Monarchs of Talossa (1791-present)
María I (Moritz) 1791-1851
"The Peasant Peacemaker"
Talossa's origins remain unknown. The historical myth is that the people ultimately came from Latin Africa, and so their language is related to Numidian. This has yet to be disproven. What we
do know is that they broadly resided in France in the North, near the Netherlands, before migrating to New Orleans and ultimately heading North to settle in the then embyronic St. Louis Colony. Some time in the early 1700s, the Talossans decided that they needed to move further inwards, and went to the northeast, where they ended up founding a new settlement by a lake, which they called Milvoc'ht.
They somehow escaped the Seven Years War, but by the 1790s, the world was starting to be dimly aware of the Talossans' existence, and this worried them. They didn't want to be forcibly annexed into the English or British realms. They were aware the British tended to be, ah, eccentric, so they decided to plump for them as their new guardian instead. Before 1791, the Talossans were broadly a republic by default, but they knew that to get a better chance, they needed to present forth a monarch who could get Britain's respect. So they decided to have a lottery. 5
bent to get in.
And ultimately the one who got the winning ticket was... a low-born seventeen-year-old girl from the rough streets of Milvoc'ht who somehow saved up enough money for one ticket. The Talossans kept to their commitment though, and crowned her Queen María and sent her off with some government officials to Castreleon to hopefully persuade the King of Britain to promise protection, or at least not invade. They did not expect it to work, though.
The King of Britain at that time was Pedr VII, a man who was desperate for anything to distract him from his irritating Tosaig. So some people who was talking in badly mangled French accommodated by the only person in the entire Kingdom who could translate that to British, peaked his interest. Especially as they claimed to be from a distant kingdom in the west that was desperate for protection. Pedr VII found this fascinating and working through the translator, promised to grant Talossa protection from the other kingdoms in exchange for them vowing fealty to him as High-King.
Pedid was outraged that the King did this unilaterally, but it was just one drip-drop on the collapsing relationship between the King and the Tosaig that would ultimately break with the French Affair in which Pedid advocated welcoming the exiled King of France as a refugee. Meanwhile, María Moritz, Queen of Talossa, would return to Talossa with unexpectedly good news. Britain did indeed grant them protection. Celebrations were held all through Talossian land, and the streets of Milvoc'ht was loud with cheers for their land's newfound security.
Talossa would broadly be understood by the English and French to be under British protection from then on, so it was widely ignored up until the 1830s and the growing presence of Atlantic-Americans near Talossa. They held a low opinions of what they considered
"backwoods French" and there was increasing conflict in the west side of the Great Lakes, what the Atlantic-Americans considered "Wisconsin" and Talossans "Visconça". María by then was in her forties and much more experienced at the art of diplomacy. While the Seneschal was managing internal politics, she was determined to calm matters down and avoid this issue. The Queen was acutely aware of the plan of Britain, England and Scotland to "harmonise" their northern colonies into a "Dominion of Canada". She entered negotiations with the King and Tosaig to get Talossa a respectful position within the Dominion that would guarantee Talossa's ancient rights to their language and property. This was finally hammered out in 1841, two years before Canada finally became a thing. She oversaw Talossa enter Confederation as an equal partner to the other provinces, and with its ancient rights respected.
It is thanks to María that "Talossan Law" is a distinct thing in 2040 Canada. She would pass away in her sixties, leaving behind a nation in mourning.
Stefan (Moritz) 1851-1868
"The International Man"
Her son and heir, Stefan, chose to continue on his mother's royal house of Moritz, rather than his father's rather obscure family name of Dixhet. Stefan was not his mother, who remembered very well her humble origins and presented herself as a "woman of the people". He was brought up in as much luxury as Talossa could provide, and was one of its first genuine aristocrats. Known as Talossa's "international man", he was very much used to hob-nobbing with the European elite and spreading knowledge of Talossa far and wide. Always with a fondness for cigars, he developed a chronic cough later in life, which shortened his lifespan considerably. Often clashing with liberal reformists in Talossa [the very same people his mother favoured], he would acquire a domestic reputation as an arch-conservative who defended the growing elite's interests.
His death would come suddenly at the age of 56, which was a shock to the nation.
María II Eleonora (Moritz) 1868-1923
"A Rock in Turbulent Waters"
The future Queen was a bookish young woman who basically was brought up by her servants as her father was away on some business or another, and even when he was at home was more interested in his card games and his alcohol than in his daughter and heir. Upon her father's sudden death, she became Queen at the age of twenty-five. Acutely aware of her sheer unpreparedness for being Queen, she gave consent for a regency council for the following four years while she was "polished" [in her own word] into the sort of monarch Talossa needed. This was a wise move.
