Scala
Pontesian Holding
Location: a peninsula in the Tigal Sea, near the southeastern tip of Altis
Population: rank 3 (of 10)
Name Derived From: Scylla, monster of the Odyssey. There’s also the one opera house, in Milan..
Model: Caribbean free ports c. 1700 CE
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Scala is held by Pontis in one of the most restrictive trade agreements ever drafted. While Demos is also held by a similar ‘treaty’, the Merchants of the Dem have found loopholes to exploit. Scala, on the other hand, is becoming a dead city. The port is closed, many citizens have left, most leaving for Pontis itself. (Many individuals there have worked their way up into areas of minor but vital importance — on the waterfront, clerks in merchant houses and in the government, soldiers and even officers in both the guard and navy…)

Those left behind are ‘just’ fishermen and the so-called dregs. There are a few keeping the old traditions, but most of the “fishing fleet” are just pirates now, casting nets for bounty other than fish

With the main port closed, nearly all ships land on the islands east and west of the city. Some of these ‘pirate coves’ are looking more and more like actual ports, with their own warehouses and banks, space permitting of course. Some are little more than strips of beach you can anchor a (smaller) ship on. But at least three can claim to be more than just an anchorage; Scala is a ‘ghost town’ but manages because she’s surrounded & enlivened by pirates.

Eventually some power in the region will have to rein in this activity but their base is small (for now) and the losses acceptable (for now). Also, piracy is largely accepted in the region – within limits; there is a tradition of licensed “privateers” in both times of war and the occasional undeclared but vigorous “trade dispute”. (Privateers typically both pay for a license and share the spoils. Some even get commissions in whichever city’s navy. But this, desperate, piracy is new.)

Demos
Pontesian Holding
Location: close to the Southeastern tip of the island of Altis, on a strait between the Sea of Circhos and the Sea of Tigal
Population: rank 4 (of 10)
Name Derived From: Greek, for ‘population’
Model: Trucking company
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Two seaports of Altis on the Sea of Tigal, Demos and Scala, have been pulled into the Pontesian sphere of influence, though not necessarily of their own choice. Both Demos and Scala are east of Pontis, closer to the north coast cities on the Somaris mainland, and potentially competitors to the vast east-to-west sea trade flowing to the Old Capital.

Pontis got there first, however, and—after several naval actions and two short wars that concreted the commercial consensus—forced these seaports to close, to enhance the trade coming to her own port. Currently, Pontis pays both Demos and Scala to keep their harbors closed and warehouses empty. (Though the amount paid is barely sufficient to keep these ports ‘closed’) (and of course, things that are ‘illegal’ are not necessarily impossible; trade in the Sea of Tigal is getting, as they say, interesting)

The payments aren’t quite enough to cover the loss of trade—but given a choice between military or economic warfare—the Dem have chosen the path that doesn’t involve fleets and invading soldiers. The enterprising merchants of Demos, restricted by treaty from trading by ship, instead run teams of wagons to ply the roads. This novel approach is actually working and the Teamsters of the Dem may soon corner the market on the agricultural trade on the island. …And on nearby islands, oddly enough: exploiting a loophole in the treaty originally intended to only cover private coaches of the nobility, wagons are loaded whole onto barges and not unloaded dockside, but only inland.

The Dem are in negotiations to bring in the barges elsewhere—technically in compliance with Pontis but enabling a resumption, at least in part, of their past trade. An agreement between the teamsters and the port city of Siritha may not be too far away. For now, fear of a Pontesian reaction has kept anything official from being set down, though un-officially: there is a whole lot of barge traffic headed east

Avensis
Pontesian Ally
Location: On the southern coast of the island of Rauvos close to its southeastern tip, on the north shores of the Amphithael
Population: rank 4 (of 10)
Name Derived From: Aventicum, (modern Avenches) roman post in what is now Switzerland.
Model: Any ‘second city’ content to be such. Quiet. Peaceful. Certainly free of any old god cults lurking unseen in the background requiring regular sacrifices of curious but clueless outsiders.
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Avensis is ruled by a prince, like its close ally Pontis, and in fact the two princes claim some kinship, though three generations removed the family tie isn’t so much to hold them. The prince and his advisors are content with the alliance however, and happily follow the lead of his “cousin” in foreign and military matters. The alliance does provide Avensis with much of its trade, however. While off the direct sea route from Pontis to the Old Capital, Avensis is a friendly (& tax free, for ships from Pontis) port of call for smaller vessels who need to hug the coasts. And even for more sturdy craft that could take the direct path, a friendly port mid-week on the voyage is usually worth taking an extra day or two.

