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'''Yudis''' (pronounced {{IPA|/&#x02C8;ju&#x02D0;d<S>&#x026A;</S>s/}}) is one of the oldest [[world]]s of the [[Ecemere|Ecemerese Alliance]], one of the first two [[devare]]s to formally ally with [[Lomare]] and by doing so to become de facto dependencies.  Now, it is perhaps the [[Great Empire|empire]]'s main [[industry|industrial]] world, the entire devare covered on both sides with factories and machinery.

Perhaps due to its having been a part of the Alliance so long, giving time for resentment to develop, or perhaps because of dissatisfaction with the devare's [[pollution]] and poor living conditions, Yudis is also a notorious hotbed of sollevation, with numerous groups of insurrectionists hatching plots against the imperial [[government]].  Ecemere is fully aware of the unrest on Yudis, and attempts a careful balance of vigilance and forcefulness, enough to keep an eye on the rebels and curtail their damage but not enough to turn the populace further against the government and worsen the situation.

==Geography==
Like most devares of [[Piobagh]], Yudis has separate names for its two sides.  The side that was the original home of what became the dominant [[culture]] of the devare is called [[Old Yudis]], while the other side is [[Mahimi]].  Each side has seven [[continent]]s, though they're rather differently arranged.  In Old Yudis, the continents were all separated, each one separated from the others by tens of [[meter|kilometer]]s of water, and each with very different [[terrain]]s and [[ecosystem]]s.  Around the continents was mostly just open ocean; there were relatively few islands apart from the continents themselves.  Mahimi had a lot more scattered islands, and the continents that did exist were mostly wet and riddled with bays and inlets.  There was, however, one major exception, the continent of [[Taharis]] the interior of which was a vast, arid desert.  [[Isthmus|isthmi]] connect all Mahimi's other continents to Taharis, with the sole exception of the continent of [[Cyeron]] on the other side of the [[world]].

In any case, now Old Yudis and Mahimi alike are so built over with factories and infrastructure that the land and sea alike are concealed under layers and layers of buildings and scaffolding, and the original contours of the continents are concealed.  Both sides of the devare appear as just vast [[sphere]]s of [[metal]]lic mechanism, what [[life]] still exists being hidden deep underneath, having to be hardy enough to withstand not just the lack of [[sun]]light but the mephitic vapors that blanket the world, exfused by its endless enginery.

Although Yudis did have some natural [[conaster]]s, they were all underwater, through the ocean floor.  The Old Yudans created some terrestrial conasters, however, and the occupying imperials even more, such that now tunnels of varying sizes punch through the devare in several dozen places.  They are each guarded by sequences of heavy gates and valves that are supposed to tightly control passage between the two faces of the devare, but in practice a combination of laziness and corruptibility on the part of the guards make it much less difficult to get from one side to the other than one might suppose, though still tedious and time-consuming.

==History==
Unfortunately, much of Yudis's prefederate history has been lost.  This is partly because Ecemere has intentionally suppressed it, but even if they hadn't the chaos of the conquest would no doubt have ruined many records.  Still, if many details are in doubt and hundreds of [[historian]]s devote their careers to trying to uncover the devare's lost past (generally not only without the Empire's approof but in active, if abstruse, defiance of its wishes), there are some things that are known.

Even before its annexation by Lomare and absorption into the incipient Ecemerese Alliance, Yudis had made considerable advances in [[chamulcy]].  It may or may not have been at Lomare's level, but if it wasn't it wasn't far behind.  Naturally, after the unification Ecemere was quick to claim all of Yudis's chamulcy, and it's difficult at this remove to discern precisely what chamulcar innovations had originated with Yudis and what were original to Lomare or other worlds.  Evidence does suggest that Yudis may have been ahead of Lomare in a few specialized fields, such as aquatic locomotion, [[differsion]], and [[dispection]]; certainly the nascent empire of Ecemere was not slow to take advantage of these advancements, and the [[whaleship]]s that play a large r&ocirc;le in Ecemere's conflicts with the [[Rijkzee]], for instance, probably owe a debt to Yudan chamulcy.

