The rains of 630BCE washed away the blood of the previous year's famine, death and destruction, but not the memory of it. Whilst conflicts were abandoned in favour of each city's government attempting to re-congeal itself into something resembling what it was a little more than 12 lunar cycles before, the peace was uneasy. Neighbour had fought neighbour, and masters had sought to rechain those that escaped the lash and only the desperate need of using every available moment to plant and tend to crops lead to any cohesion at all. Artuk, kolac, daeth, eccandu... all Iya concerned themselves with ensuring the next harvest would be as prosperous as possible.

When the first of the new harvests were reaped, political effort turned for the first time since the crisis towards restoring the status quo. This was a difficult prospect, as vast depopulation had left very few of the old vertiya and artiya in power, and many ancient families of wealth and regular political influence were nowhere to be found, either fled or entirely extinct. Instead new faces made names for themselves, almost invariably aggressive political 'Lions' whose first priority was the reenslave the emancipated peoples of Radet-Ashru... a prospect that boded poorly for the Hunadi and their Null'ba ilk.

Fortunately for them, they had an advocate in the Unone. Having fared by far the best in Radet-Ashru by virtue of grain shipments from their holdings in Noon, the Unone were the only city-state to have retained their government. They fancied themselves police of Radet-Ashru, insisting that slavery of fellow Radeti was a barbaric practice. Foreigners who failed the heed the nad, they said, were the rightful bearers of Radeti yoke, and any attempt to subject other Radeti to slavery would be met with extreme prejudice.

To the surprise of many, including noted historian Shirek of Teltras, it was the Teltrashi who tested the Unone's sincerity. One decisive military defeat later, it was clear to all that the status quo was forever shattered. Seeing the Unone as protecting their interests, emancipated people across Radet-Ashru tied their own fledgling governments to that of Unone, who were quick to announce to the other cities that this territory was now theirs and would be protected as such.

The locust plagues only entrenched Unone dominance further. Whilst the other cities suffered another famine - though not nearly so severe as the most productive farmland was now farmed rather than scorched in warfare and so many had already died - Unone remained afloat again from its Noon colonies, which suffered only minor skirmishes with heqosu-people by virtue of the Ongin's stout defence of their eastern border.

Although many of the Unone agitated for seizing the advantage and outright conquering the other great cities of the north, a larger body turned to historical lessons to cite the folly of such attempts. Naotik had risen and fallen, and so too had Teltras, Konome and Santu in their own times. Conquest would never work, for conquest pitted the interests of the occupied individuals strictly against those of the Unone.

Instead, they turned to other more diplomatic opportunities to secure their power. First among these was dealing with persistent Arath raids along Radet-Ashru's western border. Although rarely defeated decisively and simply driven off in more cases than successfully captured, enough Arathee were brought to heel for the Unone to make their point. Branding their captives with tattoos - not tanadi, they insisted - of balu and forcing upon them piercings of the conch, the Unone made their first foreign slaves and set them to work in the heavily depopulated west of what was once Naotik's sphere of influence.

This was shortly followed by a national announcement that the Null'ba, Nulldiya and Perkiya classes were to be formally abolished in areas of Unone influence.

All Radeti were to be free Iya.

Political map a year after the locust plague.

Unone's influence outside of Unone itself is an admixture of recently emancipated peoples who have aligned themselves with the city and very small percentage of enslaved Arath.