The Regency Era saw some liberal reforms that were popular yet blocked by the stubborn Stefan, go ahead at last. The franchise was expanded, support for family farms were implemented and as Canadian politics increasingly influenced Talossa, the nascent socialist movement started to emerge. Once the Queen, formally educated in everything needed to be a monarch, was finally crowned in 1872, she oversaw a strong cultural reawakening of Talossan culture in reaction to increasing Anglo-American influence, especially in the neighbouring Metropolitan District of Chicago which was rapidly expanding. Acutely aware of the need to balance this with not scaring away profitable immigrants, María Eleonora would seek to, along with her Seneschals, push bills expanding support of culture in Talossa while allowing cities such as Milvoc'ht to rapidly expand with immigrants.
Always with her head in books, many wondered if she would ever get a spouse, but in 1874 she finally engaged a fellow Catholic, Prince Fernando of the House of Braganza and penultimate child of the Queen of Portugal. Portugal was always one of Britain's oldest allies, even despite their stark religious differences, and this marriage was considered diplomatically ideal. On a personal level, it somewhat worked, but was not without clashes.
They had five children, including the next two monarchs of Talossa, which proved a surprise and relief to many Talossan monarchists who doubted that there would even be one. Meanwhile, at a Canadian level, sectarian tensions started to spike between Protestants, Catholics and Muslims. In Talossa, the Protestants tended to be German and Scandinavian immigrants, and tended to be poorer than native Talossan Catholics. In her speech to the nation, spread around by newspapers, she emphasised unity and rising above divisions, while her Seneschals were told privately to try to calm divisions down. This, they tried their best to do, but as matters soured, it became more difficult. This led to the Talossan Socialist Party becoming more popular with Protestant immigrants while turning more explicitly anti-clerical. The Liberals and Conservatives received that news with dread.
Meanwhile, in more irrelevant yet important regal news, the British held the first Imperial Conference of monarchs under British protection, and "forgot" to invite the Talossan Queen. María Eleonora was not at all happy with this, and perceived it as a deliberate snub. Prince Consort Fernando heard this news, and feared it meant that Britain was turning away from Portugal, since the House of Moritz was the
only British-protected royal house that the Braganzas married into. So some words were exchanged with relatives, and one day the British establishment got a rude awakening as Portugal frostily told them that they expected full respect of a Portuguese ally under British protection, namely the Kingdom of Talossa.
The formal alliance took a year or so to negotiate, but it was essentially a done thing by the time the British received the news. Costenhin XII considered Talossa a "piffling, irrelevant, tiny place full of dimunitive French peasants", but as the Senate voted to "caution" him against making any further diplomatic "forgetting", he made a note to invite Talossa to the second Conference, cursing while he did so.
Bizarrely enough, this whole affair managed to unite Talossa, even if briefly, in solidarity against the "faraway British". In that brief, shining moment, Talossans of any ethnicity or origin could agree that their country deserved respect from even the greatest power on the planet. And that would linger in later decades as people invoke "the spirit of 1881", and even nowadays, 1881 is noted as the event that "made" modern Talossa.
In the late 19th century, Talossa would see some of its politicians rise high in Canadian politics, including Liberal Antonio Galilot who ended up the "Quiet Kingmaker" of Liberal leaders, including enabling the rise of the "Redhead from Rhui Island" Aleisandr Bendith in the 1890s, and Conservative Françal Setemvar who was Finance Minister for seven years in the late 1880s and early 1890s under several different Prime Ministers. But none of Talossa's impact on late-19th century Canadian politics can be considered without the rise of the left-wing Socialists, which included many Talossans in its ranks, especially those of a more immigrant background. The left-wing of the Socialists had the German-born Victor Berger and the moderates had the half-Scottish, half-French Röviens La Follette. Despite both being from Milvoc'ht, they bitterly disagreed on a lot of issues, including how much to work with the Liberals. Berger, being from the anti-clerical tradition of Socialists [even if from a Catholic family himself], distrusted the Liberals and considered them and the Conservatives to be the same. La Follette was from a political family with ties to the Liberals [leading Berger to dismiss him as a "Liberal in Socialist clothing"] and so advocated working with Liberals on key aspects that benefited workers.
