August 15th, 1502

Harbor of Heraklion, Candia

It had been almost a month since the Crusading Fleet of St. Denis met its end, first at sea against the ascendant Ottoman navy, and last in the harbor at Heraklion, where the fires sparked by the raiding Turks turned the night as bright as day. The series of diplomatic and battlefield disasters that had lead to this inferno of a finale have been the talk of Candia, if not all of Europe, ever since. But regardless of the how and why, what cannot be denied were the remains - almost one hundred ships of war now lie in the mud at the bottom of the harbor, with the bodies of thousands of slave rowers to keep them company.

Now, the sinking of a ship or two while in harbor – especially a harbor as large as Heraklion – was not unusual. There was protocol, procedure to follow, men employed in the task of recovering what salvage they could and dredging what material they could not. But those were actions for a few ships, sunk from rough seas or disrepair, and usually unloaded of most of the cargo they would be carrying. The wrecks that now defined the sea floor of Heraklion were ships of war, ravaged by inferno, and filled with all the trappings that a modern warship would have brought with it. Only one other port in recent history has seen such a total destruction of ships within its waters - the Port of Copenhagen in 1428, which had the vast majority of its fleet destroyed by a Hanseatic bombardment. But the Port of Copenhagen lies in the deep, rocky waters of the North Sea - a very different situation than the more shallow, muddy waters that surround most of Candia. Recovering the port from this disaster would take years, if not decades, and it may never fully return to its state of even two months ago.

The newly-appointed Duke of Candia, the Podestà of Pordenone, has received reports to this extent from the multiple surveyors and salvage agents he has sent to what was once the jewel of Candia. The prognosis is grim - fixing the port to a usable state would take at minimum the better part of a decade, and hundreds of thousands of ducati to even attempt a recovery from its current situation. As such, a number of delegates sent by the mayor of Chania have recommended to instead invest these recovery funds in building up the harbor there, and leave a smaller contingent in Heraklion to focus on salvaging only the easy to recover and valuable materials sitting in the harbor mud. They note that this would allow for more immediate recovery, and a deeper harbor would last longer and could prove to be more valuable in the long run.

The mayor of Heraklion, of course, is disgusted by such a suggestion, and insists that to simply give up on one of the regions largest harbors since antiquity is an incredible disservice to the history of the island and the peoples that live there. Not to mention his own pockets.

A third group also approaches the new Duke, representing a contingent of French and Neapolitan sailors who both survived the inferno in the harbor and did not wish to return to the mainland, and are hoping to see assistance in finding permanent housing and employment on the island - perhaps in assisting with whichever project the good Duke wishes to pursue?

However Venice chooses to proceed, it is clear that much time, money, and work is going to be needed to return the Stato de Màr's Aegean fortress to its former glory. Doge Leonardo Loredan will need to respond to yet another wrinkle in the early years of his Dogeship, and all eyes will be on him to sort out yet another disaster.