Lumière

Lumière (/lymjɛʁ/), officially the Consulate of Lumière, is a sovereign nation in the northwestern quadrant first publicly announced in June 2021. It borders Gabon to the south, Lusitania to the north and is close to the former country of Tierra de Conciencia to the east.

Etymology
The name "Lumière" come from the french word for "light", also holding a significant meaning as a historically important philosophical movement in France.

The name "Lutèce" comes from the old roman name for the capital of France, being renamed to Paris around 310 CE.

Geography
The territory of Lumière is located around the city of New Amsterdam, an area filled with multiple different biomes, including badlands, beaches, forests, savannas and plains. Lumière's land encompasses a similar area to the province of Isi of the Grand Imperium.

Origins
Lumière was originally planned to be a county within the Kingdom of Lusitania, with its main attraction being an enormous library and beaux-arts style builds , likely being put within the old county of Tungsten due to the large amount of unused land it possessed; the county would have been headed by AmandaCC.

However, due to there being not much space in Tungsten to expand from the library to make other builds, or at least not enough for AmandaCC's ambitions, it was decided that it was perhaps better to claim some unclaimed land large enough to not only fit the library but a big city as well. An island located near the defunct nation of Tierra de Conciencia and underneath Varkonia was chosen, with it's proposed claims changing from a small piece of the island to just build the library with potential expansion planned afterwards to claiming a much larger piece of the island. The proposed island of Lumière was to be claimed after AmandaCC had finished constructing her library in Mount September, however some visits to the island beforehand revealed it's terrain was very irregular and that large amounts of terraforming would be needed to build the library and most buildings.

Thus, it was decided that the claim needed to change locations to a flatter area, and the area New Amsterdam was quickly spotted due to it's flatness both in it's very tall badlands biomes and central beach. A proposition made was that New Amsterdam would be renovated before expanding the city outwards, since it seemed easier than building a city from scratch. However, once it was discovered that the reinforcements in New Amsterdam had not completely decayed and that renovating it would take much more work that initially thought, the small team of Lumerians that had been recruited thus far decided it was better to build a new city in the badlands to the east of New Amsterdam , settling on the name Lutèce.

Preparations
Prior to any official announcement, some farms were renovated on the would-be claims of Lumière to start working towards XP production, a storage bunker was partially built, and ideas on how to organize the city of Lutèce were discussed thoroughly, including the style it would be built it and the arrangement of the roads.

Early History
The territory Lumière was first publicly claimed on June 4th 2021 on reddit. The claims were announced earlier than was planned, with AmandaCC stating "In short, this is a claim to avoid other people claiming this area, but we'll start building a proper city very soon!" It was about four days later that the first roads in Lutèce were built, made from stone bricks, stone and polished blackstone. On the 13th of June 2021, the first building in Lutèce, NebulaSSR's house, was completed. The first build in Lutèce established its previously agreed upon style: late 19th century to early 20th century french architecture, notably Haussmannian and Beaux-Arts stye buildings.

On the 17th of June 2021, AmandaCC announced the expansion of Lumière's claims to include a portion of the Medi Sea for the purpose of mining sand, but almost immediately retracted it after protests from the King of Lusitania, explaining that claiming a part of the Medi Sea stood against the Council of the Medi Sea and its principle of equality.

On the 25th of June 2021, Lutèce was connected to New Amsterdam, Lusitania and Colissipo by rail, but an aesthetic rail station was not constructed; however there are plans to eventually design and build one. Only more than two months later, on the 28th of August 2021, was an overland station built, in preparation for the construction of the final part of the L-Line, which would connect Lusitania and Lumière on an overland rail.

The island of Riarexmer, renamed to Corse ("Corsica" in french), was claimed on the 4th of July 2021, with AmandaCC saying "the reason for this claim is to secure ourselves a plains biome to farm in", further explaining that the Lumerian government was planning to create a flower farm in Corse.

Lumière's first food bank was built on the 17th of July 2021. Located close-by to the factory building, it provides bread to "friends of Lumière" as well as potatoes and fish to citizens.

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