It is likely that without these ties Avensis would fall back, somewhat happily, into a quiet mostly ignored existence. It has been said that the main products of Avensis are noble old families [old families] and comfortable estates.

Pontis
Principality, with a loose hegemony over 3 client cities.
Location: On the island of Altis, commanding an excellent bay on the Sea of Tigal, just east of a strait leading into the larger Amphithael
Population: rank 8 (of 10)
Name Derived From: Greek word for ‘sea’, Latin word for ‘bridge’
Model: Kinda Venice, kinda Athens.
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Pontis is the closest thing to a major power the region can boast of, not because of its area of influence (the Capel Merchants League would get the nod here) or because of its military power or population, or even the magic Academy that operates here. Pontis is, quite simply, the largest port and most important trade city between the north coast cities on the Somaris mainland and the Old Capital. Everything, from commodities to finished goods to contraband makes its way through the warehouses and wharves (or back alleys and black markets) of Pontis.

Pontis has only one major ally: Avensis, ruled by the cousin of the Prince of Pontis, though Avensis is hardly a help militarily (it isn’t even on the same island). Two other seaports along the strategic trade route, Demos and Scala, have been pulled into the Pontesian sphere of influence, though these are not allies, being subject to involuntary ‘trade agreements’. Pontis essentially pays these cities to keep their harbors closed and warehouses empty, outside of small fishing fleets. The enterprising merchants of Demos, restricted from trading by ship, are a common sight on the roads of Altis, with several guilds running long trains of wagons (and hiring mercenaries, both for protection and ‘Protection’). The Teamsters of the Dem may soon corner the market on the agricultural trade of the island, which might give them the leverage they need to renegotiate their relationship with Pontis. Scala is mounting a different resistance, pushing the limits of what a “small” fishing boat is and resorting to (or perhaps, gleefully embracing) piracy.

Pontis, as a large trade and cultural center, is home to one of the major schools of magic, naturally.

I’ve noted a problem with breaking things down by “generation” or pop-culture “decade”.

We all think we know what the labels mean so we all use them, but it’s rare these days that anyone defines Gen-X or Millennial or “90s Kids”, so much so that ‘millennial’ has become a lazy synonym for “teenagers” even though the most common definition [kids born between 1981 and 1996] means the absolutely youngest ‘millennial’ is 22. Think grad school, not high school. The oldest Millennial is 37 and the median is 29.

“Because generations are analytical constructs, it takes time for popular and expert consensus to develop as to the precise boundaries that demarcate one generation from another. Pew Research Center has assessed demographic, labor market, attitudinal and behavioral measures and has now established an endpoint – albeit inexact – for the Millennial generation. According to our revised definition, the youngest “Millennial” was born in 1996. This post has been updated accordingly”
Millennials projected to overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation [in 2019], Pew Research Center, Richard Fry, 1 March 2018

I’m not a historiographer of sociology (…wow. what a construction that is) but my sideline impression is that “generations” as a named thing didn’t really exist until the mid 1920s when the Lost Generation became a shorthand way to refer to those Europeans born 1883-1900 and subjected to the meat grinder of World War I. This ‘pop culture’ definition (assuming Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway were once considered such) also coincides with some of the earliest academic efforts at describing the same thing. Generations as we now call them are a modern invention, and tied closely to the pace of change of the modern world

(though the ‘kids these days’ complaint dates back to at least the 4th century BCE we could argue that we didn’t complain about “teenagers“ until we invented that word for them, and the “baby boomers”, in the 1950s).

That is to say, if you were born in 1200 or 1400 or 1600 your life might have been significantly different from someone of a century before (or not, for a lot of farmers) but also your life wouldn’t really have been all that different from your mother’ or father’s: 20 years was nothing.

These days, 20 years can feel like a lifetime ago. It’s the difference between a Nokia 3210 and whatever phone you have in your pocket now. It’s the difference between The World Wide Web™ that hasn’t even been indexed by Google yet and a world where ‘the internet’ is a multi-channel, multi-device utility service that operates as an always-on connection to your friends, family, work, finances, potential purchases, and potential mates. Like, reblog, fav, subscribe (remember to hit that bell), swipe right, and hey: rate & review my podcast on iTunes.

