Museum of the Empire, Eveari, Ananto

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ANANTO-KUNDRATI 1
Empress Carolina I Ananto


Empress Carolina I Ananto at her Coronation, displaying the Hulanevek Diamond

The Foundling becomes Empress
Empress Carolina I Ananto was not born to royalty: She began her life as a foundling in Etxea, Kundrati. Her biological mother died in childbirth and her biological father had long since left the relationship and was never located (It was later held, without any evidence, that he was murdered in the death camps of the Kundrati Legion, and while the death toll of the Legion's reign of terror makes this a distinct possibility, there is simply no way of knowing for sure.)

The nameless infant lived at the hospital for several weeks before a powerful lawyer for the Bank of Kundrati and scion for a powerful politically connected Kundrati family, Pavlina Hulanevek, was informed of the little infant who needed a caring home and a loving mother. The baby was adopted shortly afterward, was named Carolina, and was doted upon by her adoring mother.

Her life and destiny was ever afterward changed when Carolina's adoptive mother married into the Kalistani Royal Family. Carolina Hulanevek, as she now was named, was 6 years old when she moved to Kaliburg and into the home of Emperor Fredrick II Ananto. At first, she was shy and unsure, but she eagerly embraced Kalistan, its language and its customs, and eventually its name-- She eagerly accepted Ananto as a Surname prefix when the Emperor adopted her as his own daughter and named her his sole heir.

Princess Carolina Ananto-Hulanevek lived with The Emperor and her mother soon to be Empress Pavlina I Ananto, for five years before his death by assassination after her 11th Birthday. At this point, her mother fled Kalistan for the family's relatives home in the safety of Marlingantos Gaduridos, where she lived for about a year, getting to know her Ananto Cousins, who would remain her closest associates for the rest of her life. She learned something of the Egelian language in Gaduridos (the Gaduri Anantos, a cadet line which would soon take the name of Carolina's adoptive aunt Margaret Alvarez spoke Vrassan with a Gaduri accent now,) and though she now spoke some Egelian with a Vrassan accent, she would soon lose her native Delic altogether.

Like all Kalistanis, she did National Service, and returned to Kaliburg to take a more active role in government as her mother began to decline due to symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. She negotiated peace between Luthori and the Empire in Etxea, at the Ananto vacation home, a home which would be later defiled and destroyed when Kundrati fell to fascism. She secured Gaduri accession first to the AESA, and ultimately oversaw Gaduri incorporation into the new Anantonese Empire. All before she was even formally crowned. This foundling had risen to sit on the most prestigious throne in Terra with two Constituent Nations as part of her Empire, and a half a dozen Crownlands on three separate continents. She had a navy that was unrivaled on the waters: Kalistani Regular Navy patrolled from the Artanian Sea near her homeland in Etxea, to the Gulf of Carina in Dovani, and from Western Keris to Indrala. Kalistani prestige was at its apex when Carolina I Ananto was crowned in Eveari in 5578.

Empress Carolina in Power
The first major policy undertaking of the new Empress was to redesign Kalistan's currency. Numismatists under her direction established for Kalistan a set of beautiful bank notes. Though still called Rubes, the redesign named the currency Imperial Rubles, to acknowledge the state of the currency for the Empire. Soon after her mother's death in 5580, it is believed that the Empress ordered the murder of the King's Rock inmates who had been convicted of murdering Emperor Fredrick II Ananto. There was no formal inquiry tying the Empress to the deaths of the inmates, but only those who had been convicted of the assassination conspiracy had died on the Rock mysteriously, and none of the others there, whether inmates or trustees of the Island claimed to know anything about the death, nor were they injured in any way. The death of the inmates coincided with the birth of her first son and Heir, Fredrick III Ananto-Sandoval, the event which secured for her the title of founder of her Dynasty, the Fifth, or Kundrati Dynasty.

A crisis in Baltusia, which led to refugees pouring into Kalistan from Athosia, was stoked by Carolina, who sought to attract Athosians to Kalistan to help strengthen Kalistan's image in Athosia when the refugees returned home. As part and parcel to the Baltusian crisis, Carolina took a hardline against Communism, a traditional position which continues in Kalistan to this date, first equating communism and fascism as two sides of the same extremist coin. The remarks were directed at Baltusia specifically to undermine the legitimacy of the Baltusian Communist government. Around this time, Carolina has moved firmly into the Nationalist ideological quarter, a faction who had once protested her mother's marriage to the Emperor. Carolina, who considered herself absolutely Kalistani, even eventually disavowed the place of her birth as tensions with the Kundrati Legion would soon reach the boiling point.