It was in Old Yudis specifically that these innovations were developed.  Compared to that face, Mahimi was far more [[technology|technologically]] backward.  There is evidence that Mahimi may have at one point attained highly sophisticated [[magic]]s&mdash;both [[spell|carminical]] and [[paracarminical magic|paracarminical]]&mdash;but if so they were apparently lost, or mostly lost, by the time inhabitants of the two sides came into contact.  When they did, Old Yudis quickly conquered all of Mahimi and subjugated its inhabitants.  Because of this, it has been suggested more than once that Lomare's conquest of Yudis was in some ways an ironic turning of the tables.

Yudis's fate was sealed and its independence lost for good when it signed with the nearby devare of Lomare a treaty of mutual support.  While Lomare promised both Yudis and its consignatory [[Aralamare]] a share in Lomare's technological advancement, this was a more significant incentive for the former than the latter, as Yudis wasn't as far behind Lomare and its gain would be less (though still perhaps not insignificant).  However, Yudis had a second incentive for signing the treaty that Aralamare did not: it also had an active threat that it could use protection against.  Specifically, at the time of the treaty, Yudis was under threat from a force of apparently [[plane|alloplanar]] beings called the [[Xamori]] (whose plane of origin to this day remains a mystery); the promise of aid fighting off the Xamori incursion no doubt factored into Yudis's decision to treat with Lomare.  In fact, popular [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] posit that the Xamori infall was in fact engineered by Lomare to motivate a reluctant Yudis to sign, though there's no evidence of this and ample reason to believe otherwise&mdash;Lomare may have benefited from the extraplanar invasion, but almost certainly wasn't behind it.

Whatever immediate advantages the one-sided alliance with Lomare may have seemed to present, Yudis quickly found them outweighed by the detriments.  Lomare wasted little time in pressing its advantage and using the rather transparent pretense of "improving" its confederates to turn them into protectorates, and then to annex them entirely.  While most Yudans saw, at least at first, little difference between the rather stratified pre&iuml;ndicuary Yudan government and the foreign rule by Lomare, the Yudan &eacute;lite, who had more privilege to lose, put up more opposition.  Lomare, however, had anticipated and prepared for this; the defenses and devices were disabled that the insurgents would have used against them, the ringleaders of the rebellion were arrested, and the uprising was quelled almost before it began.

Lomare built upon Yudis's existing infrastructure, and based most of its industrial operations there, particularly those that produced particular pollution or other unsavory side effects.  In time, seeing their world covered with smog and filth, even the lowest of Yudis's underclasses began to chafe at the Lomaran control&mdash;or rather Ecemerese control, for by this time the government was calling its domain the Ecemerese Alliance&mdash;, and another rebellion broke out, this one crossing social strata and involving Yudans of all walks of life&mdash;which has in [[history]] books earned it the name of the [[Common Rebellion]].  Perhaps overconfident from the ease with which it had crushed the previous rebellion, the Ecemerese government was taken by surprise, and this time the rebels managed to oust the governor of Yudis and most other imperial officials and had already formed a new devarile government before reinforcements from elsewhere in the empire finally managed to restore order.  The "[[common government]]" only lasted four [[year (Yudis)|year]]s, but it was a challenge to Ecemerese rule that the empire did not forget.  Ever since then, Ecemere has asserted itself to avoid another &eacute;meute, and while there have been occasional attempts at rebellion, the empire has always managed to put a stop to them before they got out of hand.