The Berger-La Follette split would dominate the Canadian Socialist Party for decades, and surprisingly enough weaken their more revolutionary aspect as they expended their struggle on fighting each other and not on radicalising the workers. This would lead the Plains to be more disillusioned with establishment politics and more interested in revolution, leading to the Crisis of the 1920s. But that's for later. La Follette decided that unlike Berger's focus on Canadian-level politics, that Talossa would be ideal to form a Socialist government. In 1898, in the wake of Aleisandr Bendith winning a Liberal victory at the Canadian-level, the Liberals and Socialists [under the "Social-Liberal Pact"] convincingly defeated the Conservatives and gave María Eleonora and Talossa their first-ever Socialist seneschal.
Röviens La Follette was a dominant personality in Talossa's provincial politics, and surprisingly enough got on well with the Queen who was known for having reformist sentiments. La Follette, as noted before, was from the moderate half of the Socialists, those that saw the party as merely a party of advocacy for workers' interests, not a revolutionary socialist movement. Even as Berger wrote many articles in the
Milvoc'ht Daily Worker acidily condemning the "bourgeois liberalism" of La Follette, the Social-Liberal Pact acquired a lot of achievements to its name, and many with the Queen's silent approval. Expansion of Talossa's primitive welfare state, a tax reform policy were two things he achieved, but the greatest feather in his cap was that of universal suffrage, expanding Talossa's democratic franchise to every man and woman above the age of 21.
The First World War's coming would test La Follette's Social-Liberals as Berger saw this opportunity to emphasise the Socialist Party's traditional pacifism and rejection of war as a "bourgeois trick" to turn workers against each other. In the end, La Follette turned out to be a man of his principles, and concurred with Berger that the Socialists should oppose war. This led to the Conservatives returning to power in 1915 on a backlash to the "pro-Central Powers" La Follette, and the Socialist Party on a Canadian level split, not on Berger vs. La Follette lines, but on war lines.
Prince Fernaodo, first child of the Queen and heir to the Talossan throne, would prove himself a strong pro-war agitator, actively getting involved in politics in favour of the war, which tested the monarchy's popularity with those that were more sceptical of the war. This concerned the Queen, but Fernaodo was always one to play his own trumpet and ignore any advice. As the war concluded with a messy and unsatisfying outcome, many unhappy Talossan veterans returned home, remembered who opposed the war in the first place, and gave the Socialist Party an outright majority.
And La Follette, now free from the Liberals and with more of a distrust of the Royal Family thanks to Prince Fernaodo, would insist on his last term's grand project being that of restricting the influence of royalty in politics. All María Eleonora could do was sigh and give her assent to the bill that reduced the monarch's power further. Fernaodo took it as a personal insult to the House of Bragança-Moritz and regularly gave shouting rows at his mother over her giving assent. María Eleonora felt more and more tired by the day. And in 1923, she just never woke up.
Fernaodo (Bragança-Moritz) 1923-1930
"A Brief and Unpleasant Experience"
The death of María Eleonora was both expected and unexpected. She was by 1923 the oldest ruling monarch of Talossa [albeit
that's not an achievement] and in her 80s, and in retrospect, it wasn't that surprising she would die around this time due to the events, but she was ruler of Talossa in one of its most transformative periods from a slightly backwoods domain to a multicultural realm and
many only knew her as their ruler, nobody else. It was truly the end of an era. As Seneschal La Follette (himself at death's door) gave his moving eulogy to "the truest servant of the people Talossa ever had", the new King was set to assert his influence.
Fernaodo, according to many people, inherited too little of his mother and too much of his grandfather Stefan. He had Stefan's swagger and a self-righteous vision of himself as the "true" leader of Talossa. While it barely passed muster in the mid-19th century when the government was theoretically at the pleasure of the King, it was outright unacceptable in the 1920s. With the Socialist government handling the sudden death of La Follette less than a year after the Queen, the new Seneschal Emagnhel "Emil" Seidel was of the more "Bergerite" tendency, even if not a full-blown revolutionary. The stage was set for a clash between the Socialists and the King. Then the Socialists lost their majority.
The 1924 election saw the resurgence of the Liberals by riding on agrarian discontent and allying with the wider Canadian Progressive movement as the "Liberal and Progressive Union". With the Socialists under Seidel shifting to the left, the resulting Senate was one of no majority, and the LPU [the kingmaker] chose to coalition with the Conservatives to form a new government of the centre-right in exchange for generous agrarian subsidies. King Fernaodo, if he was a more adroit man, could have supported the new government and established a new centrist consensus away from the Bergerite radicalism the Socialist Party was increasingly under the sway of. He never was that sort of man.
