#sacae

like, let me set the scene. bulgar, as we know from FE7, is the financial capital of sacae, and a trade hub of at elibe in general; therefore, we can reasonably assume that the sedentary tribes of bulgar frequently engage in trade with the nomadic tribes (especially the bigger ones such as the kutolah and the djute), since they tend not to produce very many refined goods of their own — this is the foundation which the entire sacaen economy is laid upon.

anyway, as we know, bulgar is sacked by bern during the war. in this time, massacres of the native populace are committed with impunity by the occupying army, and it's easy to assume that they were also allowed to loot freely, so we'll assume that too. huge amounts of labor and capital are lost from this, and the whole country is occupied by bern (either militarily or under limited civilian oversight) until it is liberated by the etruria/lycia joint army.

now, obviously, all of elibe is in a similar state of devastation from the war, and thusly goods from ilia and especially bern (which, per the FE6 novelization, was actually briefly dissolved entirely by etruria before they pulled back and allowed guinevere to take the throne — imagine if they just. didn't do that. lol) can't flow through bulgar into the rest of sacae, in addition to much of bulgar's domestic industries being ruined by the occupation.

this is very bad. with the lack of refined goods from the rest of the continent to be traded, alongside sacae just sort of being on fire in general, the nomadic tribes are less incentivized to trade the raw goods they can produce (meat, dairy, hides/leather, certain kinds of textiles, etc.) in favor of keeping as much as they can to themselves, and economic activity across the nation just sort of... plummets. horribly.

now, depending on how hard of a bad end we want go for here, we can either look at this and assume that this chaos is a temporary state of affairs — that as reconstruction goes on, international trade can be resumed, the economy begins to heal and bulgar + sacae as a whole come out stronger for it — or things can just Keep Getting Worse, possibly escalating into inter-tribal raiding and even outright warfare, with an extremely case having this existing concurrently with a decline in the belief of Sacaen as a distinct national identity/a rise in tribal separatism, which is the kind of insane existential crisis that hasn't been around since the scouring, probably.

idk. i'm normal about sacae.

"Both my mother and father were some of the greatest swordsmen I ever knew... I can only hope to live up to their skill someday." 🍃⚔️

Inktober: Day 29

Sorry sorry sorry for the late post, I'm going to finish on time though!! I promise!

lady of the plains

You know, it’s really struck me how Lyn’s got a ton of wasted potential surrounding her vengeance against the Taliver Bandits for murdering her entire family. Aside from the one pirate instance, Lyn never brings it up again and seems to be over it a bit too soon. Instead, she comes off as a generic “I fight to protect my friends! :D” type of girl and doesn’t really undergo any meaningful character development. She even loses all of her story importance beyond her own mode, and yet she’s still a Lord outside Lyn Mode?

Now, there’s a vengeful Sacaean in FE6 who is actually driven by his vengeance, that being none other than Rutger. Unlike Lyn, Rutger’s vengeance is treated like an important part of his character, because his vengeance is not only his primary motivation for taking up the blade against Bern in the first place (Bulgar Massacre, anyone?), but it also comes up in two of his support chains: Those with Dayan and Karel, both his Sacaean elders. In both of those supports, Rutger admits to knowing his path of vengeance and bloodshed is one of self-destruction, and his Karel support even demonstrates his willingness to carve himself a new path in life; one where he will once again hear the voice of Father Sky and Mother Earth calling to him. Furthermore, his supports with Fir demonstrate that Rutger doesn’t want her to take after him, which can again be attributed to his lifestyle and how dangerous he knows it to be.

Sure, some might brush Rutger off as your typical edgy Myrmidon and a Navarre clone. But in reality, Rutger is a man driven by vengeance who knows his own existence to be a sad one as long as he follows that path. His challenge is to find a new purpose to call his own, free from his old life.