Treaty of Turrimton - JanLetovanec/laurasia-worldbuilding GitHub Wiki

Treaty of Turrimton

If the treaties ever get invoked, we would be living in dire times. Not because of the treaties, but anything that can make these nations work together must be truly scary. — Historian Jorn Kleivik

Purpose

The original idea was to prevent outside power to seize control and power over the human lands. To prevent anyone to just catch humans off-guard again.

During the times of dire need Human nations should cease all hostilities among themselves and focus their efforts on the real threat. Should Eastern Laurasia be endangered again in this way, humans are to unite and support each other. At least, that is the theory...

Document Structure

Clauses

Most of the treaty focuses on nature of the help nations ought to give. This includes:

Truce - All hostilities between human nations should cease. No open conflicts. It also touches on the subject of borders - any changes made to the borders while treaty is active are to be rolled back. The only exception is acquiring new colonies or territory that did not belong to humans before.
Military aid - This includes a wide range of stuff. For starters the actual military - units, battalions, siege engines etc. It also includes equipment and supplies. Outside of fighting it also asks for establishing supply lines and sharing of infrastructure.
Economic aid - Mostly specifies forms of financial aid as well as supply of general goods or work force. This section also touches on admission of refugees and miscellaneous means of support.
Intellectual aid - You might think this will be talking about magic and mages... which is not quite right. Back in the day mages were seen (by most at least) as part of military. The notion of wizards as academics would be rather foreign to most in those times. This section talks about patents and other forms of research nations keep secret. Today this point is a bit redundant since universities are transparent organizations and any research is (more or less) freely available. As for private organizations... that is not enforceable anyway.
Turrimton law - It is similar to martial law in a sense. It effectively allows certain organizations / department to override the usual local laws. Namely, it allows other countries to do so. This is by far the most complicated and detailed part of the document. Mostly just goes over when and how one can invoke Turrimton law.
Immunity - This gives immunity (to most people) with respect to certain crimes under certain conditions. Idea is to encourage officials (and normal people) to sort of cash-in their chips, even if they came by them by nefarious means. It is a sort of I can help but don't ask questions sort of things. A concrete example given: if someone is sitting on a loads of illegal weaponry, they will not be prosecuted if they donate them to military.

The idea behind such wide area of support is to allow each nation (regardless of its strengths) to aid others. It would not be fair to ask Acaadia for swordsmen or Ragnarians for gold.

Afterwards a small section about who bound by this treaty follows. In short, it just states that anyone who signed, or anyone who conquered soil owned by someone who signed. This did not really add anyone but [Independent land of Acaadia]] (which technically conquered [[Ragnarian empire]] by declaring itself independent). Similarly all [Bryten ex-colonies are drawn into this. While you might think this would cause some problems, the only nations that are drawn into this are either not very well-off in military department or are the frontier so they really benefit from this arrangement.

The rest is mostly just administrative. It specifies who can (and must) keep the copies of the treaty, how one can invoke them etc. In addition, it assigns the job of quasi-arbiters to League of Kingdoms, essentially making them an authority on this matter (implicitly). They track who has the treaties and who is (and is not) bound by them.

Caveats

One of the most notable issues with the treaty is that it intentionally under-specifies what dire times mean. The idea was to cover wide range of events - another Orcish invasion, attack of the elves or simply a force of nature. The unintended consequence of this vagueness is that give everyone an excuse to not comply. Most nations (if it were not for League of Kingdoms) would be at war and are eyeing for excuses for invasions. The idea to help their adversaries is so foreign to them now... they would rather risk the fate of Eastern Laurasia rather than to ally with their enemies. There is a lot of bad blood there.

The opposite is also true, few tried to invoke the treaty before (unsuccessfully) because they were struck by that disaster or attacked by this thing... the list goes on.

League of Kingdoms is now more or less considered an authority when it comes to resolving these issues. While there still might be a back-lash if they actually decide for invoking the treaties, at least some nations will obey.

Another issue is the nature of the help nations ought to provide to each other. Most of the clauses are phrased in rather vague manner so some will inevitably chose to interpret that in convenient ways.

Finally, the treaty was written in very different times and some parts of it are rather outdated... which causes various problems. While none are deal-breaking, it gives those who oppose the treaties ammunition to push back against it, or it simply causes strange legal situations or allows for inconvenient situations to arise.

Publication Status

While the existence of the treaty is public knowledge, the document itself is not. Each party is keeping a copy of it for reference, while Bryten kingdom is the nation with the original (whatever that means). However, League of Kingdoms makes the ledger public. This ledger tracks who has access to the treaties, where they are and attempts to invoke or amend it (so far all unsuccessful).

Historical Details

History

When reading the treaty it is worth keeping in mind that it came from different times. It was signed just after [League of Kingdoms]] was formed, which was a direct result of Orcish invasion. While now we know the Orcish invasion was a complete fiasco, it steam-rolled over [Bryten's colonies and many thought this is a serious threat that will bring all of Eastern Laurasia to its knees. And while nations did not unite per se, they all helped suppressing the invasions (rather swiftly). Most notable example is how Steelboots came to be.

The Invasion proved two things: even such a desperate attempt managed to get quite far - if this was a real force, catching humans in such unprepared state might have been fatal. But there is a flip side to the coin - when humans united and pressed against the Orcs, they were unstoppable.

In addition, most of the super-powers we know today were just tiny countries back then. Nations were way more fractured and divided. It was profitable (back then) to join forces, since none of the nations alone could withstand such an assault again.

Public Reaction

That depends on who (and when) you ask...

Back in the day, Turrimton treaties were very popular among people. Both general public and those in charge. It gave common people a sense of security and unity.

However, times have changed. Such attacks that could endanger whole of Laurasia are deemed infeasible. There is a lot of bad blood between some nations. Many have almost forgot these even exist. General public does not care or does not know. Lynxians in particular are rather opposed to the idea, but will probably grudgingly oblige if the times come. Others, those in power at least, are rather skeptical. They are not sure whether others would honour their end of the bargain and are not willing to risk their safety. They see the treaties as a mistake of their ancestors.

As for non-humans, the only ones who know about the treaties are Elves, and see this as a sign that humans are, perhaps, actually not too bad. They respect the intention of the treaties and very much approve of it - though some think this is yet another elven plot.

Legacy

Regardless of what you or anyone might think of them now, these treaties prove humans are capable of throwing away their grudges and work together if they really need to. This inspired some to treat their lands not as separate nations but rather as a one giant human continent. Many organizations started to enact global influence, many nations open their trade routes to others.