The Crisis of the 1920s in which the plains provinces of Canada successfully seceded as the radical-socialist Union of Agrarian and Industrial Communes only made things worsen in Talossa as Fernaodo increasingly believed that only his firm guard could protect Talossa from socialism, which in his deeply-paranoid mind included anything that smelled of concessions to the poor. As the Roaring Twenties went on, the Conservatives and Liberal-Progressives found that even if they passed bills, the King would find ways to use his reduced powers to fight those he disliked. And his popularity decreased. In the glitzy ballrooms of Milvoc'ht, republicanism was the whisper of the day as it was in the trade union halls and the busy streets. Fernaodo was seemingly making the monarchy's days numbered as people could unite in their utter dislike of him.
The Socialist Party, still under Seidel, won a majority in 1929 just before the Great Depression hit. One of their manifesto plans was to hold a consultation on the monarchy's future. Fernaodo and Emil Seidel never got on at all. And once the economy collapsed, people became more radical and vocal republican marches were happening. In 1930, Fernaodo finally decided that if the monarch's survival was under threat because of him, he would abdicate. He had no children, so it went to his brother, who received the most unfortunate of circumstances to inherit a throne...
Tratxan I (Bragança-Moritz) 1930-1943
"The Nation's Humblest Servant"
Never confident in public speaking, always in his brother's shadow, the graying figure of Tratxan Bragança-Moritz ascending to the throne seemed to many to be the final whimper of the collapsing monarchy in favour of a new republic. But what he lacked in the public touch, he more than made up for it in private conversations. The public may see him as a cold, distant aristocrat at first, but when even the committed republican Emil Seidel could remark that "if the public could see the man I converse with, they would elect him", that turns around the hardline abolitionists into softer forces.
Also helping Tratxan is his family, including his charismatic wife Queen Ivana, who successfully portrayed herself as someone who cares for all people and oversaw the royal family's financial and public support of soup kitchens to feed the poor. It was in those soup kitchens that the royal family slowly and painstakingly rebuilt their popular support with the people of Talossa. And to be honest when you boil down the matter, it was too soon after María Eleonora's death for the people to go full-blown republican. They were open to saying the thoughts when the King was someone they actively disliked, but when it was Tratxan, a person many of them didn't know, they defaulted to their normal stance, that of ambivalent support.
Tratxan's reign would oversee Canada (including Talossa) increasingly get dragged into European matters. Unlike the
last war, the royal family this time was studiously neutral, with the heir to the throne Prince Tratxan refusing to comment beyond safe platitudes. They learnt well from the experiences with Fernaodo. Once the war started in 1939, the Royal Family was cautious to comment further, which irked half of the Socialist government and pleased the other half. Tratxan was an aging man when he assumed the throne, and after thirteen years, his heart gave out.
Tratxan II (Bragança-Moritz) 1943-1985
"Atomic Wonder"
Tratxan II was a dynamic individual who clearly inherited his mother's talents rather than his father's. He could play the most aristocratic of lords at a formal gathering and greet labourers with a firm handshake and a cheeky smile a few hours later without any blinking. A man comfortable with the people, he proved an ideal unifying figure, even before his father's death. The coronation was postponed for after the war was finished [against Germany, no wait, Russia] as an ideal ceremony to unite the province. By the time Tratxan II became King, Seidel was out and was replaced by Dante Hoan, who was seen as more of a conciliatory figure for the Socialist Party's internal factions, and republican sentiment was at a record low since the 1920s.
The war with Russia, after the war with Germany finished, would conclude in 1947, and the coronation of Tratxan II take place the next year. It was one widely broadcast to all Talossans and according to some would lead to a Conservative victory in the 1949 election as a wave of patriotic sentiment shifted the province rightwards against Hoan's government. But that's debatable, they were after all, in power for 20 years by that point.
Tratxan II would oversee the royal family accept its new role as figureheads of the state, the heady conservatism of the 1950s, the Socialists get back in 1959 under Frans Zeidler and overall rule over a very changeable age for Talossa. He is widely associated with the post-war consensus which mostly aligns with his reign. His death at the age of 87, as the last of the Talossan monarchs born in the 19th century, marked the end of an era.
María III Mitxa (Bragança-Moritz) 1985-2013
"The Philosopher-Queen"
Heir to the throne for most of her life, her ascension to the throne when she was in her early 50s was widely expected. Unlike past Marías, she was extensively prepared for the throne from an early age and as a consequence of that felt very much the burden of responsibility and expectations. To cope with it, she delved into philosophy to find moral explanations to her position. Quite a few Seneschals during Tratxan II's reign can remember when they came early, as expected, and spent time discussing philosophical questions and debates with the heir before having the audience with the King.
