally planned as emojis to be used in discord, smal made an resource pack allowing users to use mehrileh letters in game on signs or in books.

Cursive or "flowing" script
The "flowing", or more commonly called cursive, script is a script mainly used for writing mehrileh by hand. It is made to be written almost entirely without lifting the hand, except when placing accents and spaces between words.