A tale of splinter states that spans the cosmos.
Part 3: Ibex of The Alliance of Dictators
Just as it seemed all-out war between a heavily militarized Ibex and a Karditani starving for the resources they had been denied for decades, an agreement was struck. Denizens of both nations were shocked to hear the Karditani Prime Ministers and Emperor Shang Lér--the latest of a long line of short-lived Ibex dictators--had even made any sort of communication at all, never mind the peaceful and agreeable sort. While the Karditanis didn’t know how it happened, the Ibex had been exposed to the broader multiverse, and unsurprisingly found it a lot more inviting than their current neighborhood. That was the work of one Ivory Hilt, a Vashameer freedom fighter who also happened to play right back for the Karditani “national” soccer team that claimed silver in Baptism of Fire 46 and qualified for World Cup 63. It was those experiences abroad that hatched the plan in him--and several of his wealthy Karditani compatriots on that team--to hatch a plan.
Ibex would make use of a superlogistics company, a sort of mass land transportation service that has developed a thriving industry in response to multiversal needs, to relocate the entire nation to a different region. Entirely on the dime of some of those Karditani elites, of course--those sort of services do not come cheaply, and Ibex’s national coffers weren’t very deep due to difficulty finding regular trade partners. You might be wonder why they would burn so much money on an initiaitive like that, and the answer was simple: Only the minimum amount of ground necessary to keep Ibex intact would be transported, leaving almost all the resources ready to be harvested out the massive, fresh crater. The Ibex get their freedom and their choice of where to make their future, and the Karditani industrial juggernaut grows even stronger--it seemed like a win-win for both sides, and for many years it played out that way with both nations seeing unparallelled prosperity.
Of course, when the fleets of helicopters come to lift up an entire nation, they need a destination to take it too. That decision was quickly made as Shang Lér flipped through catalogs of potential regions, one early in the list catching his eye with a magnificent name: the Alliance of Dictators. The Alliance was a curious place, featuring some of the most starkly diverse peoples and cultures you might ever see in a singular region--ponies, many sects of humans, squids, androids, anything you can think to name. And they were all brought together through the common goal of eliminating the very concept of a vote.
With the relief from the constant border conflicts, Shang Lér consolidated his power even further and properly turned the Rogue State of Ibex into the Empire of Ibex, ruling peerless throughout the sands. The economy and the church, oft inseperable, flourished under the peace and prosperous trade routes with the neighboring Valcouria and Changeling Empire. A solid report was struck up with the enigmatic leaders of the region, and good times were had.
If you were one of the elite, of course. Conditions for the average Ibex kept finding more and more ways to become even more deplorable, recording unbelievably low metrics on World Assembly surveys like average life expectancy (<20 years) and development index. The populace were poorly educated, sick, and living in an inhospitable wasteland. If it weren't for regular shipments of foodstuffs from Valcouria the burgeoning population would have plunged into a devastating famine. The nation lived in this limbo of being internationally well-connected, for once not being a pariah, while domestic matters that didn't relate to pure profit was in shambles. It wasn't sustainable, and as Shang Lér started to grow old that fact became apparent to him. But he'd already laid a nefarious trap for himself--the corruption of everything in Ibex's power structure was so complete and incestuously connected that there was no plan of attack to attempt dismantling it. The best he could settle for sneaking orders past other church officials that could provide comforts to the denizens--a wider variety of foods available, less frequent not-so-secret police patrols and raids, directing industrial dumping a little further away from population centers for many enumerated reasons that certainly didn't have to do with protecting the health of those in the nearby slums, of course not that's ridiculous.
Eventually, the Emperor realized that no reform could ever truly happen while the nation had its roots implanted so deeply in the Alliance, which despite not having an official stance on non-political-rights issues housed many other nations that sought nothing more than to grind their citizens to dust for any reason they can grasp for. And so for the second time a search was called on to find Ibex a new home, and once again hoofball would play an unlikely role.
Sorry to be getting this part out to you all a bit late--I got a good bit of writing done through the first half of the Siovanija & Teusland match, but then the second half... actually resembled hoofball? I was caught completely unawares by that, I have to admit. Vezina actually passed forward a few times, and was still able to hold when the ball came back the other way! Until they brought on that Ribbeck lad, of course. Even though we ended up losing I was just glad to see us trying to score, even if our one actual goal ended up just being Azucena taking the entire team on her back for ten seconds. We're never going to win anything if we have to rely on plays like that. Though we're playing Cosumar next anyway, so we were never going to win to begin with. Enjoy the fireworks!