20 years is also the frame most use for Baby Boomers, 1945-1965. The next couple of generations only get about 15. As our pace of life and change continues to accelerate (assuming it does) we might think of “generations” or cohorts that are even smaller. Context, socioeconomic circumstances, and regional/urban/rural/suburban differences also matter quite a bit: they might even matter more. I’d say there’s a big damned difference between getting your first computer when you’re 8, or 18 – and from 1980 to today, this ‘first computer’ moment played out in a lot of different ways. For some, it was a Sinclair or TRS-80 in 1978, or a Commodore or Tandy in ’83, or a Gateway in ’88. Dell didn’t even start selling to the public *until 1997*. There are some people whose first computer (their first capable device, for all the definitions we’d apply to ‘computer’ and ‘capable’) would have been a hand-me-down smart phone in 2013. 35 years – “generation” spanning, and a whole lot of gradients in between. There’s a longer essay here but sadly and disappointing to most I’m going to pivot to pop culture instead.

Let me loop in the other point that’s related but different: The Decade. Everyone knows what you mean when you say “The 80s” even though you’re only using 1980-1989 as a bucket into which we’ll pour 10 years of lived experience (or a stereotypical parody version of it) and which is never really about the actual calendar dates. You can type “When did the 80s start?” into Google and get back dozens if not hundreds of articles and forum discussions that have nothing to do with 1 January 1980.

These “pop culture” decades, the zeitgeistgestalts we refer to as “The 60s” or “The 70s”, are as much about nostalgia as they are about history. Anywhere from 20-30 years after the fact, we (well, some) start to look fondly back at a time when things were ‘simpler’ if not ‘better’. That 70s Show premieres in 1998 and is set in 1976. Happy Days is 1955 as seen from 1975, at least when it started, and tracks a roughly eleven year span over its eleven seasons. Part of this might be a result of becoming a parent in your 20s or early 30s, and so having this constant reminder (in the form of a kid) of the time when you were a kid.

Stranger Things is set in 1983; is going back 35 years a creative choice – or because a significant fraction of couples are having their first children in their late 30s rather than early 20s?

We can even use “Back in My Day” as a predictive tool: want to know which properties are going to get a movie reboot or TV spin-off? I’d look at 1987, 1992, & 1997. Predator, Princess Bride, Lost Boys; Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mighty Ducks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie); Titanic, Men In Black, The Fifth Element (fingers crossed)

I’m not saying each is going to get revisited, and there’s plenty of stuff I skipped from each year (and in the years in between). And it’s not quite a 20-year thing – the anniversary rolls around, there’s a DVD release or a documentary retrospective, and it takes a couple of years to roll into enough momentum for a reboot. So I looked at 22-27-32 years ago, not 20-25-30. But that’s my theory (not sure how to count Buffy; the movie was 1992 but the TV show was 1996, not 1997)

We like big round numbers. It’s a human failing. We put a lot of weight on calendar events that end in zeros when the reality is much more like the difference between Tuesday and Wednesday (huge New Year’s parties where you get drunk and kiss someone you shouldn’t have aside)

Decades get ‘defined’ by their politics and world events, broadly, but more specifically by the film, TV, music, fads & memes. It’s not so much about *defining* a decade though: instead we rely on lists. Top 10 albums. Top 10 movies. Top 10 Things Only 90s Kids Remember. Call this take, buzzfeed decades [they should do a set of books, like the old Time-Life volumes]

The internet is so full of decade-spanning lists like these that I can only assume they form some sort of underlying infrastructure. Like, Facebook would crash if we deleted every fossil top 10 from the geocities era of the internet. It’s literally top 10 turtles all the way down.

Zero to Zero Decades, Midnight 1 Jan whenever to 31 Dec whenever else, are kind of useless, though, even if we have to set some limits. Take [U.S.] presidential administrations: mostly but not always two terms and so 8 years of lived experience – Reagan lines up with the 80s, but not all of the 80s, just 20 January 1981 to the same day in 1989. Neat framing, but even within those 8 years, Reagan’s second term differs enough from his first that we can divide the decade in half. There are other things that hit mid-80s – Michael Jordan, Apple’s Macintosh, Shoulder Pads, The Extremely Odd Occurrence Of The Hair Band Power Ballad – that it’s almost comically easy to divide early 80s [Smurfs, Knight Rider, Hill Street Blues] from late 80s [Garfield and Friends, Baywatch, 21 Jump Street] [wait. um.]

