BARD PAPER: OPAL8681 | Home | Traveller | BARD | OPAL |
BARD PAPER: OPAL8681 | Home | Traveller | BARD | OPAL |
Echura was colonised in the 340s by settlers intent upon harvesting the local fauna, which included a number of species that yielded vital medicinal compounds. Because of its strategic value, the Imperial government created the Marquis of Echura, under whom the offworld export of all pharmaceuticals nationalised and monopolised, and brought the local processing and drug plants under direct noble control. Complaints of favorable treatment of offworld corps, and low prices and pay for field workers and farmers led to growing resentment, and several revolts in the antebellum period.
Another revolt broke out in 1113, and guerilla fighting raged on for decades in spite of the greater national emergencies that consumed the Domain and Regency. Attempts at mediating between the Marquis and rebels were undermined by high drug prices, as both sides attempted to control field production. Offworld smuggling, always a problem, became endemic and uncontrolled even as the RQS tried to crackdown. Finally a Representational Referendum was held in 1167, the results of which gave power to a moderate assembly at the Marquis' expense. When the Marquis attempted to overthrow the council, the rebels assassinated him and his family.
Since the overthrow of the Marquis, the most difficult problem has been reintegrating former rebel strongholds into the new government. Years of warfare has hardened the attitudes of inhabitants in those regions, who are libertarian and wish to be left alone by the civil government and its regulations, which are indistiguishable from the old government in the eyes of radicals. Armed confrontation has been avoided by careful diplomacy, and the improving prosperity of Echurans in general now that the old trade monopoly has been terminated.