Tsuki Integrality

Tsuki Integrality is the name used for the historically reconstructed trading league and hypothesised nation state on the coasts of the Julian Sea between about 6600 and the Julian Event of 7118. Due to the sheer scale of the event, most evidence of the Tsuki Integrality has been washed away. The reconstruction uses therefore a combination of indirect written sources, present day references in regional languages and archaeological remains as basis. The hypothesis has however played an important role in the formation of Sokoku as a nation state.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis of the Tsuki civilisation started when the Kakuri people presented themselves to the Vittmarker federal government in 7575. It was obvious that Kakuri culture was unlike any other native culture in the region, including a language isolate without any clear links to other known languages. In their written sources there were clear references to a disastrous event in the early 72nd century and a statesmen named Gacha who started rebuilding a Tsuki culture in isolation. Even the name kakuri refers to that isolation.

Scholars started looking for more evidence of such an event and started with eye witness accounts from Anarian explorers and settlers of the time. These reported a lack of urban civilisations around the Julian Sea. Later explorations also noted a significant difference in natural vegetation between low lying areas and more hilly regions. Researchers even found gaps in recorded history in most regional accounts, as well as references to substantial flooding around the same time, followed by a colder period resulting in failed harvests.

In 7599 the Vittmarker scientist Fredrik Strand formulated a first hypothesis about a so-called Julian Event, a natural catastrophe that wiped out all of civilisation around the Julian Sea. His hypothesis pointed out the centrally located Roku volcano as the most likely candidate for source of the disaster. But when looking for archaeological evidence for a catastrophic volcanic event, it turned out that the event should have resulted in tsunami's reaching 100-400 meters in height on all coastlines, which probably could not have caused by a volcanic event.

The hypothesis about the Tsuki Integrality is mainly based on Kakuri written sources, talking about a trading empire lasting 1000 cycles (500 years). The Integrality would have been a commercial and defensive cooperation under the leadership of the Tsuki people, direct predecessors of the Kakuri people. The confederation was governed through port cities, organising trade between surrounding agricultural regions and those ports, as well as between these ports. There were no clear Tsuki settlements or colonisation efforts, given the later proven fact that hardly any Tsuki or Kakuri genetics are present in the current population of the region. Beside scriptures found in the Kakuri settlement of Toshi-bu, no Tsuki historical records have ever been found.

Since there is no written evidence in Kamura of a direct link between the Tsuki and Kamura, the hypothesis that the Tsuki Integrality would have been a part of Kamuran colonial efforts in southern Altaia has been renounced completely. But written records from Kamura have resulted in using the name Tsuki for this civilisation and confederation, since there were administrative accounts of trade with an entity under that name from the 70th and 71st centuries.

Archaeological evidence

While finding archaeological evidence for the Julian Event led to breakthrough insights, it has been proven hard to find direct evidence indicating a Tsuki civilisation. Most evidence is indirect, like the appearance of Izto populations on the northwestern shores of Shuuen during the second half of the 72nd century. An event with over 100 m high tsunamis would have destroyed coastal cities totally. Local folklore and mythology in Shaaniaah tells about certain coastal places to be avoided, as they have been cursed by ancient events.

Following these leads, a team of researchers located the remains of a settlement on the coast of the then Hallish colony of Bowersland. The area had been completely overgrown and the remnants only included the foundations of a more peripheral area of a former port town. Later research on the adjacent sea floor learned that the majority of the settlement's remains were under sea level, indicating a land subduction as a result of the event. These findings could not be connected to the Tsuki directly, due to the lack of inscriptions.

In 7625 a group of explorers on Kotonoh island found Kakuri style inscriptions in buildings in coastal settlements. These buildings were from the 7300's, so at first the evidence was denied. But later it turned out that many of the buildings had been using material from ruins nearby. This provided the first physical evidence of a Kakuri predecessor culture on the coast of the Julian Sea. Now it was clear what to look for, these types of re-used building materials have been identified in more than a dozen locations.

Some findings of shipwrecks have been annotated to the Tsuki Integrality, both on the sea floor as well on land. The remains of a sailing ship of an unknown design at a height of about 120 m above seal level on Ruha island clearly supported the evidence for major tsunamis. Dendrochronology dated the southern Altaian continental wood to the latter half of the 71st century. But even this evidence was largely indirect, until the remnants of a small settlement nearby were dug up, containing squared copper plates with Tsuki or Kakuri inscriptions. These are thought to have functioned as currency within the Integrality.

Legacy

The theories around a Tsuki civilisation or confederation have played a large role in the decolonisation of southern Altaia. Even though the Tsuki could be seen as foreign colonisers as well, the fact that they tended to leave local societies and structures intact was seen as evidence for a strong tradition of self rule and autonomy, opposing Anarian colonial rule. The Vittmarker (later Sokokan) statesperson Chika Mirei added the dimension that it would be historically correct if the Kakuri people, in itself a very small majority in the region, would play a leading role in building up a superregional cooperation along the same lines as the Tsuki Integrality.

Even though there hardly was any physical evidence of a Tsuki civilisation, the mental aspect of such a commercial and defensive confederation of autonomous regions as a historical fact played a huge role in the regional mindset. As such, the concept of Tsuki Integrality can be seen as some sort of blueprint for Sokoku as a virtual successor state. It has become difficult to separate the more desired aspects of the Tsuki Integrality as an inspiring example from the more neutral theories, since Sokokan scholars have been categorising finds in such a way that they fit the wanted hypothesis. This has led to opposition from scientists with a different background, who claim that the hypothesis has become to much steering in research and that there is no room for alternative interpretations.