Regardless of how we define or divide, though, there’s always going to be overlap. The Boomer Block 1945-1965, subsumes “the 50s” but The Korean War is a different 50s from Civil Rights Marches 50s which is different from Walt Disney Presents 50s and Rebel Without A Cause 50s – even though there were about 9 months where all 4 of those were “the 50s” and these days no one can tell you if Truman or Eisenhower was president at the time.

We like the divisions, our 80s and 90s, but a better way to parse your timeline is in six year chunks, as you lived it

Personal timelines: Six Year Chunks

• 7-12 Grade school
• 13-18 Jr High/High School
• 19-24 College, roughly* (Or your first military enlistment. Or your 1st job out of HS)

we can also generally consider the 20 years, from age 5 to 25, kid to young adult, as your “Nostalgia Zone” [Mine is April 1979 to April 1999, which includes two Star Wars and the Matrix, but no Star Wars prequels or Matrix sequels. Blessed.]

Past that, well,

• 25-30 Why haven’t I still figured this out yet
• 31-36 Oh gods why is everything so hard (sometimes, with special bonus: kids)
• 37-42 Nostalgia for the time you were 10 or 15 or 20, backed up by “hey remember” retrospectives and reboots of everything

What you or I would call “history”, events before our childhood, we all tend to generalize into the usual decades: the 1950s or 60s or 70s, But if you lived through it, you’re more likely to parse things down into 4- or 5- or 6-year blocks. And so we get things like Xennials and “90s kids” or groups we might eventually call the Columbine-Parkland generation or Afghanistan War Vets [see also The Onion: “Soldier Excited To Take Over Father’s Old Afghanistan Patrol Route”]

There are also some roughly equivalent 6-year pop culture and political blocks, like

• 22 November 1963 to 29 August 1968, Kennedy to Chicago
• ST:TNG 1987-1994 sci-fi on syndicated TV era.
• followed almost immediately by Hercules & Xena in syndication, 1995-1999
• Gorbachev’s “glasnost”, 1986-1991
• September 1956 to February 1964, from Elvis’s 1st appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show to the Beatles’
• May 1957 to Oct 1961, the gap between I Love Lucy to The Dick Van Dyke Show, five years with The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents in between.
• 1976-82, Logan’s Run through Alien through to Wrath of Khan (with some small films from Lucas during that period) (up through E.T., and ending on Jedi in May of ’83 but done before Temple of Doom in ’84 and Aliens in ’86, a different era)
• the seven years of a console. whichever generation. SNES, NG4, Gamecube, PS2, PS3, PS4, XBOX to 360 to “720” to XBone – and on to whatever they’re calling the 2019 offerings.Each runs about 6-7 years until the economics of sunk costs no longer counter-balances the potential gain of an upgrade and then suddenly: the whole user base flips from one platform to the next.

A number of two-term presidential administrations hit a wall in year 6, brought down by internal scandals or a bad lame-duck mid-term election result. A lot of popular and critically acclaimed TV shows either only run 6-7 seasons in total or have a ‘golden age’ that hits six years, or slightly less, occasionally more. [“Jumping the Shark” literally derives from Fronzie doing exactly that, 5 years into Happy Days’ 11 year run.]

A “generation”, as we’ve been using the term, could encompass between two and four of these 6 year blocks. Or not.

Breaking things down into six year blocks isn’t better than decades; they’re are no hard delimiters and anyone who tries to define a decade or a generation usually just ends up defining themselves.

But when we discuss things like the 90s, or Millennial vs Gen Z Kai, maybe keep this off-beat of six year intervals in mind, to complement our understanding of decades and the roughly-15-year-block “generations” to come.

final aside: 6, 10, and 15 line up every 30 years. Two generations, three decades, and five pop culture blocks. Take from that what you will, but it likely explains why most gen-xrs and millennials will tell you 1988-1992 was its own whole damn decade and, further back, why the 19A0s are a thing.