Her ascension was after the funeral of her extremely popular father, and while people really liked the father, they were ambivalent about his rather introverted daughter. But María Mitxa would try her best to raise to the situation. After all, she was prepared for it, and could give a respectable speech. The speech she gave may have delved a bit too much into high-level concepts, but it did manage to communicate her view of her position well, that she knew it was a great responsibility but that she would proudly carry it for the people of Talossa.
The Seneschal who was serving at the time of Tratxan's death and María Mitxa's ascension was known to remark that the advice Tratxan gave him was simple and straight-forward, but ultimately useless in practise, while María Mitxa's advice was heavily philosophical and seemed useless, but if you gave the effort to think into it, it would pay off dividends in the long run. He never commented on which style he preferred.
The "Philosopher-Queen" of Talossa would face a major issue with her first child and her heir, Prince Lorentz. Lorentz was always a bit of a play-boy and rather too eager to turn to alcohol, leading to his face being plastered on tabloids even before he became the heir. This was an issue for the "modern monarchy" to have the heir to the throne be a drunkard playboy with a trashed reputation. So the Queen as representative of "The Firm" offered Lorentz a deal, he would either go to rehab and keep his royal funding, or don't and be cut off without a dollar. Lorentz after a while, and one last late night with the bottle, agreed to the first one. As part of this, he would be understood to keep a low profile and focus on his new family.
This paid off, as Lorentz managed to turn his image around slightly and by the time he became King, he was mainly known as "the guy who was a heavy drunkard, but now is sober", which worked wonders with social conservatives. María Mitxa finally died in 2013, at the age of 81.
Lorentz (Bragança-Moritz) 2013-2025
"The Struggle"
Technically he's patrilineally of the House of Aureia, but following the Stefan precedent, he chose to continue the House of Bragança-Moritz [despite the Braganzas refusing to recognise him as the head of a valid cadet branch following their precedent of male-line only]. Anyway, he was in his fifties when he inherited, continuing a bit of a pattern in Talossan monarchs. His time as monarch was honestly, forgettable. Nothing much of note happened in his time on the throne, and his sudden early death was ultimately found to be because of repeated alcohol usage destroying his body.
Turns out he just kept on drinking but extremely private and the stresses of being monarch led to it getting worse. That's pretty bad, image-wise.
María IV Aivlina (Bragança-Moritz) 2025-2028
"Me, Talossa and the Dying Queen"
With the scandal of King Lorentz continuing to drink heavily and it leading to his death, his twenty-six-year-old daughter would be forced to deal with it now as Queen. María Aivlina was the epitome of the ideal young monarch. Time at university clean and uncontroversial. Known to support charities that did public good without getting into divisive issues. Even going steady with a nice young middle-class man from a safe background.
If that's not the perfect monarch for a figurehead role, who is? Well, there's the matter of her chronic ill-health, yes yes. There are a lot of things even cyberpunk medicine can't fix. Her body is slowly dying, and there's really nothing anyone can do. What she is really determined for, is to have a child before she dies, so the child can be the heir. Her new husband is very supportive of her, if nothing else.
In late 2027, she finally has her child she so desired for, and named her María Luïça. Her body starts to fall apart rapidly afterwards, with her losing consciousness in February 2028 and deemed dead shortly afterwards. And Talossa enters its second Regency Era.
María V Luïça (Bragança-Moritz) 2028-present
"The Quiet One"
If you meet María Luïça in 2040, you meet a quiet twelve-year-old girl with the deepest stares from her wide round sapphire eyes. Like she could see through your very soul. She has few friends, but what friends she has, she is fiercely loyal to. She is acutely aware that she was basically born on the throne, and has expectations on her that surpasses even that of her great-grandmother. She is possibly the most introverted of any of Talossa's monarchs, saying extremely few words, so few that some even thinks she's mute. She can be quite disorienting to meet, to be honest.
And yet she's probably going to be Talossa's longest-reigning monarch. Her father, as head of the Regency Council, tries his best to let her have a normal childhood, but his private worries is that he has failed at that and his beloved daughter, his dear departed wife's desired legacy, is deeply affected.
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This is a homage to a micronation,
Talossa, that I found on the Internet and found interesting. In TABE, it basically replaces Wisconsin.