==Life==
Covered as it is with gears and gutters and grime, modern Yudis would seem to have little room for wildlife.  There are, however, some [[organism]]s&mdash;and abiotic [[life form]]s&mdash;that flourish in its filth and fabrics.  Some of these are of [[magic]]al or [[chamulcy|chamulcar]] origin, accidental (or intentional) products of the very [[industry]] that makes the world so inhospitable to other [[life]].  The [[slivercrab]] and the [[honegus]] are a few examples.  There are also natural creatures that have adapted well to the new environs, however, from [[insect]]s and other [[arthropod]]s (including some of [[giant arthropod|very large size]]) to various [[species]] of bats and endemic flightless avians called [[whilp]]s.  [[Feral hacus]] of various sorts are also not uncommon on Yudis, the [[scansil]], the [[oaculo]], and the [[groud]] being among the most frequently encountered.

Many of the creatures that existed on Yudis before it became part of Ecemere are now [[extinction|extinct]] in the wild, though some still exist in [[zoo]]s and rare preserves.  Even before the alliance, Old Yudis was heavily industrialized, if not so much as now, and its biosphere had probably already been badly impoverished.  Mahimi, however, still was home to a variety of [[megafauna]] that are now nowhere there to be found.  The seas have fared slightly better than the land; a few of the great whalelike beasts called [[icar]]s may still lurk somewhere deep beneath the water's surface.  But even there, most of the great beasts that once roamed Mahimi are largely a thing of the past.

==Government==
Yudis is ruled by a [[governor of Yudis|devarile governor]], who is assisted by a [[Yudan council|council]]&mdash;which, in practice, they largely ignore.  The governor in turn is largely ignored by the imperial government as long as they seem to be keeping things more or less in order.  Nor does the governor have any direct say in imperial matters; Ecemere's influence on the [[Council of Worlds]] comes only through its representative, over whom the governor has no direct authority... though certainly the governor and the imperial councillor frequently meet to try to bargain with each other.  The current governor, a bony [[geary]] named [[Luder Nathari]], is an eccentric reclusive man who spends most of the time in his rambling mansion, the [[Nidus]].  The imperial councillor representing Yudis is a plump [[erdel]] named [[Vezel Zenene]] who has no permanent residence but loves to travel all over the devare, under the pretext that she's always learning more about the world to better represent it on the Council.

The governor and the imperial councillor are not the only two largely independent functionaries of the empire to have sway on Yudis.  There is also stationed on the devare an arm of the [[Bureau of Security (Ecemere)|Bureau of Security]], the Ecemerese [[espionage|intelligence agency]], with a mandate to act without oversight by the governor or anyone else outside the bureau chain of command.  The local director, a geary named [[Ganarov Duin]], sees himself as above the petty politicking of Nathari and Zenene and avoids them as much as possible, though he really does at least as much political maneuvering in his own circles.

Dissatisfaction with the Ecemerese government remains high on Yudis, and the threat of another rebellion never seems far.  As a sign of their disapproval of imperial rule, many people have taken to wearing salwars, loose trousers like those worn in older times by some of the natives of Mahimi&mdash;the idea, apparently, being identification with the original Yudan people.  Ecemere is, of course, not unaware of these sentiments, but tolerates this show of discontent because it sees it as a harmless venting of feelings that if suppressed might come out in more active and dangerous ways.

Though it's rare for Nathari, Zenene, and Duin to all co&ouml;perate on anything, recently the three of them did jointly formulate a plan to throw a sop to Yudan nationalist elements&mdash;a plan that they've persuaded the imperial government to put into practice.  An otherwise useless far-flung world the empire is now reforming to try to recreate prefederate Yudis&mdash;and old Mahimi in particular.  Calling it [[New Yudis]], the Empire has begun to stock the devare with [[faunum|fauna]] from Yudis, reviving some that were extinct and re&euml;ngineering others for which that wasn't possible.  It has even gone so far as to populate the world with [[resurrection|resurrected]] ancient Mahimans.  While it seems dubious that the creation of New Yudis will do much to soothe the repine of the Yudan populace, it has already proven capable of providing one service... as an isolated place to exile Yudan troublemakers under the pretext of giving them something like what they want.
[[Category:Devares of Ecemere]][[Category: Industrial worlds]]