Cryria: Difference between revisions
→The Albertine Era
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Albert also proved to be a powerful proponent of the early eugenics movement as well as ongoing efforts to eliminate regional dialects and force the adoption of a standard Cryrian language. As King he was considered to be the father of the Ministry for Tomorrow which enacted what he outlined as his Social Engineering Program. The program in many ways co-opted existing sentiments towards nonhumans and so-called "Social undesirables," and added a pseudoscientific layer that appealed to many proclaimed rationalists of this time. While the Ministry was initially founded to oversee the Government's language and cultural policies, it quickly expanded and became infamous for its systemic targeting of nonhumans, the mentally ill, and dissident movements. The century following Albert's coronation saw a marked collapse in nonhuman demographics as a result of forced sterilizations, lobotomies, and other atrocities that sought to dissolve elven and Vhydaszi communities. Much of Nekomimi culture was lost during this time, though coherent elven communities persisted in the Highlands. Albert reportedly summed up his own views in a speech to the Riksdag as early as 1867: {{quote|It is incumbent upon us as leaders and statesmen to understand that we now reside in a new age of science and reason. To wait for the unfit and undesirable to perish of nature's own accord is the way of animals and primitives who know no progress and thus have only patience. We however must now claim the tools our own intellect has given us and with them the responsibility to command not merely our own destinies but the destiny of the Cryrian nation. As we once moved from the caves and the wilderness to construct our own domains, so too shall we now engineer a society within which to reside that will withstand all tests of time and troubles. This obligation is neither to ourselves nor to God nor even to our children, but to the thousand nameless generations who will follow in our footsteps.}}Albert also inherited a Kingdom in a complicated geopolitical situation. The ability of the small Cryrian population's ability to sustain its historic great power aspirations in the industrial age was coming under increasing scrutiny from both within and without the Kingdom. The ambition to fully control the Northern Way had been all but abandoned as Cryrian influence failed to extend beyond eastern Älemsi, while other aspects of Cryrian power had entered a state of decline as the country struggled to maintain its goals of naval parity and power projection. Though the King firmly subscribed to longstanding concepts about Cryria's rightful sphere in the region, he simultaneously eschewed the Arcturian ventures that had previously been endorsed by the late Prime Minister Aberg as wasteful and impractical. The King instead turned his attentions towards shoring up the country's position within Novaris. He became the first to turn the networks of Cryrian outposts and concessions on Älemsi into a formal system of naval outposts and refueling stations to protect the Nordenfästningen's eastern flank and ensure the RCRN's dominance over the immediate area. The fleet itself was similarly reorganized around a new doctrine of short-ranged coastal battleships and shore installations that could provide for the defense of the Isles and its immediate interests.
This realignment was effectively an admission that the Kingdom lacked the economic and military means of achieving the full extent of its desired dominion in Novaris, and the King instead pursued other means of pursuing Cryrian national aims on the Mainland. This culminated in King Albert's marriage to Leonora Reitz, the younger daughter of the Duke of [[Charlottesborg]]. The marriage was considered to be highly unusual, as Cryrian monarchs had traditionally always married within the Kingdom in order to maintain their ties with the aristocracy. The marriage with Leonora not only marked a continuation of Albert's own ambitions to cement a pan-Cryrian identity but also a form of rapprochement with the Duchy and an indirect extension of the Kingdom's influence into Volscina. The implications of this backdrop were mollified only by the expectation that Leonora was unlikely to inherity the Duchy - That privilege belonged to her elder sister, Olivia, who had children of her own. However, Olivia passed away from typhus approximately a month before her father's own death, and Leonora successfully laid claim to the Duchy over the objections of Olivia's line. Thus, the Duchy of Charlottesborg effectively came under the rule of the House of Leidensen, a fact that inspired wariness among other Volscine powerbrokers that would later lead to the controversies of the Charlottesborg Succession.
[[File:King Albert.jpg|thumb|King Albert of Cryria in 1883]]
Ultimately, King Albert is considered to have been largely successful in establishing a new and important role for the monarchy within the limits of constitutionalism. The Crown remained a driver of policy even as it was forced to seek cooperation and share power with the Riksdag - albeit by embracing and even accelerating its nationalist and conservative policies. Albert further put into place many elements of the modern Cryrian state that would carry forward through generations to come. However, these included his support for highly illiberal movements that would continue to plague the nation. His support for eugenics and his harsh stances against nonhumans have made him a highly controversial figure in Cryrian history. Even in his own time, many who had enjoyed high hopes for a King who had been a significant supporter of constitutionalism soon grew disillusioned by the subsequent policies of his reign. Though he sought to unify the Cryrian identity on a level it never had been before, his hard line towards both the country's nascent labor movement and its nonhuman population generated an undercurrent of unrest throughout his rule. In 1871 he ordered the violent quelling of the Highland Riots, an extended period of civil unrest in Lielsta March that resulted from state efforts to force Elven children into the country's new education system. Similarly strict measures in favor of employers were taken against worker's strikes, which ultimately lead to the formation of initially small but increasingly energized opposition factions in the Riksdag who sought to end the body's support for the Crown's actions. As the Riksdag remained dominated by a wealthy elite, these groups primarily focused on the King's Social Engineering Program.
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