The Empire at its height
In Gaduridos, House Ananto embraced the nascent coffee industry, pumping billions of Imperial Rubles into the industry to kick start it and make Gaduri Coffee the premium brand in the world. She also oversaw the incorporation of Lodamun into the Empire, a cool relationship which would last for 60 uneasy years. The Incorporation of Lodamun was fraught from the beginning: Soon after accession, a base issue with Mordusia occured where Lodamun sought basing for its own national fleet in southern Seleya.

Kaliburg believed that Imperial Fleets should also have access to the bases that one of its constituent nations had access to. Mordusia, a client/puppet state of Kalistan's longtime rival in Luthori, said yes to Lodamun, but no to Ananto. Lodamun, for its part, only reluctantly stood with the Empire in the matter, and ultimately the base deal was cancelled out of resentment. Similarly, Kalistan's embargo against Kundrati was not supported by Lodamun, who soon would make it known that they intended to pursue their own foreign policy independent of Kalistan's, and consequently leased Kalistan a logistics base, but did not participate in any actions against Kundrati. (to be fair, neither did Gaduridos, who declared absolute neutrality in all foreign policy matters.)

As relations continued to deteriorate between Kalistan and Kundrti due to war crimes committed by the Fascists, which were covered up by both Beiteynu and Kundrati ally Likatonia in an attempt to discredit Kalistan's claims, Kalistan stood alone in levying sanctions against the fascist regime, while other nations actively undermined the sanctions and supplied the fascists. Kalistan attempted to provide assistance to the anti-fascist Kundrati Union forces, but failure of other nations to also come to the aid of KU doomed them to be ultimately defeated by the Legion. Carolina took this betrayal of her homeland by the world very personally, but Kalistan possessed neither the capacity or the political will to intervene in a country on the other side of the globe that only Carolina had ties to.

The best that the Empress could get from the Nationalists was a strengthening of sanctions against Kundrati, but Kalistan alone bore the costs of maintaining the sanctions, while the rest of the world turned a blind eye to Kundrati Legionary atrocities and many helped them commit them by actively trading with the fascists in contravention of the sanctions regime. After a year of sanctions, the Kalistani economy was notably suffering, and the Empress lifted sanctions against nations who traded with Kundrati, and recalled the privateers from the line in the Mad Dog Ocean.

The Empress took the opportunity to reform the peerage and to resolve outstanding differences with Luthori. The 5590s were generally peaceful for the Empire. That peace allowed the Empress to focus once more at home and in Seleya. That peace was shattered when Beiteynu inexplicably deployed a nuclear weapon against Xsampa. Though this did begin the century long friendship between Kalistan and the communists in Xsampa, it also stirred things more locally, dragging Kalistan once more into Artania. Things abroad developed slowly over the next decade, and the Empress prepared to retire.

The Artanian Campaign begins
But six months before her abdication date was set, the Crown Prince requested that she deploy the 4th Imperial Navy west to the edge of the Artanian Sea: Kundrati had acquired new capital ships, along with a fleet of submarines, entirely in secret, and had launched an attack against Xsampa. Kalistan was the only nation who was interested in responding. And given Kalistan's imperial partners' unwillingness to assist the Empire, and Likatonia's backsliding back into the Kundrati orbit, Kalistan could not trust that those weapons would not turn against Kalistan next.

Carolina's reign, which began in peace and abundance, ended with her holding an Empire that began to resent Ananto together by sheer will, in a state of perpetual low level conflict. The seeds of Kalistan's retreat from international affairs, and the shift in the world's attitude toward Kalistan, were laid down during this period. The reign of Empress Carolina I Ananto is now largely judged to be a failure (which is why she was never given her own moniker), due to her inability to muster the world's forces to kill Kundrati fascism in its cradle. Out of fairness to Carolina, Her son would also not have that ability either and it would consume his entire reign--That task would eventually be only partially accomplished by her granddaughter nearly 40 years later. But Kalistan could not be considered the hegemon it was under much of Carolina's reign if it couldn't even get its own constituent nations to help it.

And since that day, the world has spent considerable time and resources undermining, negating, and erasing the legacy that Carolina inherited from the 4th Dynasty Emperors and Empresses. As Kalsitan's influence and power extended to its farthest extent in its entire history, the retrenchment was already underway.