The Islamic Sultanate of Istanbul and Samarra: A Comprehensive Political and Cultural History

A dissertation by

GTAIVisbest, first Sultan of the Islamic Sultanate of Istanbul and Samarra

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Preface

Although the area which is today called Istanbul has been inhabited by many peoples since the beginning of the second world, information on the various players who have lived there over the two-year period that the second iteration of Civcraft has been active is often sparse or non-existent. Even though the city of Istanbul was founded only six days after the second world's creation, it was marked by long periods of inactivity and early conflict. All these factors make mapping a cohesive history of the city difficult. This is to say nothing of the rest of what we today call the Islamic Sultanate of Istanbul and Samarra, often abbreviated to ISIS. The city of Samarra, the only other large population center outside of Istanbul, is itself a relatively new city, founded during the Sultanate era, the current era of the ISIS. Gleaning older information about such regions presents a much more daunting task, and much of what we today know about earlier histories of Samarra or the Sahara el-Kebiir, the Great Desert, has been extrapolated from limited information. However, this analysis aims to present the clearest, most accurate and most up-to-date history of the multiple regions of the nation today known as the Islamic Sultanate of Istanbul and Samarra.

Often, the history of Istanbul and the regions north of it will intertwine with the histories of city-states around it past and present, such as Mt. Augusta, New Detroit (Today known as Oka Toshi), Plankton and East Ridge. The modern borders of the ISIS are much different from the historical borders of its regions, which often included Istanbul as a tributary state to the southern power of Augusta. More recently, the Grundeswegian claims to the entirety of the ISIS and Istanbul in particular cumulated in the War of Independence and created the Krautchekan-ISIS divide, linking the story of the two nations in a profound way.

The Greater Augustan Basin, one of the oldest population centers of 2.0, is a conglomeration of independent city-states, nations, principalities and entities. Its story is unique, yet rife with misconceptions, biased accounts, and conflict. This dissertation makes no attempt to present itself as completely historically correct or free from bias. Instead, it is the pinnacle of archaeological digs, cross-referencing and subreddit trawling, one that can be considered as the most complete of its time.

Chapter 1: The first days

On the 19th of May, 2013, at 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, the first Civcraft world ceased to exist[1]. The mc.civcraft.vg server address was taken down, and five minutes later, it went back up, no longer hosting the map of the first world. Instead, the second world, Cliffnerd's creation and the second iteration of Civcraft, was loaded, and a few seconds afterwards the first players began logging in and loading the first chunks, welcomed by the virgin landscape of the unexplored land. Lakes, lagoons, forests, mountains and plains were discovered all at once as players spawned in and began their pilgrimages to their respective destinations, locations or cities. Many players headed north, towards the tentative coords of the Metropolis Base Camp. Others turned west, heading for the whispers of a new city called “Versailles”, founded by Itaqi and would later become Orion, the largest economic, military and political stronghold of the map. Others still conglomerated towards the center of the server at 0,0, to join the nascent Kappi, created in the first hours by Soapbucket and his entourage of unstable PvPers[2].

It is difficult to know for certain which areas were explored within the first days, which were scouted for potential habitation by settlers, or which were ignored completely, simply loaded by a passing player on his long journey towards other population centers. Other chunks still were inhabited for short periods of time by known or, more often, unknown hermits who built small hovels or caves and left very little signs of occupation. Certain cities, such as Orion, Fellowship, Kappi, and the Metropolis were proved to have been loaded or chosen as population centers on the first day of the server, whereas other cities are simply suspected of having been occupied in the first hours after the Creation and only attested as cities days or sometimes weeks afterwards. The Greater Augustan Basin itself is known to have been explored on the first day[3], as evidenced by archaeological evidence of first-day hovels scattered in the region, with a higher concentration to the direct South of what is today Plankton. As well, studies on the preservation of “great trees”, natural vegetation that only generated as part of the original world, showed that by the very first day various individual hermits had appeared in the region.

Various theories have been put forward of the origin of the veritable first players to have walked on the land of what is today Mt. Augusta, Istanbul, Samarra, New Detroit, Plankton and Goodsprings. The culture and ethnicity of these first players died out or were assimilated into other cultures long before even the earliest records in the region began being kept. Due to this, almost nothing is known about the origin or migration routes of these peoples. However, some information can be extrapolated from great trees and digs in the north of the basin. Certain Civcraft anthropologists have put forward a theory that these pre-Istanbulite-Kattar inhabitants of the region had migrated from their original homeland or spawn-in points much farther North than the Augustan basin, from a region south of the modern abandoned city of Aurora. Recent discovery of very early caves, with signs and chests, have bolstered the theory that these pre-Istanbulite-Kattar peoples were themselves not natives of the basin. A proposed migration route, backed by the discovery of inhabited caves, shows that these tribes or individual players would have walked South from the snowy plains of Aurora, crossing archipelagos that would have led them across what is today the Acacian Empire and the city of East Ridge, entering the Augustan Basin from the North and propagating across the region from there. Evidence points to the fact that that the archipelagos and shallow islands between the modern cities of Holy Tree and Aurora, which are today much deeper and almost impossible to traverse on foot, used to be have been much less hostile around the time of the Creation, due to tick-related events associated with the small amount of time that these chunks had been loaded. Other theories on the origin of the pre-Istanbulite-Kattar peoples assert that they were not unified in any significant way, and simply random-spawned in various areas around the Basin, sometimes uniting and oftentimes remaining alone. This hypothesis is much less popular among Civcraft anthropologists due to the lack of archaeological evidence to support this, and the lack of accountability for the discovery of the northern hovels. Either way, by the second or third days of the server, the Greater Augustan Basin was populated by a variety of players, none of whom continue to exist today in the region or left behind any significant signs of habitation beyond caves or small dirt huts.

Chapter 2: The proto-Istanbulite-Kattar peoples

On the 25th of May, only 6 days after the Creation, a caravan of weary nomads descended upon Mt. Istanbul. These travelers would later become known as the proto-Istanbulite-Kattar peoples, ancestors of both the Krautchan and the Skepsian cultures that would one day rule over the Augustan Basin and Grundeswald, nestled in the deep , .

Very little is known about the earliest days of proto-Istanbulite-Kattar (PIK) settlement and founding of Istanbul. The first PIK players left almost no written traces of the founding of Istanbul, save for one[4] memento which was recovered years later. The names visible on the memento give insight to a few PIK players, including Skeps100 and MadCow457, both of whom would later branch off into the today-extinct Skepsian culture. These PIK players were most likely the first to found Istanbul, as other core members of what would become the Skepsian Caliphate joined in the days following their settlement into the Augustan Basin.